When I was young, there were certain people in my life who I looked up to for one reason or another.  I remember when I was around the age of 6 or so there was this one guy, Daniel, who I thought was incredibly funny.  He had this joke where he would pretend to be an Asian guy (he was very Caucasian) peeing in a coke.  It was the funniest joke I had ever heard and every time he performed it, I hit the floor laughing.  A few years later, I really looked up to my junior-high, multi-sport coach.  This guy was awesome.  I asked him one time how old he was and he said, “Physically, I’m 40.  Mentally, I’m 18.”  Wisdom, my friends.  Pure, golden wisdom.

I think everyone has someone they look up to.  For some of us, it might be our parents, for others key people in our own history, and yet for others, celebrities or those who have accomplished great things.  Whoever it is, chances are that there is a part of you that wants to be like someone else.  If you are like me, you may have even found yourself mimicking their mannerisms or talking like them.  Sometimes that happens in marriage, too.  You spend so much time with a person that you begin to act the same way, and in some extreme cases, look the same!  Similarly, though much weirder, some people end up looking like their pets.  I think the reason for this has something to do with worship.  Yes, people end up looking like their pets because of worship…

My former pastor used to say that “worship is not a religious thing, it is a human thing.”  People don’t worship because they want to connect with a higher power, per se, they worship because they are created to.  We all are.  The question, then, is what we choose to worship.  Do we choose to worship money, fame, or sex?  How about knowledge, happiness, or self?  Maybe it is none of these things; maybe it is something completely different.  Regardless, we all worship something or someone.
           
The thing with worship, though, is that it necessarily affects us.  Somehow, when we worship something or someone, part of that something or someone captures our hearts.  We find ourselves taking on the characteristics of those we worship.  Our minds become occupied with thoughts of the object of our worship, even when we don’t realize it.  In a very real and even mysterious way, we actually take on the characteristics of that which we worship.

I think that this has been the case since the very beginning and that the first Man and Woman also experienced this.  Man and Woman shared a really cool relationship with God in the garden.  I mean, it is possible and, according to my math, probable, that before the Woman came along, Man was naming animals and hanging out with God for years or decades.  Man knew God and was known by him.  And when the Woman came along, things just got better – this, in case you were wondering, is almost always true.  The three of them (or maybe the five of them?) spent time together on a regular basis.  Then, along comes the serpent…

Some people think that the reason Man and Woman decided to eat is because they were unsatisfied with God or that they suddenly had a desire to rebel, to test God, just to see what would happen.  I guess it is possible, and I even acknowledge that my thinking here may stray from Tradition, but I think this whole situation was about something else entirely.  I think it was about worship. I think that the serpent was playing on the Man and Woman’s deepest, purest desire: to be more like God for the purpose of drawing closer to him.  Look at what he says:

“God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

I truly believe that the Man and Woman loved God and wanted to be more like him.  It makes sense that that they would want a deeper, more intimate, relationship with God and this seemed like a perfectly logical way to do so.  One of the best ways to relate to someone is to try to see things from their point of view, to try to experience life from their perspective.  Tragically, even with the purest of motives, if you violate a command from God, it is still sin.  And thus began the death of the Man and Woman.

One of the things about this story, and about many other stories contained in the Bible, is that it is timeless.  The story of the Garden is not about two people a long time ago, it is my story and it is your story, this man and that woman.  What if our deepest desire, on some unconscious level, is that we know and love God and become more like him?  What if you and I have been deceived into thinking that this can be accomplished through eating the various fruits that surround us?  And what if, as a result of our own actions, we have lost a precious intimacy with each other and with God?

Things tend to get complicated at this point.  Many people throughout history have all tried to figure out where we go from here.  How do we regain that intimacy with God like they had in the Garden?  Is it something that we can do ourselves or does it have to be a miraculous event initiated by God?  When will this happen?  Now?  Sometime in the future?  After we die?  The questions go on forever as does our effort to avoid death.

But I think I have a good idea of where to start and it is easier than you might think: put down the fruit and turn back to God.