When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Genesis 3:6
Yesterday, Google unveiled its own mobile phone, the Nexus One. Tipped by Google as a “superphone,” it is being hailed as the phone that could possibly topple the iPhone from its perch as the mobile phone against which all others are compared. Only time will tell if it lives up to that billing. I suspect that, like many new technologies, it will promise much, but deliver little that is truly worth having.
Humans, especially in the west, like to have things. We rush out to buy plasma TVs, new computers, games consoles, mobile phones and the like. Whilst I might not be that interested in big televisions of computer games, I am a sucker for a gadget, and I waste far too much of my money on the latest bit of tech, which is destined to be put at the back of a drawer after a few weeks. I am frequently disappointed by the weaknesses of my purchases, and it is that disappointment that leads me to buy the next gadget that comes along, in the hope that it will be better than the one before it.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had everything they could possibly want. They had just been given a perfect place to live, control over all the animals, and as much food as they could possibly want. There was only one thing that God forbade Adam and Eve from having; the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve are taken in by the “marketing speak” of the serpent, however, and are persuaded that actually what they really want is the fruit from that very tree. Adam and Eve eat the fruit, and are promptly banished from the garden by God, who is disappointed that his people have disobeyed them. The fruit promised so much, but actually all that resulted was disappointment for Adam and Eve – and, indeed, for all future people, since we are all now living after what is generally known as ‘The Fall’.
Through that simple act, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. As a consequence of their original sin, we are all destined to rebel against God in our own way. We disobey him, just as Adam and Eve did. We have turned our backs on him. We try to fill our lives with things that displease God because we have distanced ourselves from him. We also try and fill that God-shaped hole with useless gadgets and other pieces of rubbish that will bring us no closer to finding what we actually long for – a pure and perfect relationship with God the Father.