Genesis 2 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
Genesis 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 (NRSVUE)
At present, distortions of the truth, manipulations of the facts, and blatant lies abound. The president claims to have ended eight wars in ten months, but has struck dozens of boats, killing dozens of people in the Caribbean, and killed about seventy-five people in his capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Thirty-five people have been killed by ICE in the last seven months alone, yet reporters and congressional leaders have been barred from entering ICE detention centers. The Department of Homeland Security repeatedly and boldly lies about ICE killings even with video evidence proving otherwise, and victims’ immigration and criminal statuses are consistently being fabricated, or are being used to justify these killings. The released Epstein files detail gruesome, horrific crimes, but rather than redacting the names of victims, the Department of Justice has redacted the names of perpetrators. Such manipulations, distortions, and blatant lies put lives at risk and directly lead to the deaths of others.
As atrocities mount, it feels dizzying to continue daily routines and carry on with life “as normal.” Yet, we now enter a season in the Christian calendar where humanity is tasked to face such evil head-on: Lent.
The Lenten season invites Christians to reflect on and remember their mortality; to contemplate the depravity and consequences of sin. Each liturgical year, the Christian Church reminds adherents to face our inevitable end without fear, but instead with humility. This humility appears as a grounded, centered posture that approaches ourselves and our world with delicacy. The Hebrew Bible reminds us that every person begins from dust and returns to dust as an invitation to live our lives with reverence rather than insecurity.
Reflecting on the terseness of our time reveals the heavy weight of sin. With such limitations to our fragile lives, we are reminded of the absurdity of injustice. And yet, evil and hubris persist. How can this be?
Genesis offers an answer in its account of the archetypal sin. In the familiar story, Adam and Eve break the first commandment given to humanity and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. At first, the prohibition against eating the fruit may appear confusing since there is immeasurable value in knowing what is good and evil, and determining the difference between the two. However, perhaps the prohibition implies that humanity may never know evil. While post-modern, Western hegemonic ideas often associate knowledge with rational knowing, I wonder if the knowledge of good and evil is more of an embodied, experienced sense of knowing. Perhaps God intended that humanity never experience the depths of suffering that evil causes. When closely examining the passage in light of this, the serpent’s temptation becomes more sinister since his temptations are distortions and manipulations of reality.
Thus, it is important to pay close attention to how the serpent is acting and what he says to Eve. The serpent approaches Eve and asks her if God had commanded against eating from any tree in the garden (Genesis 3:1). The question immediately places the serpent in a hierarchical position, and he counters what God had said by manipulating the prohibition to seem drastic and unyielding. The first way the serpent distorts Eve’s reality is through an over-dramatization of the truth.
Then, when Eve corrects the serpent by clarifying the prohibition and its consequences, the serpent immediately denies what Eve has heard, and declares that she will not die (Genesis 3:4). Rabbinic literature writes that the serpent takes Eve’s hand and places it on the tree at this moment to show her that she would not die by touching the tree (Bereshit Rabbah 19:3). Since we do not know whether or not the prohibition initially included touching the tree, this act is another form of manipulation. Whether or not Eve was commanded not to touch the tree, she spoke from what she knew to be true, but the serpent transgressed that boundary to place her hand on the tree. The second distortion of Eve’s reality is the forceful coercion and violation of her boundaries.
However, another sinister manipulation rests within the serpent’s words to Eve as the serpent says, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). When God gives the command to Adam, there is never any mention of these further consequences. There is only mention that Adam will die if he eats the fruit. Not only does the serpent dismiss God’s command, the serpent then follows the dismissal with an accusation of God. The serpent tells Eve that God prohibits it because it will make her godlike, and share in the power of God to know good and evil as gods do. But this is deceptive since immediately before this passage, both Adam and Eve are declared as made in the image of God. There is no fear in the command on God’s part that humanity would be deified, because they already bear the mark of the image of the deity (Genesis 1:27). The third distortion of Eve’s reality is a distrust in who God is and what God’s intentions were for Eve.
The serpent’s manipulation tactics ought to set off alarm signals, especially given the deadly consequences of falling into his trap. He misrepresented the law by exaggerating and portraying God as harsh, while concealing his plan’s deadly effects. Additionally, he instilled doubt in Eve’s mind about what she knew about God, and what she had heard from God, in order to coerce her. Through his distortions, the sly serpent gains control of Eve, and twists her convictions. In these ways, many modern-day authoritarians reflect the actions of the serpent.
It is no wonder that George Orwell’s prescient 1984 has resurged, a novel of particular importance when understanding distortions of the truth like that of the serpent. In the novel, the totalitarian administration named “the Party,” manipulates every aspect of society, including the thoughts and minds of people. The Party’s goal throughout the narrative is to convince people of their version of reality, and “to reject the evidence” of their eyes and ears. “It was their final, most essential command.” There is no doubt why such a novel like Orwell’s is rising again, given the constant manipulation of evidence and truth on the part of the current US presidential administration. Yet, just like the serpent’s deception of Eve eventually led to deadly consequences, we have already seen where this administration’s lies have led to deadly outcomes, as mentioned in the beginning.
Just as the death that was in store for Adam and Eve did not occur right away, neither has this present moment in American history been born from recent deceptions. Well before the imperial violence on Venezuelan and “narco-terrorist” boats in the Caribbean, there was the European colonially-driven genocide of “savage” indigenous peoples on the land of Turtle Island (North America) and Abya Yala (South America). Both endeavors seek to extract and exploit land and people. ICE agents and detention centers began committing murders long before 2025, right from the agency’s inception. As a post-9/11 creation, ICE murdered almost as many people in 2004 as they had in 2025, doing so in the name of “American safety,” with clear ideological and racial boundaries of who is “illegal,” “alien,” and “foreign.” And, before such violent ICE encounters on the streets, there were slave patrols; before the billionaire sex-trafficking operation of Epstein, enslaved people stolen from continental Africa endured systemic human trafficking across the transatlantic.
My point is this: none of what is happening should be normalized, but none of it should come as a surprise. The foundation of the country rests on lies, manipulations, and distortions of good and evil. During this Lent, might our first reflection bring us to the text of Genesis, the archetypal sin that leads to death. And may that draw our eyes back to our own history; the evil written into the very architecture of this country which has continuously perpetuated systemic violence.
Yet, Lenten reflection does not end with the knowledge of human corruptness and an awareness of mortality. Instead, with such sobering realities before us, Lent pushes us to change while there is still time. Peering into the hourglass of our lives, watching our dust slowly yet steadily drip to the next side, is meant to rouse us. When we come to the finality of ourselves, we find a provocative reversal of all distortion: this life is too short to live it any other way, but justly.
Thus, might our second reflection this season remind us of another story of distortion, namely, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. However, this story is one where manipulation does not cause capitulation. In Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus finds himself in the wilderness, tested by the “tempter.” Similar to the serpent, the tempter, also known as the devil, takes three opportunities to manipulate Jesus into abusing divine power. Just as the serpent said, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,” (Genesis 3:5), the tempter tests Jesus to act as a god would, luring him to abuse his power on three occasions (Matthew 4:3, 6, 9). But despite his divine status, Jesus resists each time, defiantly rejecting manipulation and distortion in favor of reality.
Though we remember the archetypal sin of Genesis, and the archetypal narratives, policies, and practices of this country, we no longer need to be bound by such forces of evil. Lent invites a serious reflection on the ways in which these foundations have shaped us. And, it invites us into a reversal of such foundations by resisting anything that leads to death, including the manipulation of the truth. It fights to reveal the truth and stick to the truth. Therefore, even with such mounting evil and manipulative tactics to conceal that evil, Lent reminds us that to fight death, our weapon must be truth. And the truth is this: all humanity is made in the image of God; anything that brings violence or death upon any person ought to be rejected, and named for the betrayal and manipulation of the truth we all bear.
