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Sunday "Creation" Genesis Chapter 1 |
I hope you feel the excitement today in Christ Church. We inaugurate a new church school curriculum today called The Rotation Model. It incorporates various avenues of expression in exploring various themes. Art and Music, Science, and Story Telling compose some of the forms and ways we come to understand Biblical and Christian teaching. For the next four weeks we will be exploring together the theme of Creation using these media.
As you remember one of our strategic goals for the next 3-5 years was to give support to families of young children. Since deciding that, a huge amount of work has been done to re-evaluate and restructure our Christian Education Program. And today we celebrate it. The theme? Creation!
Why creation? Well, for one thing we live with it. We can’t get away from it. I have a bird feeder in my back yard. At first it was more like a squirrel feeder than a bird feeder and we thought we had baffled the squirrels until recently. Not long ago deer pranced through our woods- they are all around us. Don’t quote me, but I think I caught a glimpse of a coyote the other day. And what about the bear in Bethesda?
Now I realize that finding wild life around us is more of a danger sign than something to celebrate. We are eroding their habitat and slowly carving up their natural world. The point is this: Creation exerts a slow and persistent presence in our life either for good or for ill. We can’t get away from it. Perhaps it is a function of my aging. More and more I become aware of creation, even in this asphalt, traffic clogged, and metropolitan area. We can abuse it but we cannot avoid it. So where does our faith lead us in this relationship.
Well ever since the Scopes Trial in 1925, fondly known as the “Monkey Trial”, we have been philosophizing, theologizing, analyzing and arguing about what our faith truly says. Just look at the confusion for a moment.
There are, within the wider Christian fellowship, Young Earth Creationists.
Here is what they believe:
The earth is about 6000 years old The days of Genesis 1 should be taken literally as 24 hour periods There are major, fixed kinds of creatures and that while changes can occur within such a kind, one kind cannot change into another .
Then there are what we call the Old Earth Creationists. Here is what they believe:
The earth is old (4.5 billion years) and the universe is old (12+ billion years)
The days of Genesis 1 should be taken as periods of time. God created continually or in phases over a period of time
Some aspects of creation, such as formation of stars continue into the present
A great deal of variation is possible among creatures according to God's fixed laws so a good deal of the variety of life can result from progressive or evolutionary change.
Then there are what we call Theistic evolutionists. Here is what they believe:
The earth is old (4.5 billion years) and the universe is old (12+ billion years)
The days of Genesis 1 represent a statement understandable to a pre-scientific age. It is not a scientific account.
God used the various processes and mechanisms of evolution in creating the variety of life, much as God uses other natural laws on a continuing basis
The fourth group we call Non-theistic evolutionists. They embrace the same processes as theistic evolutionists, but would not refer to God as the source of any order of life.
So what is behind all of this variety of thought about creation? There are values beyond theories of evolution at stake here. Like, how literally must we take the Bible? Like, what part does reason and intellect play in understanding spiritual things? Like, where does poetry, story, or imagination come into play in understanding the workings of God?
Being a poet of modest skill I find verse and story quite adequate in coming to terms with creation. And I believe that since the authors of the two creation stories in the Bible lived in a pre-scientific world even now they are scratching their heads in heaven wondering why we are spending so much Theological argument on this.
So come with me for a moment to share a poet’s ruminations about creation. The Biblical writers make one thing clear. They affirm a movement in creation that moves out of darkness into light. Creation births enlightenment.When John Robinson led the Pilgrims to the new world they were a discouraged and beaten people. And as they departed from Scrooby, England Robinson urged them with these words “There is still more light and truth to break forth from God’s Holy Word.”
It fortified them for the long journey across the Atlantic to the shores of Massachusetts. It strengthened them for the long bitter winter at Plymouth. It held up before them one fact: out of the darkness comes light. An out of this faith came New England.
We can’t be too critical about the promotional tendencies in the United Church of Christ. When we say” Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma” we aren’t worshipping Gracie Allen who made the phrase popular. We are affirming that out of darkness, comes light from the light bringing spirit.
I hope this helps us understand the presence of global warming in our world today. The warming of the planet brings not only threat but light. When our scripture asserts that God gave to humans dominion over the earth it was not for domination but for caretaking. It was not for exploitation but for partnership. And the issue of global warming is a call to exercise a stewardship of care. It actually presents us with a truly sacred task that can unite spiritual people and environmentalists in a mutual mission of care giving to the planet. Out of such darkness and dread you and I are called to bring light.
Now let’s return to the Creation text again. Do you notice that after every act of creation a judgment is given? “And God saw that it was good.” Somewhere in our history the Church got away from that concept. It began with the Gnostics who said things material were evil and only spirit was good. You can find a reaction to that in John’s gospel as early as 100 A.D. And Augustine didn’t help much when his lust led him to despise the body and to call the flesh “sinful”
Genesis says “No, not Gods’ original intent.” All things are good. The universe is good. The earth is good. The planets are good. The vegetation and animals are good. The body is good. And the human agent is good.
Don’t think I am being Pollyanna! I know about sin and you know about sin. How could we not know about it in both recent and ancient history? And surely we are living in national sin these days.
I know about personal brokenness and you know about personal brokenness. We all have it.
I know about corporate evil and you know about corporate evil. It is all around us and we participate in it.
What we can’t do is call sin God’s will. The Original Intent in creation was goodness and blessing not brokenness and destruction.
I have no intention of trying to trace the entrance of evil. How we have gotten to this point is for another day. Suffice is to say. “And God saw all that God had made and behold it was very good” The original intent of the Original One culminated in these words.” It was very good.”
Now here is the zinger. On the seventh day God rested. The Original Spirit rests! Creation and human creativity needs breathing space. God not only “does”, God does not do. God rests. How deeply we need to hear about Sabbath in our world today. The mad rush to ”do” has drowned out the call to rest. It is in rest that inspiration comes. Saint Augustine did say one good thing “You have made us for yourself O God and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Now be clear! I don’t mean those whirl wind vacations where we come home more tired than when we started. That isn’t rest. We just came back from one to Greece and Turkey. It was inspiring but not restful. Not, at least, in climbing the 200 steps up to the Acropolis.
I don’t mean those two day week-ends when we frantically try to do all the things we have neglected during the week. Catch up time isn’t rest.
I am talking about real rest and renewal. Not couch potato stuff! Not escapist entertainment. I mean real rest.
And Sabbath means giving creation rest and time for renewal as well. Our ancestors in the faith knew about letting fields lay fallow. They knew about not draining every ounce of mineral from the earth. They knew about the need for earth Sabbath- about not raping the soil.
The mystics of the faith sketch out true rest for us humans. It means seeking silence. It means finding perspective and vision. It means “ letting go” of business as usual. It means being alone and open to Divine movement inside and out. It means honoring and respecting creation as a gift. It means not over worshipping productivity and not using the earth simply for our own pleasure and purpose
There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. And the difference is this: In loneliness we are cut off from anything sustaining. In Solitude we are connected to the Spirit that sustains all things. In loneliness we are dominated by fear. In Solitude we are accompanied by Spirit. In loneliness we depleted and in solitude we are renewed.
Thomas Merton, the great Christian Contemplative of the last generation once summed it up this way:
The early chapters of Genesis (far from being a pseudo-scientific account of the way the world was supposed to have come into being) are precisely a poetic and symbolic revelation, a completely true but not literal revelation of God’s view of the universe and intention for humans. The point of these beautiful chapters is that God made the world as a garden in which God took delight and made humans the task of sharing in God’s divine care for created things. God made us in God’s own image as artists, workers, homo faber, as the gardeners of paradise.
So where this has led me is to believe that there is still more light to come from God’s word; that we live in the midst of a fragile but good creation which we must nurture and for which we must give care, and that in entertaining solitude we may indeed find a way to say “It is very good.” And to be “the gardeners of paradise.”
Amen
