Sermon September 2, 2012

Genesis 1:1–25

Psalm 33:1–9

Romans 1:18–23

John 1:1–14

“Presence and Design”

During the season following Pentecost, the lectionary scriptures often relate to the life of the church. They often refer explicitly to the earliest church and how they learned to live and work together. As a congregation, we've been looking at those texts in the epistle to the Ephesians for several weeks.

As September begins, we're going to switch gears. For the next four weeks, we're going to celebrate the Season of Creation, beginning with Planet Earth, then Humanity, followed by Sky and lastly we celebrate Mountain.

And so this Sunday we begin with the creation of the planet where we live. Jacinda and I read an interpretation of Genesis 1:1-25 with your participation, which emphasizes the poetry and repetition of this creation story in the Bible. Its original use was likely liturgical, addressing a community of exiles. It came out of the priestly tradition and was written during the Babylonian exile when Hebrew exiles longed to be assured that God would find order out of their chaos. They despaired at their situation; they may have been hopeless about their return to God's promised land.

At times of despair or hopelessness, when a people feel that God is too absent or too far from their cries, this text of proclamation assures that the Creator has created and continues to do so in the face of chaos or the formless void. God does not make something that is simply there. Rather, everything comes alive with God’s very word and continues to burst forth with life.

All the intricate design of creation is in the hands of the Creator. Creation is not a one-time act but rather comes to life in God, so God is both distant and intricately involved. Creation is not independent or self-reliant. Life moves from God to creation and throughout the webs that connect creation to all of its separate parts and the systems that interconnect it.

In this part of the creation story contained in Genesis 1, we are told about creation as God creates order out of chaos—as God separated states of being, like light and darkness, matter from matter: like water from water and water from soil and earth.

The swirling light and darkness were made distinct: the time of light became Day and the time of dark became Night, on the first day. So in this first act of creation, time itself was created—and so a way of counting is begun. And as is the Hebrew way, the evening begins the first day—the evening and the morning and then it's the second day.

Then God made a dome, a space—I imagine half a bubble or a bowl shaped object—to separate the waters of chaos from one another. When God created the sky, God also created what could be call up (toward the sky) and down (away from the sky).

In Genesis 1:6-7, we read: And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome.

In the imagination of the ancient world, chaos was represented by water. Ships sailed close to shore because to lose track of land could mean being lost forever. They could imagine that beyond the dome of sky was water. And below the ground was water because if you dug deep enough, water came up there, too. So God controlled the chaos of the universe by created a place where life could exist.

God again spoke to the matter God told the waters to gather together so that the land could be seen, so that the sand and soil and dust could be made useful. Water was now just water and land was now just land—so the land could fulfill a role and be the place where plants could grow.

That was the end of the third day—and all of this was deemed good, God finds pleasure in this creation.

As the third day ends, God has ordered time by creating day and night. God has made creation habitable by making space in the watery chaos and God has ordered the separation between water and land so that life began with the plants and trees.

In the next three moments of creation, the poetry expands upon itself. On the first day, God created light and dark—day and night. During its partnering fourth day, God makes the great light to rule the day, with the changes that the seasons bring, hot summers and coolers winters. God makes the lesser light to rule the night, with the phases of the moon that signal the passing of months, the pull of the tides that draws the ocean waters and together they reveal the seasons and signs of the time that passes. More order, more systematic ways to keep track of time of planting and harvest. In this movement, people are given more awareness that God works within and around us through God's created abundance.

The fifth day God looked at the second day and thought, “The water is so empty and so is the space above it and above the land. Waters, have living creatures to swim around in you and Sky, have living creatures to fly—we'll call them birds. Have lots of kinds so that the waters swarm and the sky is full.” And God found them delightful, too. God said, “Be fertile—fill up the waters and the skies and the nesting grounds.”

God looked at the soil and plants of the third day again and thought, “The plants are nice, and there are so many plants, something should use those. Earth, may there be creatures that live on you: cattle and things that crawl around and living things that roar and run and leap in the wild places,” so it did. God made all of those kinds of creatures, wild ones and the ones called cattle and the creepy crawly things, too. And God was delighted with them all.

Each day of God's creative movement, God sees what is created and find pleasure. God calls creation good or delightful, wondrously made and full of potential. In this poetry, God's order takes the matter of the universe, dangerous as it once was and makes it safe for life. God makes the waters of death into the living miracle where life could be fruitful and multiply. And God created a world where God could be delighted.

This account of creation was assembled from oral tradition and passed on in this form to the people of Israel when they were in exile. They were assured by this story when their lives full of chaos and they didn't understand where God was and how God would save them. After the Babylonians and later the Assyrians and then the Persians held them captive, God's chosen people had no physical center of faith. They knew only the temple of Solomon, which had been destroyed, where was God?

They needed to hear that God's miracle, God's voice and Spirit or breath infused every living and non-living thing that surrounded them. They needed to be able to find God even in the perceived chaos of their gentile captors, even in the violence that often accompanies oppression. So their leaders reminded them that God was in the natural order that surrounded them.

Each moment that passed in these moments of creation, the days built upon one another—they were created and then given purpose toward God's building goal of self-sustaining life, toward a sustaining and always recreating planet.

At times of chaos, times of pain and sorrow, times when despair and hopelessness—like that of that exile of Israel so long ago—we are invited by our scriptures, by the stories of the people of faith to seek assurance from the miracles around us.

I can't imagine what it is like to experience extreme personal tragedy—yet I hear stories of tragedies each day. When one of us is struck by loss, that person could suffer alone and have no hope. We can hear stories of people dying on battlefields and within hospitals all over the world and sink into despair and hopelessness. We can experience the loss of thousands by natural disaster or human action and wonder if we'll ever survive.

Or we can know that God delighted in this world that God created as God built wonder upon wonder. We can realize that in the face of the chaos we perceive and sometimes create, God draws us toward order and wisdom and understanding.

We can delight in what God has created—because God delights in creation. We believe in the goodness of God's work, because God is good.

We can and will continue to celebrate what God has created and what God is creating all around us, now and for all time. To the glory of God. Amen.