Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 "In the Beginning - and Now"

        This is the story of the beginning, our beginning.….First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see…..God stepped out on space, and God looked around and said, “I’m lonely — I’ll make me a world.”

         Before it was anything else, earth was a soup of nothingness ….a bottomless emptiness….. an inky blackness…..As far as the eye of God could see, darkness covered everything, blacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp.

         God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss…like a mighty eagle, like a mother hen guarding her nest.  It was the same Spirit that fluttered down as a dove was said to have fluttered down at Jesus’ baptism.  It was the same Spirit that drove Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days to figure out the role God called him to play in making God’s sacred dream for the world come true.  It was the same Spirit that blew out windows, created little eddies of dust and debris, and went on to envelop the apostles in that upper room in Jerusalem at Pentecost.  It was the same Spirit that has, at one time or another, breathed itself into each and every human heart – even yours, even mine.  God’s Spirit.        

         Then God smiled, and the light broke, and the darkness rolled up on one side, and the light stood shining on the other, and God said, “That’s good!”

         We all want to know where we came from.  We all want to hear the stories of our beginnings, stories that give shape to who we are today and guidance on who we should be in the future.  These stories are where we find our roots and our wings. 

         The tale we just read in the very first book of the Bible is one of two in our Holy Scriptures that seeks to spell out how it all began, spell it out in a format and in language that would have been familiar to the first ancient listeners sitting around their campfire in the cool of the evening asking life’s most persistent questions. 

         The first thing these early listeners would have realized when they heard this story is that it – their story, our story – this tale of the beginning stood in stark contrast to other creation tales bandied about in ancient days.  One might even say that, as UCC pastor Kathryn Matthews writes, their story, our story is “a counter-cultural protest of the people of Israel against the creation story of their Babylonian captors.

While their oppressors saw the origins of the universe as violent and bloody, the Israelites told their children a different story, a story rooted in goodness and blessing.” 

         Lutheran pastor Kathryn Schifferdecker puts it this way.  Their story, our story “does not describe the world of ancient Near Eastern creation myths, where the gods have to defeat the sea or the sea dragon in order to create the earth. There is only one God in Genesis, and that God is the Creator of everything, including the sea monsters themselves. There is no chaos-monster in Genesis 1 that must be defeated.” 

         Ours is not the story of a cosmic clash between good and evil.  Rather it is the story of what goodness and love can do.  And so, throughout our narrative, we are reminded that the earth and all that is in it is good.  Before original sin, then, there was original blessing.

         Our story is an example of beautiful theological poetry proclaimed from the heart, poetry that, in the end, is about our God who is so good.  It is an example of mythology at its best. 

        The author’s purpose is neither to outline history nor to claim the story as a scientific theory.  The purpose is to offer in beautifully imaginative language a reflection on creation and the nature of its creatures (including us).  But mostly it is a poetic homage to the God whose love lies at the heart of all creation and who is so good.

         Contrary to what the flat earthers and religious fundamentalists who insist that all of this magnificent creation occurred in six 24-hour days about 6000 years ago will proclaim, this passage was never meant to be taken as literal fact.  Its truth lies far deeper and is far more complex.  Light came from the deepest night, and order emerged from chaos. 

         Love and blessedness prevailed – not just at the very beginning but forever and always.  You see, God separated the water under the sky from the water above sky.   “Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place; Land, appear!” And there it was.  God named the land Earth and the pooled water Ocean.

         God spoke: “Earth, green up!”  Then the green grass sprouted, and the little red flowers blossomed, the pine tree pointed his finger to the sky, and the oak spread out his arms.  And God said, “That’s good.”

         God spoke: “Lights! Come out! And God set that sun a-blazing in the heavens. And the light that was left from making the sun God gathered it up in a shining ball and flung it against the darkness, spangling the night with the moon and stars. And God said, “That’s good.

         God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!  Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”  Fishes and fowls and beasts and birds swam the rivers and the seas, roamed the forests and the woods, and split the air with their wings. And God said: That's good!

         God spoke: “Let us make human beings in God’s image, make them reflecting God’s nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself.”  So God created human beings; God created them godlike, reflecting God’s love and goodness.
         Imagine:  The great God Almighty who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night, who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand; This great God shaped us – male and female - in God’s own image; Then into us God blew the breath of life, and we became living souls.  And God blessed us and gave us one command: “Be responsible. Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.  Be responsible.” And God said one more time, “That’s good.”

         Be responsible:  Those are powerful words. And with them the earth has been entrusted to us (you and me).  We are answerable not only to God, but to one another, to our children, to all the generations yet to come.  Because we are made in God’s image, we are to act as mirrors of God.  So the command to us is this:  Be responsible as God is responsible.  Love the world as God loved the world.

         Unfortunately, to date we have done a pretty effective job of abdicating our responsibility in the name of unbridled economic growth, religious fundamentalism, and political expediency.  I am not a scientist, but I will side with the over 97% of reputable scientists who say that we are in the midst of an environmental crisis.  Call it what you will – global warming, climate change, climate dis-regulation. We are in the midst of a crisis, and we humans are a root cause.  It is not a liberal plot.  It is not a Chinese hoax.  We consume more than we care.  We take more than we share.  We feel entitled to far more than our due.

         Listen to this assessment of the situation:  “For us, it’s not a political issue but a moral and spiritual issue.  We are working for the future of our children.” One would hope that was the enlightened vision of our own leadership here in the US.  Unfortunately, it is not.  IT is a quote from the Minister of Science and Technology in India.

         What will Maine be like when we no longer have maple trees to tap for syrup in the spring?  What will Maine be like when most of our children will contract lyme disease at some point in their lifetime – but that will be the least of our tick-borne disease worries?  What will Maine be like when the Southwest becomes a desert wasteland?  Will we welcome the great migration northeastward to Maine where there is water?

         We may argue with enormous intensity about whether the earth was created in six days or a billion years, but, when we do, we miss most important point in this creation story.  As Kathryn Matthews blogged: “We were created, by whatever process and whatever length it took, by a gracious Creator, in love and goodness, and we are called to care for this earth, this good creation, not to dominate or abuse it. We are responsible for its care.” 

         We need to wake up and face the world that we have made – and take responsibility not only for what has happened, but also for what will happen in the years to come.  That is a given.  That is God’s command to us:  Be responsible.

         Some of us will take on big responsibilities.  Others of us will make a small contribution to change.  However, all of us are called to, as Unitarian Universalist pastor Barbara Merritt notes, called to use “whatever resources we have to work at becoming better human beings. Caring for the planet, caring for our neighbor, and caring for our own soul: there are many paths that can help us to focus on what ultimately matters.”        

         But how do we do that?  How do we take meaningful responsibility – especially when we are tired, overwhelmed, confused, discouraged, and maybe even feeling a little out of our depth? 

         There is a story of a father walking with his small son when they encountered a large rock in the road, blocking their path.

         The father instructed his child, “Use all your strength, and move that rock out of our way.”

         The small boy pushed it, leaned against it, rocked it, yet the boulder remained firmly where it originally lay. In tears, the boy said, “I can’t move it at all!”

         The father replied, “You didn’t use your full strength.”

         The boy objected, “Yes I did!”

         The father, answered, “No you didn’t. You didn’t use me. Your strength includes the one who walks with you.”

         Together, they easily moved the rock away.

         And so it could be for us – here in this church – if we are a group of like-minded people who are committed to living as we were created – in the image of God.  We do not have all the answers, and we will not be able to move all the rocks in our path.  But surely we will recognize that we are on this precious planet together, committed to that call first uttered in the very first chapter of the Book of Genesis:  Be responsible.  We are to mirror the goodness of God in the way we choose to live.

         That is what the Spirit is calling us to do - as individuals and as the Christian church.  It is not a subject for theological speculation.  It ought not be fodder for a political debate. 

         We face a series of profoundly moral questions that we need to answer before it is too late. What does it mean – practically - to be made in God’s image – to mirror the Holy One?  What does it mean – practically - to be responsible for the world and all its creatures?  What does it mean – practically - to be a caretaker of the earth and not a consumer?  

         Our younger son once asked me about his relationship with his serious girlfriend:  “When do you move,” he queried, “from things being about “me” to being about “us”?”  Good question about serious personal relationships but also a good question when it comes to our relationship with the earth and its creatures, when it comes to defining our responsibility! When does it move from being about “me” to being about “us”?

       

The retelling of the creation story at the beginning of this sermon draws for The Message translation of the Bible and "The Creation" by James Weldon Johnson.

           

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