Where’s
Your Green?
Text: Genesis
1:1-2:3a
Aldersgate
I
hope you’re all enjoying the drawings from the children and youth in our church
school. Each class was asked to illustrate one day: day one, the creation of
light; day two, the separation of the waters; day three, the creation of dry
land, and plants; day four, the creation of the greater light for the day and
the lesser light for the night; day five the creation of fish and birds; day
six, the creation of land animals of every kind, finally ending with the crown
of creation, humanity. And on day seven
God rested.
Didn’t
you just love the pictures of God resting and did you notice the picture of God
resting on the beach with a cooler beside him.
Ever since seeing it, I’ve been wondering what’s in the cooler? It was a small notation in my Jewish Study
Bible that gave me the answer: “In the
Jewish liturgy, [verses 1, 2 and 3 in the 2nd chapter of Genesis that tell us
God finished the work of creation on the 7th day, rested, and blessed
the Sabbath, also] serve as an introduction to the Kiddush, the prayer over
wine to sanctify the Sabaath…” (p 14) I am sure the artist had no idea, but I suspect
there might be wine in that cooler.
For
over 2,500 years, Creation, as the first of God’s works, has stood at the
earliest of time, and when read in context reinforces our understanding of a
saving God. Yet, in recent years, much
attention and controversy over the scientific value of these verses has
diverted our attention away from the message of the creation narratives as a
whole. The debate seems to focus on the hows of God’s creative work (which we can really never
understand), so today, let’s focus on the whys, and the loving, grace-filled relationship
God offers to humanity. Richard Cizik, vice-president for governmental affairs with the
National Association of Evangelicals wrote in Time Magazine, March 2005, “I
don’t think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us
what we did with what he created.” (The Great Awakening, p. 144)
Recently,
Hebrew scholars, more familiar with the original language than I, have begun to
add the condition of “when” to this opening statement of the Bible, suggesting
that the chaos of the formless void was the state out of which God
created. My Jewish Study Bible tells us
“To modern people, the opposite of the created order is ‘nothing,’ that is, a
vacuum. To the ancients, the opposite of
the created order was something worse than nothing.” (p. 23) It
was an active, malicious force that might best we named “Chaos,” the random, patternless, haphazard stuff in our universe, which might
be compared to car accidents, earthquakes, cyclones, and floods. When the world was chaos, God created.
Some
scholars believe that this story of creation was actually written down during
the Jewish exile in
“For
the Babylonians, the god Anu was also the sky. The goddess Ki was
the earth. Ahamash
was the sun. [The god named] Sin was the
moon. All of nature was composed of
various gods to be worshipped …” (Homiletics,
In
addition the Babylonians taught their children that Marduk,
their creator god, formed “…the earth by splitting the rebel Tiamat’s body into two halves like the halves of a
clamshell. The upper half forms the
bubble above the sky and the lower half the bubble under the earth…” (Homiletics,
These
verses from Genesis have “… a cosmic tone, with God the only sentient being in
a vast universe, creating the world out of swirling chaotic matter.” (Homiletics,
Before resting, God’s final act of creation is
humanity. Now from the earliest of
times, the ancient people knowing that God’s creation was good,
were aware of the danger in the creation of humanity. “The midrash
[stories of explanation offered by ancient rabbis] manifests considerable
uneasiness with God’s proposal to create something so capable of evil as human
beings.” (Jewish Study Bible, p. 14) Let
me share with you one of those stories:
When
God had nearly finished with the act of creation, an announcement was made [ta-dah] that the only thing left was to create a creature
capable of understanding and marveling in the greatness of God. This being,
called human, was not only to be of the earth, like other creatures, but also
to be created in the image of God. “Let
these beings have reason, intellect, and understanding,” God declared.
Truth
then approached the Almighty pleading, “Oh God, I ask you to refrain from
calling into being a creature who is capable of
lying. The last thing we need is to have
a world filled with deception and fraud.”
Peace
came forth to support this petition. “O
Lord, I beg you not to create creatures who will disturb the harmony of your
creation. I fear that these humans will
act with revenge and initiate war.”
While
they were pleading against the creation of man, the soft voice of Charity asked
to be heard. “Dear God, I know that any
being created in your likeness will have the capacity to perform great and kind
deeds. Filled with your Spirit these
human beings will comfort the sick, visit the lonely, and provide shelter to
the homeless. Such beings cannot but
bring glory to you, O Lord.”
Though
God listened to the voice of Truth and Peace before the final act of creation,
it was because of Charity that human beings were created. (Stories
for the Journey, William R, White, p. 45)
It
seems to me that the one misunderstood word in this creation story that has
gotten us to our current contentious, disruptive, dissonant relationship with
Creation is “dominion.” “What is the
nature of God’s gift of dominion and power in light of our modern devastation
of the natural environment?” (Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible, p. 27)
Paying
close attention to this part of the passage, we see that verse 26, the
announcement of God’s intention to create humanity, breaks a carefully
established pattern. On days one, two,
and four God says “Let there be…” and on days three, five, and six God says,
“Let the water/earth…”: now we hear “Let us make humankind in our
image,…” Something different is about to
happen. In this story, humanity is not
created from earth or water, but in ‘image of God’ and thus called to act with
divine authority. “So here, the creation
of humanity in God’s image and likeness carries with it a commission to rule
over the animal kingdom. Some have seen
in that commission a license for ecological irresponsibility.” (Jewish
Study Bible, p. 14)
Yet
if humanity is created in the image of God than are we not called to rule as
God rules. Humanity’s rule of Creation,
especially in the last few centuries since we have mastered the use of fossil
fuels, has been closer to the human way of ruling by subduing and overpowering
and destroying. When we read dominion
and act as human rulers, let me suggest that we act like Babylonian rulers, we forget
that we are in God’s image and called to rule as God rules. Remember the violent, destructive way in
which Marduk, the Babylonian god created? Our God, on the other hand, rules with the
creative power of love, even in these verses, in the very beginning, our
Judeo-Christian God sings the creation into being. If we reject the Babylonian God and accept
the God of Jesus Christ then it seems that we need to change our understanding
of dominion. What is God’s dominion
like? God rules with love and
grace.
Furthermore,
when put in these verses in context with the rest of scripture, we see that
humanity is not the owner of Creation, but is called to be its steward,
strictly accountable to Creation’s true Owner.
This understanding is one source of the traditions known in scripture as
sabbatical and jubilee years and in agriculture as rotation of crops. The ancient and modern farmer knows that to
harvest a field year after year after year, especially of the same crop leaves
the land depleted and unusable.
Being
stewards of the Creation makes a whole lot more sense than trying to dominate
and destroy. Brian McLaren, another Christian
leader concerned about God’s Creation, suggests that we begin to see
differently, care differently, and value differently. (The Great Awakening, p. 143) And Jim Wallace author of The Great Awakening wonders if the religious community could become
the “tipping point” for the critical issue of global warming. (p. 156)
I
have faith in the continual, saving activity of God bringing new life out of
chaos. Even when accidents, terrorist
attacks, cyclones, and earthquakes cause the return of chaos, I know that God
works with us, through us, and beyond us to bring Creation out of chaos. I know that God continues to act in our lives
and is calling us to make changes in our life styles from the cars we drive to
the way we build our churches, yes even if it may cost a little more. May we hear and respond to God’s words. Amen.