Imagine, if you will, that from the time of Columbus in our nation there was one dynastic rule down to the present time. Also imagine that the center of religious faith was to be found in a cathedral in Washington, the seat of political power in our country. The living symbol of the presence of God, the love of God, the will of God, was contained in that cathedral, and at least once in every lifetime, hopefully every year, people of the nation would make a pilgrimage to that place for worship.
Imagine then that on one day enemy bombers destroyed that city with all remnants of political power, all signs of God's presence and love, and that enemy forces took the leaders, the educated people who were not killed, away to another country to live in exile. Imagine the sense of grief and loss and hopelessness that we might feel if such a thing happened.
That's a description of what happened about 587 BC. to the Hebrew people when king Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, broke through his siege of Jerusalem, leveled the city and the temple, and stripped it of its leading citizens and religious leaders. Then, as it had not been asked for many many years, people began to question, "Does God really exist? Does God care about us? Is God powerless in the face of such destruction?" [1]
The book of Genesis was created to respond to these desperate questions of a people who had lost all the symbols of their hope in 587 BC. It was created out of stories which had been told over a period of four or five hundred years, stories told by different people, transmitted from one generation to another sitting around campfires, stories of a God above all, in all, who had brought them together as a people, who had rescued them from slavery. The creative word and will of God was described in stories. The stories were brought together by an editor to give us, in Genesis, these stories that speak of hope amidst hopelessness, a witness that the God who has called us into being is still with us, and will always be with us. This was the God who was, from the beginning of the world, and through the unique grace and power which belongs to that One, brought the world into being.
There are two overall themes in Genesis; one is that the Creator has a purpose and will for creation; and second, creation has freedom to respond to the creator in various ways. [2]
These stories fall into the category of poetry, not science. These are stories that are told to respond to the question, "Why has God created us and this world? What is God expecting from us? Where is it all going?" It is not a book of science. This story of creation is not a story of how scientifically God created the world. These people were not scientists, these were poets and storytellers. They had no idea of cause and effect. This is pre-history. There was no one with a video camera following God around, looking over God's shoulder, recording how the world unfolded.
Genesis is not history; it is pre-history, stories that are intended to lead us to worship. If you listened as the scripture was read this morning I suspect that you may have wanted to stand up and say, "Praise God...hallelujah..., for the wondrous gift of this world, sign of God's grace and love." These stories don't answer all of our questions about the world, but they do offer us a litany for worshipping the God of creation.
Today we want to look at the first creation story, Genesis 1:1-224b. As the story begins with the spirit of God moving over the roiling waters of chaos, the wind of God, the breath of God, the spirit of God, (these are all English words which come from the same Hebrew word), God brings something out of chaos, brings something out of this void and darkness.
A loving creative God wrestles with that formless void which threatens destruction and darkness. That's where the story begins, but it ends with the seventh day when the work was finished, God rested in the serene rule of God over a universe at rest.
We see in this story the unique and incredible assertion that God and the creation are bound together. [3] There are other stories of creation. Some believed a creation of chance where persons were controlled by the heavenly bodies. Some have conceived the creation as the result of two warring gods battling each other for power until one is victorious and destroys the other; and out of the destruction of the other, creation comes about. That was Babylonian perspective on creation. [4] But this text claims a creation which comes about as the will and love ofone God who is bound intricately, intimately to all that is created.
How is this astounding claim conveyed? First, the writer affirms THAT GOD HAS ORDAINED BLESSING INTO THE PROCESSES OF HUMAN LIFE. [5] Three times during this orderly sequential unfolding of creation the writer says, "God blessed them." Look at verse 22. After every living creature that moves was created, "God saw that it was good." God blessed them, (all the creatures) saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth."
Read verse 28. After the creation of male and female, "God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish in the sea'..." (we'll come back to that again.)
In the third verse of chapter two, after everything was created, "God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation." (Genesis 2:3) Built into this world is the blessing of God, every part of it, every moving thing, every human being, the space and the seventh day of Sabbath God has blessed.
When we see each other, live with each other and care for each other, we are encountering the blessings of God. Blessing comes day by day, breath by breath, word by word, living with all we experience. Not just your blessing, my blessing, his blessing, but the blessing of God.
Look at how often blessing is affirmed as God pronounces the created world as good. Look at the tenth verse of the first chapter, "God called the dry land earth, the waters the seas, and God saw that it was good." The twelfth verse after the creation of the vegetation, "God saw that it was good." The eighteenth verse, "God saw that it was good," the twenty-first verse, "God saw that it was good;" the twenty-fifth and the thirty- first verse, "God saw that it was good." One place it was not just good, it was _eryv good. Look at that thirty-first verse the first chapter..."God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good." The world is a place where God is known and it is beautiful, blessed and good.
Something else you need to ponder from this story; HUMANKIND IS CREATED IN THE IMAGE (THE LIKENESS OF GOD.) (verse 26, chapter one.)
God said, "Let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish ofthe sea, over the birds in the air, over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
Scholars have debated for a couple of thousand years or more about the meaning of a human being created in the image of God, and I am happy to clear this up today. It's a strange way of thinking because the Hebrews were prohibited from making any image of God, any pictorial, physical representation of God. No pictures, no shapes at all. In fact, they were prohibited from saying the name of God. To say God's name was to know something deeply personal about God. Therefore, the name of God (the English letters for the Hebrew equivalent) would spell Jhwh, or Yhwh. In other words, the vowels were left out of the word so nobody could pronounce it. It could be written but it couldn't be said because to say it was to know something personal about God.
Why then would the writer of Genesis say that we are created in the image of God, the likeness of God? What can this mean? It's thought that the background for this comes from the way kings were represented in the various parts of the kingdom. Statues were created so that people would be reminded of the sovereign king. [6] We are in the world reminders of the reality of God.
The likeness of God is known in the freedom of persons to be faithful and gracious. Two characteristics of God, which are most important, are that God is free and God is gracious. [7]
This whole unfolding of creation..."God said, and it was so...God said, and it was so..." reveals a sovereign free spirit who chooses to bring new worlds into being. Also, God is gracious; it is out of steadfast love that the creation comes freely. We see this in Jesus Christ. We have been created to be free and to be gracious, and as we live that way we reflect reality of God in our world.
"The human creature attests to the Godness of God by exercising freedom with and authority over all the other creatures entrusted to its care." [8] We are given dominion. (verse 28) For some people dominion means coercion, tyrannical power; but that's the wrong meaning of the Hebrew word. To gain the Hebrew perspective, think of a shepherd who is responsible for the sheep. The shepherd has dominion over the sheep, meaning it is his task to care for the sheep, to tend the sheep, to be sure that the sheep prosper and are well cared for. That's what to have dominion means. That's what it means for us to have dominion over every part of the world, to care for it so that it is nourished, tended and prospers. To have dominion means to secure the well-being of every creature, every bird, every plant, every animal. We, on God's behalf, are responsible to see that that every single creature is cared for.
Jesus showed us the way. Jesus showed us the way of dominion, the dominion of the servant, the dominion of one who gives himself so that others might grow and prosper. It is through the life and death of Jesus that we learn what it is to live in the likeness of God, in the image of God.
Creation culminates in Sabbath, a time for rest. (Genesis 221-3) All of this creation is driving toward something, and it is a day of Sabbath, a day of rest. It is a sign that the world is safely in God's hands. We can rest in that assurance. It means the end of grasping and exploitation. [9]
It's hard for us to grasp this because the equivalent which we observe, our Sunday, is sometimes so hectic; there's so much more we try to put into it besides resting and worship. I understand the need for getting the grass cut and the car washed and the errands run and the shopping done, all the rest we try to cram into that day. But the day was created by God to be a sign that we can trust our lives, and everything else, into God's keeping.
During my research for our study on creation I picked up a commentary on Genesis in a used book store on vacation a month ago, written by Naomi Rosenblatt. She told a compelling story about the Sabbath. She writes, "The sense of the Sabbath as a blessed oasis of calm for the rest of the working week took root in my life as a child." She lived in Haifa, Israel; she describes how each Friday afternoon around four o'clock a hush would fall over the city of Haifa. Men coming home from work would pause at street corners to purchase gladiolas for the dinner table.
Her next door neighbors, "Dr. and Mrs. Ambach, at one time middle class Germans, had been forced to flee Berlin just ahead of the deportation to the death camps. They arrived in Haifa with Virtually no possessions... "Despite their desperate circumstances, for the Ambachs Friday evenings were occasions of great dignity. Their children, who ran around like rag-a-muffins the rest of the week, were scrubbed clean and dressed in immaculate starched clothes. Mrs. Ambach wore her one remaining family heirloom, a gold watch on a necklace. She laid the table with a single set of linen she managed to bring with her to Israel. Dr. Ambach blessed the meal and wine from the head of the table while his wife lit and blessed the Sabbath candles. It didn't matter that all through the week Mrs. Ambach was cleaning other peoples houses, and her husband, who had headed a hospital in Berlin, was reduced to selling hens and notions door to door. On Friday evening their family pride and self respect was restored. Observing the Sabbath became a weekly infusion of spiritual renewal and reconciliation that reaffirmed their eternal connection with God, and with each other." [10]
Sabbath is the climax, Genesis affirms. We have this Sabbath time to remember that we belong to God, the birds in the sky, the earth and the seas, the animals and all of us. In Babylon, in bad times, in desperate circumstances, or in Haifa, or Escondido, or wherever, we belong to God. We belong to each other. We can never look at another person in a way that fails to acknowledge a unique creation in the image of God. We each bear the likeness of the creator of all that is, and all that will be.
There's a spiritual that lifts up what we've been talking about. Don and Jan are going to lead us in once again celebrating the creator God who has called us into being.
He's got the whole world in His hands, He's got the whole wide world
in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands, He's got the whole world in His
hands.
He's got the wind and the rain in His hands, (repeat),
He's got your and me brother in His hands, He's got you and me sister in
His hands, (repeat)
He's got the little bitty baby in His hands, (repeat)
He's got the whole world in His hands. Praise God!
Let us pray...O God, in these frustrating times give us the strength to face this confusing world of distorted politics, of corruption in so many places, ofviolence on our streets, of terrorism beyond our comprehension, of our worship of the material, of so much in our times that harasses us.
It is not our desire, as we face such times as these, to escape from our responsibilities, from our commitments, from the ethical challenges all about us, from the obligations of our Christian promise, from the prophetic Biblical pronouncements.
No, it is not our desire to escape from these challenges, but we humbly confess we have not met the simplest obligations of the faith we proclaim. Deliver us, 0 God, from our presumptions, from our egos, from our reluctance to stand firm for the moral choices which confront us at every turn, and to respond with action.
In order that we might do your will in the world in which you've given us, place us in the midst of the cry of the child who is hungry, that we might respond. Place us at the spot where she, who is dispossessed, can depend upon us. Place us in the center of the family that is poor, that we might participate in it's needs. Place us at that moment in time where those in pain can find us caring and administering to their need. Place us in the environment of the one whose life has been shattered through accident or design, that our hearts might bleed with his suffering and respond to her cry. Place us right there where the greatest need is that we might fulfill the commitment we've made to you, O God.
Bless now those from among us who are in the hospital, bless particularly those we know who are in pain. Who have lost loved ones. Who face challenges beyond our knowledge, or theirs. Guide those who would guide us, inspire those who would inspire us, challenge those who would challenge us. May we really hear, and really feel, and really see what we pray, as we pray together our Lord's prayer...
[1] Charles F. Kraft, Genesis: Beginning of the Biblical
Drama
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, p 13
[3] Brueggemann, p. 22
[4] Mark Link, These Stories Will Shout, p. 19
[5] Brueggemann, p. 36
[6] Brueggemann, p. 32
[7] Brueggemann, p. 32
[8] Brueggemann, p. 32
[9] Brueggemann, p. 36
[10] Naomi Rosenblatt, Wrestling with Angels, p. 20