These words from Genesis are very familiar to us. They have been read from outer space by astronauts as they circled the earth. Perhaps these words are too familiar. When anything is too familiar, we have a tendency to take it for granted. It ceases to amaze us. Scholars tell us that it took centuries, perhaps millennia, for this first chapter of Genesis to crystallize in the form we now have it. So, what we must remember is that not a single word in this chapter is superfluous. The message here has been distilled time and time again resulting in a masterpiece teeming with wisdom and inspiration.
(The final wording of the first chapter of Genesis came about during or shortly after the Exile. This rendering of this ancient creation story was designed to encourage the Jewish Exiles in faraway Babylon that God could once again create from the chaos brought about by the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, the Davidic dynasty and the nation of Judah. We will look at how the Exile shaped the stories in Genesis 1:1-12:3 in a later sermon.)
We are first told that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The Hebrew word used for create is bara, and in the Old Testament only God is the subject of this verb. Only God can bara. Human beings and God can asah (make) and yatsar (form), but only God can bara. Why do the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures restrict the subject of this verb to God? Because they want us to know that creation comes from God and has its ultimate meaning in the heart and purpose of God. We are not here by some cosmic accident. We are not a fluke of mindless evolution. Every part of creation, from the subatomic particles to the vast galaxies which run their courses through the heavens, is included in that purpose. From Genesis to Revelation, we are promised that God will stay with creation until it is transformed according to the dreams of God’s own heart.
From Genesis to Revelation, we are promised that God will stay with creation until it is transformed according to the dreams of God’s own heart.
Now, if God willed this creation into being—if this creation is the result of God’s creative hand—if there is a divine purpose for our being here, then this creation is precious and filled with potential. The Bible is life-oriented, flesh-oriented, and earth-oriented. And this is emphasized repeatedly in the form of a litany throughout this first chapter of Genesis. God speaks the divine words “Let there be,” a part of creation comes into being, and God pronounces it “good.” And when all is finished, God calls the whole creation “very good.” Those words by which God gifts, affirms and values creation constitute a blessing—an original blessing—a blessing that far outweighs any notion of original sin. This creation has been called “good” by God and is the product of divine intention. Whether we are talking about flowers and birds, oceans and forests, atoms and stars, humans and other animals, time and space, body and sexuality—all is good—all has been validated by God—all is an expression of the divine will. And yes, we can mess some (or a lot) of that up. We can exploit, neglect, hurt, mar, and destroy creation and our inner selves by our hang-ups over the beauty and diversity of this world and over our physical bodies as well as through our greed and arrogance. But none of that invalidates the goodness of creation. We were meant to live in our bodies, to live in this world, to celebrate the beauty of the universe, to find beauty in nature and in ourselves, and to become a part of the harmony which so majestically and intricately weaves our world into a life-giving whole.
But sadly, much of the church throughout the ages has never understood, appreciated, or embraced this original blessing. In other words, too many Christians have never been able to enjoy life, experience a sense of belonging in the universe, or know the joy that can come from God’s blessings through this world. And Christians began to have this problem very early in church history.
There was an approach to religion and life called Gnosticism. The gnostic understanding of the world was not limited to Christianity, but it very soon became a major threat to the essence of the Christian faith. Among many of its beliefs was the idea that creation was evil and unimportant. Gnostics drew a distinction between the body and the spirit. The body/creation/ flesh/sexuality was evil. The spirit/soul was good. The whole point of salvation was for the soul to escape the body and be reunited with the Divine Spirit. Gnostics believed that God did not create the universe. If the physical is evil, then how could God, who was perfect, create the world? They taught that a lesser being created the universe. Christian gnostics maintained that God came in Jesus to teach us a secret knowledge so that we could navigate the different spheres after death and find our way back to God. (The word “gnostic” comes from the Greek word gnosis meaning “knowledge”) One extreme form of Gnosticism called Docetism even taught that Jesus only seemed to have a body, never suffered, did not die on the cross, left no foot prints the sand, and was not resurrected because he had never died. How could Jesus suffer and die if he was God and if God was Spirit and would have nothing to do with the physical?
The legacy of this second form [of Gnosticism] has plagued and poisoned the church and individual Christians for almost 2000 years.
Christian Gnosticism took two forms: a very libertine form which said you could do anything you wanted to do with the body (food, sex, etc.) and the rest of creation because the physical did not matter. The other form was more prevalent. This form denounced beauty in creation, looked down on sexuality, abhorred pleasure, and lived a life of self-denial which would never allow for joy, fulfillment, or sensuality. The legacy of this second form has plagued and poisoned the church and individual Christians for almost 2000 years. There is the example of one preacher who was asked how someone could know if what they were doing was a sin. His response was, “If it feels good, it’s a sin.” Many preachers even taught that married couples could engage in sex only for the purpose of procreation and under no circumstances were they to enjoy the act. If they enjoyed having sex, they were committing sin.
Now all that seems laughable today, but the consequences of this kind of thinking are anything but funny. In fact, the gnostic movement almost destroyed the early church. Part of the reason we have the Bible as it is today and part of the reason for the creeds of the church was to respond to this sick kind of thinking. In the second century a wealthy Christian named Marcion who had gnostic leanings claimed that only certain parts of the Scriptures were to be regarded as legitimate and divinely inspired. He rejected the entire Old Testament and included only an edited version of the Gospel of Luke and Paul’s letters in the Bible. The church responded by claiming all of the Old Testament as God’s Word as well as what we now have as the rest of the New Testament.
What I want you to see today is that the very first verse of the Old Testament tells us that this creation is a result of God’s will and action. And the first chapter repeatedly tells us it is good, beautiful, and harmonious. But many in the church are still infected with a spirit of Gnosticism. If the word “sin” is shouted from the pulpit in many churches today, what would be in the minds of most people? How many would think of sex before they thought of greed, pride, jealousy, prejudice, apathy, and the sin of underliving? H. L. Mencken once said that a Puritan was a Christian who was dreadfully afraid that someone, somewhere, somehow was having a good time. And yet Christians are supposed to be people who, in following Jesus, know that (in the words of Tony Campolo), Kingdom time is party time.
God has gone to a lot of trouble to put us in this amazing and exquisite creation and to give us life. How would we fare if we were judged by God according to how much we enjoy life?
God has gone to a lot of trouble to put us in this amazing and exquisite creation and to give us life. How would we fare if we were judged by God according to how much we enjoy life? Find beauty around us? Are thankful just to be? Abelard of Bath warns us with these words, “Were we to neglect coming to know the admirable rational beauty of the universe in which we live, we would deserve to be cast out from it like guests incapable of appreciating a home in which hospitality is offered to them.”
Yes, we can mar God’s creation, others, and ourselves with passionless living. But the Bible would have us know that we cannot ultimately thwart the purpose of this creation. We and every other part of this universe are too precious in the eyes of heaven to become rejects, discarded on some cosmic junk pile. Creation is good. We were created good. The body is good. Sexuality is good. And I think it’s time for the church to realize that the root of many of our problems is not the lack of preaching about sin, original or otherwise. The root of many of our problems is the appalling silence in the church about original blessing. Any good psychologist will tell you that self-hatred and feelings of unworthiness are not contained within the person. Such feelings are projected onto everything and everyone else. And they rob us of our humanity.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said, “We are a generation that has lost the capacity for outrage.” And why have we lost that capacity in a world where nature is exploited beyond belief, where thousands of children starve to death every day, where prejudice in the form of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia plague our world? Because we have forgotten our original blessing—because we are strangers to joy and celebration—because we have lost any sense of belonging and holy purpose. The ecological crisis our planet is facing today is primarily a spiritual crisis. Because of our greed, arrogance, and rat-race approach to life, most people in our society no longer feel connected to creation. We no longer realize we are a part of creation and that this earth we are destroying is our home – our only home. As a result, we no longer see the beauty and harmony around us and can no longer be amazed and be blessed with wonder.
… the welfare of our brothers and sisters is our business because we are all connected within the heart of our Creator.
The apathy so many Christians have regarding the tragedy of world hunger and grinding poverty is also directly related to the convenient and self-serving conviction that our faith is about spiritual things and not issues of peace and justice. But even more basic to that apathy is the lack of understanding that the welfare of our brothers and sisters is our business because we are all connected within the heart of our Creator.
Those who hear the message of Genesis and understand original blessing and know that they are included in that blessing will have no room for hatred, prejudice, violence, or exploitation. They will be filled with too much joy, gratitude, and wonder to afflict such misery on what God has called good. And they will have the joy of being at home in this world, in the next world (which is this world redeemed of all distortion), and in the heart of God. Now let me ask: What more could anyone want? And God said, “Let there be,” and creation began to be, and God called that creation “very good.” May we have the wisdom and the courage to understand and embrace that fundamental truth.
Communion: I want us to do some serious theology at the Table this morning. I want us to think about what makes our Christian faith unique. I’ve given that question a lot of thought, and my conclusion is that there are two aspects of our faith which are unique and indispensable if we are to claim the name Christian. Now many of you might say “love,” but the primacy of love is taught in many religions. What seems to me to be so basic and unique to our faith is first of all the belief in the Incarnation. We have an incarnational faith. Now what do I mean by that? The word “incarnation” come from Latin and means “in flesh.” The first chapter of John says it so well: “The Word became flesh and dwelt/tabernacled/pitched his tent in our midst.” The Christian faith maintains that God came in Christ into this world as a Jewish peasant. God the Creator came in flesh and blood. And what we see in Jesus reveals the very nature of God. When we see Jesus, we see what God is like. God affirmed creation by coming as a part of creation. So many of the religions of that day focused on how humans could get to God. But the Christian faith has the opposite focus—it goes in the opposite direction. Not from earth to heaven but from heaven to earth—not to escape creation but to embrace it from the inside out and love it into its redemption. At this Table we remember the flesh and blood of Jesus–we remember the Incarnation. And when we remember with a full and authentic understanding, we realize that we are also affirming what we first read in Genesis 1. Creation is good, the body is good, life is good, and only a faith which is devoted to the healing and redemption of this creation is worthy of the God who said “Let there be” and who came to us in flesh and blood in a Jewish peasant named Jesus.
Commission: The second aspect of the Christian faith which is unique and indispensable if we are to claim the name Christian is the Resurrection. And by resurrection I mean that God raised the body of Jesus from the dead and transformed that body into a body of glory. Like Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, I see resurrection as a logical outcome of incarnation. The incarnation makes holy the physical. God has cast the divine lot with creation and is committed to its healing and divination.
It is our faith that we meet the Risen Lord at this Table. This is not a memorial service. We do not just remember Jesus; we celebrate his presence in our midst and his victory over death, sin, and evil. But the resurrection itself also confirms the faith of Genesis 1. Paul says that Jesus is the first fruits of the final resurrection when all of creation will be raised and transformed. This creation is not just good for the time being. It has its place in eternity and in God’s heart forever. And how we treat this creation and how we treat our fellow humans shows how much we really believe that God created this universe, has come to dwell in our midst in flesh and blood, and is committed to creation’s final healing. Incarnation and resurrection—what more could we possibly want in our faith as we go out into this world God so loves. Amen.
