22 April 2018 Psalm 65:5-13 Genesis 1:1-5 Two Stories When I was a kid, my parents had a hardbound book about the NASA Space program with a powerful image on the front cover, similar to the one on our bulletins today. It was of the Earthrise taken by astronaut and Lunar Module Pilot Bill Anders. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to the moon and it entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve 1968. That evening, the astronauts held a live broadcast in which the moon and Earth can be seen from their spacecraft, and Jim Lovell said this: The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on earth. The crew ended the broadcast by taking turns reading from the book of Genesis. Isn t that cool? And so this is how it goes. In the beginning our sacred scripture locates the story in time before there was time. In the beginning, it says, God... And the main character is introduced. And the story begins by describing the activity of this main character, God, who is creating. This is a forming God, an artistic God, a moral God whose creative intention is goodness. In every bit of creation and in every bit of us. The story tells us again and again, and God said it was good. This is an active, dynamic God who doesn t just set things in motion and walk away but as the story progresses we see this God promise and covenant to remain active, alive, involved, and present. Darkness first, then light, the rhythm pulses between the two, and creation, along with the story between God and that creation, begins. Interestingly enough, we have 2 stories of creation in the book of Genesis, not one. I was stunned to learn this in college and have wrestled with the biblical editors ever since. I mean, c mon, this is hard enough without 2 totally distinct stories, 4 different gospels, and a myriad of interpretations! But here we are, two stories and we know each well enough. The
first story is one of dominion and hierarchy. God created and breathed life into human beings who were given dominion over the earth and the creatures therein. This is the story we live, then and now, don t we? God said it: Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Gen. 1:26) Dominion means sovereignty and control. And how has that gone for us do you think? It hasn t played out well. The earth is choking, people are maiming and killing each other, physically and spiritually, for the right of dominion over one another, and we can t seem to find a way to fix it. But listen deeply for another story. It starts the same way, in the beginning. And it starts with the same main character, God. In the beginning, God but this time, it says this: So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the human to see what he would call them; and whatever the human called every living creature, that was its name. The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field. (Gen. 2:19-20) This second story is not a story of dominion and control and power over, is it? No. This is a story of relationship. When God brings the animals to Adam to be named, God is facilitating the forming of a relationship, a divine sanctioned connection between humans and creation. Naming is not an act of dominance, it is an act of relationship we name our family, we name our children, we name our pets and naming commits ourselves to caring in the most lovely and intimate way. It s why I think it makes more sense to call it International Mother Earth Day than just Earth Day. We have named her. And to use the word International means we are connected in our abuse and in our care for her. We need to work together. And so this second story in Genesis holds out a profound spiritual reality which is that we are bound with all creation and charged to
common good. By asserting this bond between animals and humans, between the gift of creation and us, there is teaching about interdependence, about love and responsibility, about mindfulness and compassion a whole catalogue of spiritual lessons. Today, this Earth Day, I invite you to consider these two stories and ask yourself, which story do we want to subscribe to, learn from, and imitate? We know the dominion story, but what happens when we put humans at the top and then, let s face it, only some humans at the top? What happens when we live out the dominion story? And what would change in us, in our country, in our world, in creation if we leaned into the relationship story? In an article I was reading from National Geographic about International Mother Earth Day this year, Jonathan Baillie said, we need to place a greater value on the natural world one of our biggest obstacles is our mindset: we need people to emotionally connect to the natural world Fundamentally, if we care about the natural world, we will value and protect it and make decisions that ensure the future of species and ecosystems. (National Geographic, How the Environment Has Changed Since the First Earth Day ) In his book, The Rebirthing of God: Christianity s Struggle for New Beginnings, the Celtic author John Philip Newell writes that over 300 species a week are becoming extinct, in part because of how we are choosing to live or, more precisely, because of how we are choosing not to live in relationship with the earth. In the last century we have undone much of what it took the earth four billion years to evolve. (p. 10). Killing, maiming, pillaging, raping, exploiting all these things are verbs of dominion over. We can do what we want because we have control and power, and the other whether it be creation or another person is just an object, a means to an end, something to be used for the purposes dominion designs. But I believe something in us knows differently. Something in us yearns for something beyond the cold transactions of commodity and consumer. It s why we are here.
In this sanctuary, yearning for a more complete relationship with God and with each other and with our neighbors on the earth and of the earth. The 13 th century Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich said we are not just made by God, we are made of God. When God breathed life into human beings, creating in the very likeness of the divine image, the stuff of God became the stuff of us. We and all things have come forth from God. Newell also wrote, We are made of the Light that was in the beginning. We are made of the Wisdom that fashioned the universe in its glory of interrelatedness. We are made of the Love that longs for oneness. This is not to deny out capacity for falseness and for the ugly betrayals that tear us apart. It is simply to say that deeper still is our of-godness. (p.1) So consider this then, that everything God created has a yearning for connectedness, for relationship. Think about it. The protons and neutrons link together to form the atom and the basis of all matter. The earth has been revolving around the sun for 4.5 billion years. The law of gravitation holds us and connects us to the ground. We don t choose it, the relationship isn t ours to decide, it just is. So, what then? Our faith invites us back into relationship call it repentance, call it forgiveness, call it conversion whatever you like, but the invitation is always to return to connectedness with God, with each other, and with the earth. It is written in our sacred story and the telling of it is ours. We choose the characters, the verbs, the actions, we do the naming so which shall it be, then, a story of dominion or relationship? This Earth Day that is our question and our invitation. We can exploit the land, and each other. We can abuse the earth, and each other. We can live transactionally and use each other and the earth up. We can and we do. But we take this day to ask, is there something more, something better? Our faith story suggests there is. And it s all about relationship. In relationship, we name the gift of this connection by making friends out of strangers and by naming her Mother Earth, for we earthlings, are we not? And we are grounded in her by the
very laws of gravity! In relationship, we honor the other and we honor the earth. In relationship, we care for our neighbor in ways of love and hope, and in relationship, we tend to our fragile creation, giving it our compassion and justice in healing what we have disturbed and broken and pillaged. So today take this invitation and consider how you might deepen your relationship with God s creation and correct the course of our sense of dominion over. We are undone by the overwhelming sense of the hurts of the earth and the drastic predictions of our future, because let us remember that the earth will find a way to survive. It will go on circling the sun. But we will not continue to inhabit this home as earthlings unless we find a way to heal the earth. I know these 2 things to be true. So start with yourself. What can you do to deepen your relationship with God s creation? Spend time outdoors and notice the species of bugs and the songs of the birds, each one unique and distinct and beloved because God created it so. Refuse the consumer and user mindset and find ways to give back to the earth that gives you so much. Vote in ways that make the silent voice of creation heard in the halls of government and industry. These are just a few, but start by living out a story of faith that believes in relationship more than in power and dominion. And I know we will make a difference. It s what God asked of the first human and asks us now tend to the goodness of creation, and the goodness in each other, and we might just sense the very kingdom of God draw near.
Let me end with this love story from the poet James Weldon Johnson The Creation James Weldon Johnson (1871 1938) AND God stepped out on space, And He looked around and said, I m lonely I ll make me a world. And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp. 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! Then God reached out and took the light in His hands, And God rolled the light around in His hands Until He made the sun; And He 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. Then down between The darkness and the light He hurled the world; And God said, That s good!
Then God himself stepped down And the sun was on His right hand, And the moon was on His left; The stars were clustered about His head, And the earth was under His feet. And God walked, and where He trod His footsteps hollowed the valleys out And bulged the mountains up. Then He stopped and looked and saw That the earth was hot and barren. So God stepped over to the edge of the world And He spat out the seven seas; He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed; He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled; And the waters above the earth came down, The cooling waters came down. 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, The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground, And the rivers ran down to the sea; And God smiled again, And the rainbow appeared, And curled itself around His shoulder. Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand Over the sea and over the land, And He said, Bring forth! Bring forth! And quicker than God could drop His hand. 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! Then God walked around, And God looked around On all that He had made. He looked at His sun, And He looked at His moon, And He looked at His little stars; He looked on His world With all its living things,
And God said, I m lonely still. Then God sat down On the side of a hill where He could think; By a deep, wide river He sat down; With His head in His hands, God thought and thought, Till He thought, I ll make me a man! Up from the bed of the river God scooped the clay; And by the bank of the river He kneeled Him down; And there 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, Like a mammy bending over her baby, Kneeled down in the dust Toiling over a lump of clay Till He shaped it in His own image; Then into it He blew the breath of life, And man became a living soul. Amen. Amen.