“Foundation”

Genesis 1:1-5

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS 

May 8, 2022

Hold your hands out with me. I need some help holding on to some things this morning:

• When we worship in the park, it’s always so good to just enjoy being in nature together.

• And, of course, we’re blessing our animals today. We give thanks for our pets - the joy they bring, the way they walk with us as partners through the ups and downs. 

• All of this calls to mind our deep connection to the natural world. And the deep groans of confession that we need to utter when we contemplate the ways we humans have grossly mistreated our planet. We need to lift up creation care and recommit ourselves to sustainability and advocacy for our Earth. 

• Speaking of sustainability, Amelia is here from ECM! Our campus ministry partners are leaders in creation care and we are delighted to celebrate with them as they mark 101 years of ministry at K-State. 

• And then, of course, it’s Mother’s Day. A day of joy for some and grief, anger, ambivalence, annoyance for others. A complicated day. 

(How are your hands doing? Are you holding all of this so far? I know it’s a lot.)

• We sit with the incomprehensible reality that the U.S. has now had over one million deaths from COVID. You know some of those million people. 

• And to top it all off there was a bit of SCOTUS news this week, sending so many reeling as we contemplate the reality that those with uteruses may very soon be further restricted in their own bodily autonomy. We hold onto grief and fear as we strengthen resolve to listen harder, love louder, and find ways to keep fashioning a world where everyone truly is able to make their own decisions, access healthcare, and where children are welcomed into a world where families can earn a living wage, can access contraception, early childhood education and on and on. 

Okay, did your hands collapse yet? If so, it’s okay. Because, my friends, we gather as a faith community and we don’t hold these things alone. The Spirit of Fierce Love comes alongside us with hands larger than we could imagine and scoops it all up. The joy, the pain, the hope, the fear, the anger, the beauty. Scoops us up, too. And holds it all together.

Thanks be to God. 

So on a day like today, it seems appropriate to lean into one of our most foundational faith stories. The first story of creation from our sacred texts. The very first story in the Bible. 

This is, of course, not a scientific text.  I’ve always appreciated that we have TWO Creation stories in the Bible, this one and then the one in Genesis 2 about Adam and Eve, because having two stories reminds us that our faith ancestors living thousands of years ago had a different mindset than we do. They weren’t troubled by having multiple stories about the same thing. It’s a reminder that we cannot turn to this text to seek details about evolution, atoms, particles. Instead, these creation stories strive to illuminate the truest things about humanity, God, and the relationship between us.

Father Richard Rohr says that the created world that we inhabit is actually the first incarnation of Christ. When we think about God taking on flesh and dwelling among us, the creation stories are the first place that happens - when God blows over the deep and imbues creation with the Spirit. And when God creates humans in their own image. 

Rohr also says that Creation is our first scripture. For millennia before the Bible was written down, we found God in the created world. The Word made flesh among us, teaching us what we need to know: that we are sacred beings, created in God’s image, made to love and care. You don’t have to look much further than a tree budding out in May to see that Creation teaches us deep and sacred truths about God, humanity, and the relationship between us. Spring trees speak to us of resurrection. And the birds sing an ancient song of Easter truths as they call out before dawn as surely as the women went to the tomb.

And so, on this morning when we are holding so many things together with God’s help, we turn to an old, old story to seek illumination. And we’ll do so with a simple ritual of lighting a candle as I share a few truths from Genesis 1 that light our pathway as we carry so much together. I could easily light 30 or 40 candles with all the wisdom to be gleaned from this story but, don’t worry, I only brought four candles with me today.

THE FIRST CANDLE - 

In this story, God is creating order out of chaos. In the beginning, when God created, the earth was a big ol’ formless mess of who knows what and things were so murky you couldn’t even see up from down…and the spirit of God, the ruach, blew over it all and started to create order. The first order of business was light. So that Creation could be illuminated. Jewish tradition teaches that this first light actually wasn’t the sun or moon or stars (those come later) but a primordial light that infuses all creation. A light that exists even in the darkest night of the new moon. A light that cannot be extinguished. 

And God created a dome to separate water from water. The water beneath became the sea and the water above - the rains - held back from destroying everything. And the land began to form as God separated and named and called things into place. 

Our God is one who carefully, lovingly, painstakingly is seeking to create order even when chaos threatens to overwhelm. 

THE SECOND CANDLE - 

Now if you’ve heard the rest of this story, you might have noticed that God has a lot of help along the way. The dry land isn’t created from nothing. Instead, the dry land seems to be lurking underneath all that water. And God calls upon the water to organize itself. And the waters partner with God and the land comes forth. In the same way, God calls upon the Earth to create vegetation and the Earth says, “Why, yes, that sounds lovely, let’s do it!” And God invites the waters to, once again, be a part of creating, bringing forth creatures. And the earth brings forth animals who are called upon to be fruitful and multiply. And even humans are invited into this dance of creation as God gives us our marching orders and tells us to care for creation. 

Partnership. Co-creation with God. And, of course, many Christians have, for far too long, interpreted our call to have “dominion” over the natural world as permission to misuse the Earth. But if we are created in God’s image and God rules in partnership, not as a bossy monarch but as a benevolent protector, aren’t we called to do the same? 

Our God invites us to be co-creators and protectors of our home, the Earth. 

THE THIRD CANDLE 

Through it all, it’s very clear that God cares about the physical world. God is not some floating-off-in-the-ether God who only cares about ideas and spirits. God is in the mess with us. Not just in this story, of course, but in all of our sacred stories. And so we are invited to be about the work of caring about bodies. All kinds of bodies. We are called to wrestle with difficult stories of violence against bodies. And celebrate all the amazing things bodies can do. And seek embodied joy and pleasure. And respect each person’s sacred right to bodily autonomy. And grieve when our bodies get sick and people die. And make sure bellies are fed and touch is safe and healthcare is available and on and on….

We are called to dig our toes into the dirt and walk as embodied people, in all the complexity of that. With ears and hearts open. Because God cares about the entirety of the created world. Including our bodies. 

THE FOURTH CANDLE 

Speaking of bodies - bodies need rest and bodies need meaningful work. You may recall that this story builds towards day seven. And on day seven, do you remember what God does? REST. That’s right, the Sabbath. 

Now what you might NOT know is something I learned from one of my favorite podcasts, BibleWorm, this week. (Silly name, great podcast.) I learned that lots of other ancient creation stories also build towards something at the end. Order is created from chaos and the culmination is often a temple or some other structure that keeps chaos at bay. But the temple that’s created at the end of our creation story in Genesis 1 is the Sabbath. 

Rest is not only permissible, it’s essential. Even for God, y’all. 

Which means we who are created in God’s image as co-creators with Love, are also made to rest. Now we’re not made to rest all the time, mind. Please note that on the other six days, God is doing a whole lotta work. But we are created to be in this sacred rhythm of doing the work and resting, doing the work and resting, doing the work and resting. 

And so - hands out again - remembering that we’re holding all of this with God’s help - we are reminded that we worship a God who calls us into important work AND a God who models for us that no one can or should work every moment of every day. 

The work of creation is sacred. 

The work of rest is sacred. 

God is embodied in all of it, seeking to create order from chaos. 

Even here. Even now. Thanks be to God.