.It’s A Beautiful World, but What Happened? Plan, Mystery or Design Flaw? Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:4a What inspires awe for you? Is it the night sky, or maybe the sun rising over the ocean? It is the steady roll of the waves washing the shore, the mountains or the forest? Or perhaps it is the sight of the harbor islands seen from the airplane window, as you take off from Logan airport? Or a flock or birds, gathered in formation to fly South for the winter. I’ve noticed that as I have grown older, I need to remember to pause for awe. So often I am too busy doing things I think are important to remember awe. I love to see small children encountering the wonder of the universe for the first time. Children have such a great capacity for awe. I see it in the way they crouch and watch the journey of an ant across the sidewalk in front of them. Or when they look up with crooked necks to see the birds fly back and forth building a nest. Or when they ask questions, many questions, about the planets, the moon and the stars, and things of the universe. Our son, Ben, used to ask a lot of questions. These questions were difficult to answer. He had a very enquiring mind, and as he learned more and more his questions became more and more difficult. Around the age of 5, as I was driving him and his sisters to an errand, he asked from the back of the car “Mommy, what happens when you come to the end of the universe?” And on another occasion, again in the car, “since the sun is a ball of gases, why doesn’t it just explode into space?” I usually replied something like “I don’t know the answer … but that’s a very good question.” It’s tough when your five year old is reaching the limits of human knowledge. But later a seminary professor, who had younger children herself, told me she had three answers to the perplexing questions, that children ask:
For Christians and other faiths who experience God as creator, the first chapter of Genesis, that we read this morning, describes something we can ponder as both God’s purpose and plan and also as a divine mystery. The excerpt we read today is the Bible’s first story of creation, most likely imagined by astronomers and philosophers. It is a poetic view of the beginning of the universe. The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. The Hebrew word used for the wind from God is ru’ah, meaning God’s breath or God’s Spirit. As the God’s breath swept over the face of the waters, God spoke the universe into being, “let there be light!” The prologue to John’s gospel riffs on the first story in Genesis, describing Christ as the Word of God, in Greek “Logos”: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Logos was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Logos, and without Logos not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Logos was life, and the life was the light of all people. From the very beginning, God the creator is in relationship, with the Word and the Spirit. For myself, scientific understanding of the beginning of the cosmos only enhances my awe. But, even as I ponder creation as God’s plan and also mystery, I must admit there’s also something I think of as the third option: a design flaw. Then God said, "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." So God created humankind in God’s image. God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion … over every living thing that moves upon the earth." God was talking to Godself. It was a conversation among the persons of Trinity. The Creator, Word and Spirit, having an internal dialogue, deciding to create humanity, in their own image. A great idea? Maybe not. The idea only gets worse as God created humankind in God’s image and then gave dominion over every living thing on the earth. The beautiful green and blue planet is created, and made lush with vegetation, plants, fruits, and vegetables. It is pristine, filled with clear oceans, pure fresh rivers and lakes. Birds call from the trees. Animals gather around watering holes at dusk. Gazelle sprint across the savanna. Of course, there is killing and what seems cruel from a human perspective. But the order is established. Animals only act according to their nature and instincts. Eco-systems flourish. Species emerge and die away, evolution takes its course. In the midst of this beauty, what was God, the Trinity, thinking, creating humankind, even in their image? Why did they bless the humans and tell them to be fruitful and multiply? And so it seems, the flaw begins. Human beings cannot grasp the principle of dominion, which means stewardship and care. Instead they twist the interpretation to mean “domination” and then they set about taking control. The result, we can see today, is desecration of the environment. Instead of living in harmony with the natural world, humans have destroyed the habitat for many species. Now it seems we are going to destroy our own habitat too. Humankind seems prone to abuse the invitation to partner with God in caring for one another and for the world. And this impulse to domination and control leads to dis-connection. As we have tried to suppress the restraints of the natural world, we became disconnected from the ebb and flow of creation’s rhythms. We made artificial light and then used it to allow ourselves to work night and day, instead of taking time for rest. When we fail to pause for rest, our relationships with God and with one another get lost in the busy-ness. As we have sought to harvest resources from the natural world, for energy and products, we have become greedy. Our relationships with others have broken down, and we fight over distribution of those resources. What is blessed about our frail and flawed species? And how is it that we are created in the image of God? To answer these questions, I believe we need to turn to the perspective of God as Trinity. In the book “The Divine Dance”, Richard Rohr proposes that for much of Christian history, we have been living with a faulty understanding of God. We have often been given to understand God as a “critical spectator”, existing in isolation, sitting back and judging humankind and the mess we are making. Fr. Rohr and his co-author, Mike Morrell, tell us we are ripe for a paradigm shift in our understanding. We are being called embrace the understanding of the Trinity first expressed by the ancient Christian mystics. This understanding sees God as the as “the Ultimate Participant, in everything – both the good and the painful.”[1] This perspective re-tells the creation story, saying “in the beginning was relationship.” Jesus emphasized God’s existence in relationship all the time, frequently referring to God as the Father, and himself as the Son. To be Father or Mother means to be in relationship. There is no parent without a child. In the same way, to be Son or Daughter is only found in relationship. And so, according to Fr. Rohr’s understanding, God is not an isolated judge in the sky looking down on a completed creation. Rather God is participating in the world, inviting us to be restored to relationship with Godself. This truth is “embedded in creation” as he puts it. It was always God’s intention that the Word, who was in relationship with the Creator since the beginning, would come to dwell with us in the person of Jesus. Sadly, many people have seen God coming to live with us, in the vulnerable infant Jesus, as the bailout plan. When humans began to mess things up, the Son was sent to “pay the price” and die on the cross for our sins. But, when we see God as divine relationship, creating us for relationship, our understanding of sin is different. It is less a consequence of violating rules written in a book, more a denial of our original blessedness and reflection of God’s image. When we embrace the idea that we are created to participate with God, in relationship with the world, we are moved to relationship with one another and with all living things. We see God’s relationship with the world as non-dominance. We see Jesus’ life as an invitation to us to participate in God’s reconciliation of all things to Godself. If we can begin to understand things in these terms, perhaps we can begin to restore connectedness in our lives. Connectedness to the natural world, connectedness to one another and to God. This, I believe, begins with awe,
All this, I am convinced, will bring us to awe of our mysterious, unknowable God. God not distant, but participatory living, Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit, in the in-breath of awe and the out-breath of wonder. And so, like children, in awe of the wonder of the universe, I imagine us turning to God and asking questions: Why, Holy One, did you create humans so frail and flawed, and continue to dwell among us? It was God’s plan from the beginning. Why Holy One, do human beings constantly turn away from relationship with you? It is a mystery. And so, what, Holy One, is the design flaw? There is no flaw. Let all of God’s people say Amen. [1] Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance, (Whitaker House, New Kensington, PA, 2016), 36
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
If you enjoy a sermon or have a question, please leave a comment. If you would like to quote any of my material in your own sermons or writings, please use appropriate attribution. I look forward to hearing from you!Archives
April 2022
Categories |