Creation by the Word

Genesis 1:1–2:4 NRSV

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 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. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 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 his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 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 of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,

I’ve been out wandering in the woods a bit these last few weeks. End of the summer, the transition to fall, last grasps at finding life before the onset of the decay towards winter. The cycle goes, on and on again. It is beautiful. 

Sure, I could be just this odd guy who is attempting to “forest bathe” or find weird new routes to traverse, but there is a deeper stirring in me. I want to be enchanted with the world again. 

It’s the stuff of fairytales and myths. Ancient stories where the world was deeper and stranger and more than what we’ve reduced it to. Enchantment. Beauty. Wonder. Delight. Awe. 

In the forest, under old and strong trees, is a floor of abundance. Even as the limbs break off and give away, there is new life springing up all around the ground. Even in the early days of September, fresh sprouts of maple shoot up, defiant against the coming frosts and snow. These little warriors have not lost their enchantment, they have never known anything else. Stretch to the light, find a way forward, grow where you are and thrive as long as you can. 

Enchantment may lead us to think of a spell being cast or a state of disconnection with reality. Rosy-colored glasses. And so we shun enchantment, magic, mystery. We seek order and control. As I walk through the forest, I’m flanked by piles and piles of branches that have been collected by Forest Service workers, their diligent protective work of keeping homes near the forest safe from the inevitable fire that also comes through this time of year. I am thank for these mechanisms of control…they protect and sustain our communities. And…I want the wild. 

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This week we begin our new year, a strange cycle of beginning at the time when all is in it’s fullness and leaning towards declining. And I’ve been contemplating what the story of new creation has for us in this disenchanted/reenchanted world. 

The ancient stories tell us that before the earth had any form, before light and dark and day and night, that the Holy One hovered over the waters of the deep. Historians and philosophers explain this hovering as a divine detachment from the chaos of the aether. God hovers above what is yet to be cultivated and ordered. 

I wonder, before the words were spoken, at what strange form of enchanted, magical, wildness exists. I say “exists” not “existed” because at some level, isn’t the ongoing act of creation something that hovers over the chaos of our days and seeks to make meaning of it, in spite of the tumult? 

And as the story goes, it does not say that a big old man in the sky set about constructing the cosmos. Yes, we hear of lights in the sky and land separated from waters. But this is not in some intricatly designed step-by-step process. Rather, God speaks. God’s WORD moves out over the waters and calls forth existence. Have we lost this mighty truth? It is not action, but word that speaks into being. Word calls forth meaning from the chaos. Word names reality, but also WORD fitfully and committedly seeks to make meaning out of what is meaningless.

Formless and void. And then…teeming. Abundant. Full. Alive. 

If we take a survey of God’s actions throughout the ancient texts, we see time and again that it is out of God’s voice, God’s word, that life awakens. God spoke over the waters and separated them from the land. God called forth the lights in the sky and set them in their spheres. The Word, which we also call the Christ, is how God speaks forth this enchantment upon what is otherwise empty. 

Some people speculate at what existed before the Big Bang, before the Word spoke over Creation. What existed before Creation? We have this lingering wonder at the possibility that even what we see as this enchanted world is, somehow, only secondary to some larger existence of God’s living Word. Physicists wonder if the immense explosion of our enchanted cosmos came after the collapse of a previous universe, that one feeds life into the next. Philosophers and theologians wonder at the Councils of the Divine that step outside of reality and dictate the order of things. I mean, come on, even modern day comic books wonder at the Watcher behind everything or the great cosmic, celestial forces at work, with us only here below, watching, waiting, wondering. 

We need to reclaim this wonder. It seems we have become so disenchanted with ourselves, with our petty squabbles and politics and fears…that we’ve lost our ability to hear the WORD which speaks over Creation. Our worlds have grown small. Our gaze has fallen too close to our navels. Our phones. Our neuroses. 

This year, we’re going to walk through the narrative of the Scriptures, relearning the story and, hopefully, discovering some of the richness of wonder, myth, and awe at its heart. These are not scientific journals or reports from a front-line reporter. These are ancient stories, passed down, contemplated, wrestled with, through the generations.

I came across a word in the last few years that I’ve found especially chewy and enjoyable. Mythos. Mythos. 

mythos | ˈmiˌTHōs |

noun (plural mythoi) mainly technical

a myth or mythology: the Arthurian mythos.

• (in literature) a traditional or recurrent narrative theme or plot structure.

• a set of beliefs or assumptions about something: the rhetoric and mythos of science create the comforting image of linear progression toward truth.

I first encountered it, of course, related to a series of comicbooks by one of my favorite authors. But it kept coming back up. I found it again last year as I explored some of the ancient British/Welsh mythology around King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I found it in books about language and poetry, helping us describe the collected set of beliefs or assumptions about a story. A mythos creates clear imagery and imagination for a particular story. 

Let me give you an example. What color are the robes of the hobbits in the Fellowship of the Ring? Green. And what do they fasten with at the neck? A leaf broach from the woods of Lorien. Ok, these two little details are examples of elements of a mythos, a set of collected images and ideas that enrich and clarify the story. They, along with many other details, lore, old stories and fresh narratives, incorporate to what J.R.R. Tolkien established as the mythos of the Lord of the Rings. It is the accompanying structure that builds the narrative of the story. 

Before I lose everyone in my strange imagination…what does this have to do with the Creation story? 

Well, what if we didn’t have to be so disenchanted with existence? What if the Creator of All Things spoke the WORD out into existence and therefore has enchanted our world with rich mythology, story, fable, details, and heart? What if we’ve turned all the wonder of Creation into scientific speculation or recorded fact, which ultimately suppresses wonder, truth, and hope? Sure, we know things about the world. Whatever existed in the formless void before Creation, we at least have some understanding of plate tectonics, evolutionary adaptation, and the cycles of the moon. 

I want to pose an idea: The Scriptures of the people of God, they are so much less a manual or a history, as they are an expansive narrative of God’s WORD, speaking into our chaos, and making meaning from all that would seem meaningless. 

What if we are able to become reenchanted with this amazing story and unfolding mythos of Creation? What if we could venture out into the woods and see the sprouts of life fighting against all the suffering and decay? 

God spoke into being this masterpiece of our world. I actually don’t much care for whether we need the details to all match the scientific record or whether we discount it all. Rather, what if we could look upon the chaos of our lives and wonder…what might God speak into being here? 

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And so, the Word spoke. Seas and forests. Mountains and glaciers. Deer, giraffes, frogs. Fungus, bugs, cattle, cats and dogs. Fish and microbes. Friends…we’ve got to open our eyes. There is wonder all around us. 

So what? So what if we get all la-la and fall back in love with Creation? Are we supposed to ignore the troubles we face? Should we, as I do, just go sit on a rock amongst the trees and hide away from it all? 

The So What is clear, at least as the witness of these ancient texts tells us: We are now co-creators with God. Along with all of these wonderful things, God breathed into reality you and me. Humanity. Consciousness. The Spark of Life, something different than what we encounter elsewhere in the world, something sacred and good. Actually, in the account of the Creation from Genesis, we hear that the final creation on the sixth day was humanity, humus, ha adam, all words connected to the meaning, “from the earth.” Out of the chaos, God speaks into being this whole mythos of matter and life and rhythms of seasons and cold and warm and light and dark AND…then…God animates human life. 

God’s breath pours out over the waters, forming the formless with the WORD. God’s word orders the cosmos, setting the lights on their paths. And finally, God comes intimately close to this strange, new form of existence, humanity, and actually breathes the word deep into our lungs. We have that breath, that Ruah, that Spirit in us. By God’s handiwork. 

And therefore, we are messengers of that Word. We now go forth and speak enchanted goodness upon Creation. Oh how glorious this task! And Oh, how we have lost our ability to speak.

My prayer is that as we explore the sacred mythos of God’s word, we could come to know our part in it. That this narrative is something we share as humanity and it is our call to pass it on. To take our children to the trees and tell them what we know of them. To take care of our world because it has been stewarded to us. 

I sat down and wrote this sermon, back indoors, as an immense forest fire raged just a couple of mountain ridges away. Creation is burning. And while a late-summer forest fire is a natural part of the ecosystem resetting, we also know that the world beyond is burning. And I feel strained to know what I’m supposed to do to help. 

But…what I do know how to do…is put some words out into the world, in hope, that they might make meaning for others and become a part of my contribution to the great Creative, unfolding work of God. Those words might make the world new. 

And God spoke over the chaos…and it was/is/will be very good. 

What if we are simply to take care of this place and each other? Evil divides and binds. To even care and love in suffering, isn’t that it? And as the Psalmist prayed, so we pray, “may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you, Oh God, our Rock and our salvation.” Amen.