Original Goodness

Intro

The opening chapter of the Bible.

The first of 2 creation stories we have in Genesis.

Written FOR us, but not TO us.

Not written down as it happened. In the moment.

Not even written down a short while later to make a scientific text.

Not a newspaper article or an op-ed.

Written down during the Babylonian exile.

During chaos. And the unthinkable removal of God’s people from the holy city Jerusalem.

So they had to have been asking, “What is going on? Who is God, really? Who are we? What is this world really all about?”

Genesis 1 is one account of the beginning of things. But not the only one. Genesis 2 has a different version. Not contradictory exactly, but not the same. And that’s ok. But Genesis 1 reads like poetry, like music. Genesis 1 gives us a description of a creative and collaborative God and an account of the creation brought into being…

It’s a familiar passage, yes. But also a passage often referred to without actually paying attention to the details.

So today, we’ll do 2 things to help us pay attention:

We’ll read it in the Common English Bible which is worded differently than the NIV or the King James with which our ears are likely more familiar. That difference might help us listen better.

As the days of the creation week come to a close and whenever God sees the goodness of what has been made, we’ll join our voices with the reader and say those bits out loud. You’ll see them in yellow on the screen.

Dean, Melanie, would you come and lead us in the reading of God’s Word?

Well. What did you notice? What jumped out at you as we read this passage?

I was struck by a number of things this week and I want to share 3 of them with you this morning.

The Goodness of Creation

First, I noticed how much Genesis 1 affirms the goodness of creation. Over and over, God creates and then says, “This is good.” Now, any of you who cook or paint or build things… you’ve done this. You’ve worked a little and then you’ve stepped back and admired what you’ve done. It comes naturally…

[back page of NL notes]

The reason this idea of the original goodness of creation is so important is that very often, far too often, the Christian story begins with sin. I mean, the Christian story doesn’t begin with sin. But we start there. We start by announcing a problem. And then announcing the solution to that problem.

But that’s not the whole story.

CREATION - COVENANT - CHRIST - CHURCH - NEW HEAVEN & EARTH

Where we begin has an impact on the story we tell. And for many of us, we haven’t really known what to do with the last part of the Christian story because we started in the wrong spot. We didn’t start out in a GOOD place. We started with a mistake. With broken things. But when you read Genesis 1 well, and then 2 and 3 (the fall) … well then a new creation - a new heaven and earth makes sense as the place where this whole story is ultimately heading. Where as Sally Lloyd-Jones puts it,

“Look! God and his children are together again. No more running away. Or hiding.

No more crying or being lonely or afraid. No more being sick or dying. Because all those things are gone. Yes, they’re gone forever. Everything sad has come untrue. And see – I have wiped away every tear from every eye!” And then a deep, beautiful voice that sounded like thunder in the sky says, “Look, I am making everything new!” (A Dream of Heaven: Revelation from the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones)

I am struck by how the beginning of the Christian story is goodness. Original goodness.

A good God enjoying the fruit of creativity, basking in the goodness of the creation that was a natural outflow of the Divine life that is at the centre of Reality.

God makes a judgement in the very first chapter of the Bible.

God’s first judgement is to look at creation, to step back and to say, “Good. Very good.”

Indigenous theologian Randy Woodley puts it this way in his book Shalom and the Community of Creation:

When God says all creation is good, this judgement is not a light opinion about the state of creation; it is a royal decree. In the pronouncement that “it is good,” the Creator is making an accurate judgment about all that exists.

God knows what is good. God knows, better than anyone, what right-relatedness looks and feels like. And when God creates a universe that is interactive and interconnected, it is good. It relates to itself and to its Maker in the way it is meant to. Humans included, but not humans alone.

And, as I mentioned before, once we start thinking about how this impacts US, how this works for humans, we often squeeze out any thought to how this works for the rest of creation. We put ourselves at the centre of it all and forget that Jesus has promised not just to make us new, but to makes EVERYTHING new. Not a few lucky humans rescued from a wrecked creation and whisked off to some celestial escape. No. A new heaven and a new earth. (But again, a new heaven & a new earth doesn’t make sense as the story’s end if you don’t start at the very beginning.)

Ok. So the story begins with GOODNESS. A good God, makes a good creation.

Creation includes collaboration and making space for something to emerge

The second thing that stuck out to me as I read and re-read the text was how this account of creation shows God making space for things to emerge. And God collaborating with parts of that creation.

Now, I am, and you may be, familiar with the idea of humans as collaborators with God. As co-creators even.

But what I hadn’t noticed before was the collaboration God had with creation BEFORE humans were introduced.

We are so sure that we’re the centre of the story that we skip over the bits before we arrived.

Look there in vs 9… “Let the waters under the sky come together into one place so that the dry land can appear.” Not God made dry land. But God made space for something to emerge.

The land. God doesn’t create the land. It emerges when God moves the waters… God makes space for something to emerge and the land emerges.

And then the land, God calls earth … and God beckons the earth to produce vegetation. Look in vs :????

God didn’t plant a bunch of seeds and then wait for them to grow.

God beckoned the earth to produce and sure enough, it had the capacity to respond to the divine invitation and not only produce something, but produce something that could keep reproducing. Seed-bearing plants. God knew the earth’s capacity even if the earth didn’t know. Hm. Making space. Collaborating. Hm.

The Human mandate: Image-bearers as stewards

God gave humans a unique call. As God’s image-bearers, we are invited to tend and cultivate and steward creation in ways that lead to the flourishing of the whole creation.

The third thing I noticed this week was that most of humans call is in common with the Creator’s call to the animals: Be fertile and multiple - or as we might be more familiar with the King James on this one, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

That’s not our call alone. That’s the call to all the creatures, both animal and human.

But to the image-bearers, to the humans, there is an extra responsibility given…

Fill the earth and subdue it. And rule over, or have dominion over the creatures...

Prosper. Reproduce. Okay. Those are more easy to understand.

But then take charge. Subdue. Have dominion over.

We quickly end up in a place where “have dominion” becomes “dominate”… and here’s where you can see things spiral out of control.

So what does this mastery, this dominion and subjugation really mean?

Well, it seems to me that it matters greatly that these commands follow right on the heels of the creation of humans as image-bearers of the divine. We cannot separate the two ideas. And so, what does it look like when God has power? What does God do with that power? How does God master creation? How does God have dominion over all that God made? What is “God’s pattern of power”?

In creation, we have already seen that God speaks things into being. “Let there be light.” And there was. Power on display.

But there has also been the use of power that makes space and collaborates. God isn’t without the power to create dry land or to fill that land with vegetation. But God chooses to invite, to make space for and to co-create. God’s pattern of power even within creation is multi-faceted.

And then, if we keep following God’s pattern of power throughout the rest of the Old Testament, we will see God use God’s power not just for the sake of that power, but in order to bring about the flourishing of God’s people. The whole exodus narrative is full of mighty acts of power.

But we also can trace God’s invitation to God’s people to use what power they have - which will sometimes be more and other times less - to bless those around them. God will again and again instruct God’s people to care for the widow/orphan/stranger among them. Part of bearing the image of God is to express practical care and concern for those who are most easily kept on the margins. Power, but perhaps not the kind of power we usually think of.

Finally, and most dramatically, we see in Jesus what God’s pattern of power is. A life lived to bring about the flourishing of others, and ultimately of the entire creation. The High King of heaven on a path of downward mobility. Power expressed in sacrifice.

Now, look again at the call to humans in Genesis 1.

When we look at it through the lens of the character of the One who issues the call, doesn’t it seem much more like a call to bear responsibility for, a call to tend and nurture creation? To take charge in such a way that it flourishes under our care?

The God whose image we bear demonstrates a pattern of power that revolutionizes how we care for one another and for the world in which we live.

Conclusion

A familiar text. A common theme. Creation.

But perhaps a few things to consider that might otherwise be overlooked. (Working in reverse order…)

A call to bear the image of the creator even as we fulfill our human mandate as stewards and managers of creation.

An invitation to make space for and collaborate with one another and with creation itself. And a reminder that God is still making space and collaborating - with us and with all that God has made.

And finally, a reminder that God’s first judgment matters. We live in a world that God called GOOD. The most original thing in this world is not SIN, but goodness. And beginning there will have a huge impact on the story we tell and the story we live.

Let’s pray…

SONG: Goodness of God

At the Table

God made a good creation.

Goodness is the first thing. (Not sin. Not broken things. Not a flawed humanity.)

And this is affirmed when God takes on human flesh. Walks this earth. Demonstrates what God is like and what Humans can be.

God collaborates and makes space for things to emerge.

In our lives, in our church, in our city and in our world, THIS IS REALLY GOOD NEWS.

Chaos? God can work with that? God can make space for something to emerge. God can beckon creation, including us, to bring forth what we didn’t realize we had in us. Just as God invited the earth to produce vegetation, what might God be inviting US to bring forth? Where is God beckoning you or me? Where is God’s invitation for us as a community? What might be emerging during this time - during this “we thought Covid would be over, but here we are navigating a fourth wave moment?”

And then finally, God gave humans a unique call. As God’s image-bearers, we are invited to tend and cultivate and steward creation in ways that lead to the flourishing of the whole creation.

And so this table represents this for us… it is not a spiritual table. It is not an idea. It is a real thing. Someone chopped down a tree and cut it and sanded it and put it together and varnished it.

This bread didn’t fall from the sky as bread/ This juice didn’t just arrive as juice. But we took the stuff of earth - and someone fashioned it. And then Libby purchased it. And prepared it for us so that we could all take part in this feast together. And, even though we managed to celebrate communion over Zoom during the past 18 months, it lacked something. For those of you living alone especially, you experienced a weird kind of communion … where we together, but also apart. Because this meal is not only about a human communing with the divine, it’s entering into a family feast where God is present, yes. But present to us in the community of a local church. Gathered as image bearers with other image bearers to remember and to be re-membered as the Body of Christ.

INVITATION TO THE TABLE

Come to this table, not because you must but because you may, not because you are strong, but because you are weak. Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come, but because you need mercy and help. Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more. Come, because he loved you and gave himself for you. Come and meet the risen Christ, for we are his Body.

PRAYER

Creating God, You look at the world and see deeper truths that we ignore.

You see the possibility underneath the disarray, and we confess that we instead see problems only force can solve.

You see Your creation’s capacity for continued creativity, and we confess that we instead see something to exploit.

You see how pruning and setting boundaries make space for flourishing, and we confess that we instead see only the loss of our comfortable old unhealthy ways.

Forgive us for turning aside from our role as Your representatives on earth.

Forgive us, for we who are made in Your image do not prefer Your pattern of power.

Forgive us when we forget that our goodness is bound up with all the wonders created by Your word, which You call good, together.

Renew Your image within us that we may reflect Your will and Your way. Amen.

INSTITUTION

The apostle Paul tells us of the institution of the Lord’s Supper: For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

THANKSGIVING (extemporaneous)

THE BREAKING OF BREAD The bread may now be lifted and broken with the words Jesus said, ‘This is my body which is for you; do this in memory of me’. Take this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.

THE LIFTING OF THE CUP The cup may now be raised in full view of the congregation with such words as In the same way, he took the cup after supper, and said: ‘This cup is the new covenant sealed by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this in memory of me.’

[serving]

SHARING THE BREAD & WINE Take this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving. Drink this and remember that Christ’s blood was shed for you and be thankful.

Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far o you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and living, he declared your love, gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory. May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world. Keep us 2rm in the hope you have set before us, so we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SONG/PRAYER: Teach Us Your Ways

BENEDICTION