Sunday, September 10, 2017

Better Together


The Creation stories of Genesis 1 and 2                                                          
God’s Work, Our Hands Sunday

On Wednesday evening this week, in spite of some communication gaps and general confusion, most of our Confirmation families got together and shared a meal – this year, we have 17 kids in Confirmation (!), a peak year for us for the foreseeable future. I shared why it’s important that we get together and what we’ll be doing this fall. We spoke our summer highlights into the room (with some sadness that summer adventures and summer schedules are past for now), and we blessed each other before we left…. Or I should say, before some very high volume foosball and ping pong got underway. One mom told me later that her 6th grader LOVES confirmation.

On Thursday night, 14 of us gathered at the invitation of the Isaiah Core Team to tell our stories of pain in our present everyday life— people shared experiences of racism, the expense of health care, the broken systems we have to address mental illness and addictions, financial fears when money is very tight, and fears about deportation of our neighbors, fears about the health of the earth in a season when one record hurricane follows another in just over a week…we told our stories around the circle and noticed the big picture stories that the dominant white culture of the U.S. holds up. The lies are powerful—there is not enough to go around, you better protect what you have & make sure you have enough for you & your family because that’s all on you, you better not tell about your pain because people are not compassionate–your pain will be your fault. We noticed how these lies keep us isolated, unconscious to how much we share, and how very interconnected we can become… but that there’s power in recognizing our connections.

Then, on Saturday, some of us gathered in the morning to work outside in Peace garden, preparing the ground for new plantings in the spring along the west side of the building. Others practiced Cambodian music upstairs. Still others prepared fleece for our blanket tying service project—one of three projects we’ll do together after worship. On Saturday evening, we gathered for our fourth Second Saturday meal and story—this time, featuring Thaly Cavanaugh’s marvelous Cambodian meal and her story of her journey from Cambodia to Minnesota, a story of deep suffering and incredible resiliency.

Sharing food together, singing together, sharing work, sharing our stories, sharing our highs and lows draws us closer to one another and helps us to notice the presence of God in new ways, not only as we gather, but as we are sent into our daily lives.

Behold, a new creation! Everything is becoming new…
This year, we are trying something new in worship—it’s called the Narrative lectionary—and what that means is that we are going to try to get more deeply in touch with God’s big story, God’s big narrative, as we read stories from the Bible together. We start today with stories of Creation from the first chapters of Genesis, and each week this fall, we’ll move through stories from the Hebrew scriptures (sometimes called the Old Testament), so we can get to know them better… again or for the first time.
We don’t necessarily assume that we all know these stories. A pastor or seminarian told me a story of sharing with church people that there was more than one creation story in the Bible, and this was totally new to them.
Over the years, there have sometimes been arguments about whether the creation really took place in seven days… and here’s what we learn about that argument today. Not even the Bible tells the story in just that one way. Genesis one paints the story of creation in seven big days. Genesis two describes it as happening all at once. The stories are not about literal details… the stories of creation are about God’s presence in everything that happened, whether it was a day or a million years. I think that the people who told these stories, passing them on from generation to generation, and much, much later, who wrote them down… wanted to communicate these things:

God was involved from the very beginning. Remember God’s Spirit, hovering over the void, the empty universe, the face of the deep, the watery nothingness? Even way back then before everything we think of as something… God was.
The storytellers of Genesis wanted us to know:
God loves to create something from nothing. We know this… but this story paints it in beautiful detail. The beautiful creation wasn’t created from the violence and jealousies of gods. No, from the cosmically big to the tiniest part of creation, God creates beautiful variety… and calls all good. And there was evening and there was morning, and each day… some more was created and blessed.
OR according to that second, all-in-one version of the story, God creates Adam (the earth person, the one formed from the ground, and isn’t satisfied until God surrounds the human with food to eat, a tree of life, creatures to be in relationship with… and finally a partner).
And God thinks this whole creation, the work and the rest, is good.

You might notice that on your bulletin cover, there is word art. Typically, this type of word art is generated by a computer program that measures frequency—how often the word shows up. But, on this example, if that was the case, some of the words would be different sizes.
God, absolutely should be the biggest. In just these two chapters of Genesis, God appears 42 times! But the word “over” is nothing like that often. Yes, God’s Spirit hovers over the deep and in the storytellers’ view, the sun and moon are over the day and night. But all in all, over shows up just 10 times. What shows up more? Earth = 26 times. Day = 16 times. Water = 12 times. Good = 11 times. And one of those times… very good.

So, if I were going to design the word art for the cover, the biggest words would be God, earth, day, waters, good… and doesn’t that have a different feel? I think you’ll find that as we get deeper into the stories that point us to God’s big story this season, the way that we’ve sometimes taken in these stories, in the middle of all the stories we live everyday—has trapped us in cycles of thinking we are alone, we are powerless, we are sad, lonely, and fearful all by ourselves.
But God’s story is trying to communicate something so different to us—that God created us from the very beginning in community and that we are better together. We are stronger the more deeply we realize our ties to the whole creation. We have the opportunity for more hope and solidarity, for purpose and meaningful work, when we listen to one another and see ourselves as partners. And… yes, this creation bit is all God’s good work, but God wants our participation. Or as our church names it on this day, it’s God’s work using our hands.

So whatever you have brought of yourself to worship this Sunday, remember we are better because you are here. That’s the way it’s been since the very beginning when God was creating all things new… and that’s the work that God is still doing, drawing people together because we’re better together, and through the Holy Spirit—that same Spirit that hovered over the deep in the very beginning—God is still calling & strengthening us to be God’s creative partners through all the twists and turns of daily life.

How will God use your hands, your feet, your story this week? Who knows…

But watch for it… because that’s how God works—in and through, over and under—we’ll practice here after worship: putting together Kids Kits and tying blankets for children who have experienced disasters in their communities and moving out into our own neighborhood to lend a helping hand. But what we practice here is just to reaffirm that this is the work we’re called to each day as we walk with the One who is making all things new.

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