Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:1-11 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
This morning, we have our last primary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. Next week we will move into the New Testament. So, I thought it might be helpful for us to take a look back. To try to see the bigger story. After all, hindsight is 20/20. Right?
It all began with God’s Word. With God’s living Word. In the midst of chaos and darkness, God spoke. And out of God’s living word, the darkness and chaos was ordered into a beautiful world. Water was created and formed into oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams. And land. Land was shaped into the form of mountains, hills, valleys, mesas, and plains. God simply spoke the Word and it was so.
God loved God’s creation. Everything. And, in particular, God really loved this mysterious thing called life.
Life isn’t something we can really explain, is it? Scott and Sarah, as we prepare to baptize Reese, I'm wondering if, when she was born, her life didn't just take your breath away. That there were no words to fully describe this mysterious and beautiful new creation.
God created life in the plants and animals of earth. God created a special form of life to dwell on Earth--beings who would consciously enjoy the Creator and would help the Creator take care of earth. God called this special being “human.” Which means “earth creature” or “creature of the soil.”
These partners with God enjoyed God and they helped the Creator take care of the beautiful garden called Earth. They lived in friendship--with God, with each other, and with all creation.
God smiled. This was working! What joy God had as God watched everything in balance--as each part fit the whole. Everyone had enough. And the partner humans loved God and helped God. It was good. It was really, really good!
And, then, it all fell apart. Humans decided that they could find joy in ways other than living as partners with God. Humans decided to find joy by becoming BIG DEALS.
How did humans know if they were BIG DEALS? They knew by bossing other humans around, by piling up stuff, by dominating nature, and by reaching glorious heights of health and beauty and knowledge. They also knew by competing with each other, by always trying to be more of a BIG DEAL than others.
They gathered into groups--clans, tribes, and nations. Each group wanted to be better than the others. They invented oppression and war. Because, you know, to oppress and to defeat others makes you a really BIG DEAL.
God groaned. Earth groaned. All living things groaned. The whole universe wept. Sorrow filled the cosmos.
God thought about destroying everything. It would take one snap of the fingers. One word. But, this made God really sad because God loved what God had created.
So, God thought of another way. At first, God thought about acting like the real BIG DEAL. By terrorizing the humans into submission. But, the more that God thought about it, the more God realized that this would only be using their method.
So God, in love, decided on another way. It’s a really long story--a story of friendship and passion, of promise and disappointment, of hope and of self-giving love. It is a story of God mending the universe.
It began with God making a promise to one man--Abraham. It was a promise that God would make Abraham into a large people--into God’s people. And that God would bless them so they could be a blessing to others.
For a while it was good. Everyone lived in harmony together. But, then, Egypt--another people, another nation--began to oppress Abraham’s descendants. They cried out to God. God heard them. God recruited Moses--who was a pretty reluctant guy--to help free God’s people from Egypt.
It happened.
God’s plan was that Moses would take Israel--God’s people--to a new land. A place where they could live together as God intended. But, along the way, it began to fall apart. God’s people wanted to become BIG DEALS again.
So, God led them into the wilderness. The wilderness was God’s classroom. They learned alot there. It was also in the wilderness that God entered into a covenant with Moses. God promised to be Israel’s God and they, in gratitude, would live as God’s people. God spoke the Word in the form of the Ten Commandments. This was a covenant gift to show them how to live as God’s people on the land. How to be faithful to God and to each other.
It was also in the wilderness that God gave the gift of worship. Worship was a special time to remember, to retell, and to give thanks for God’s saving acts in history, especially the great liberation from Egypt.
Israel graduated from the wilderness school. They settled down in the land God had promised them. It was good. But, just as had happened so many times before, everything began to fall apart. They wanted to, once again, be BIG DEALS.
So God gave them a series of kings because they wanted to be like (and compete with) neighboring nations. One of these kings was David.
God loved David. And, even though he had his problems, David was faithful. God promised that David and his descendants would rule forever and ever.
For awhile it was good. Then, it began to all fall apart. One of David’s descendants, began to oppress the people, just like the pharaoh in Egypt. This led to division. The people split in two, part in the north and part in the south. More and more, they turned from God and worshiped their own stuff and the gods of their neighbors. Except for a very few, nobody loved God with their heart and their soul and their strength.
There was catastrophe coming. God sent prophets to warn them. But, the people wouldn’t listen. First, the northern part was destroyed. Then, the Babylonians, destroyed the southern part and led the people back to Babylon in chains. They were exiles, torn from everything familiar.
Back in the wilderness. Once again.
Since our celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this past October, the first of the 95 theses that Martin Luther posted on the church door in Wittenberg has been stuck in my mind. I’ve shared it before. It reads, “When Jesus said, “repent, he meant that believers should live their entire lives in a state of repentance.”
Repentence is a turning back to God. The realization that we can’t go it alone. That we are not enough of a BIG DEAL apart from God. Repentance is often the result of being in the wilderness. In exile. In a place that is torn from everything familiar. When it seems as if everything has fallen apart.
Yet, through the Spirit, it is in the wilderness that we are able to once again recognize our need for God. To turn to God, to cry out for God. Just like the Israelites did in Egypt. Just as they did in Babylon. Just as we do in our own lives.
When we repent. When we turn back to God, God promises to be there. Waiting. Faithful. With a plan to make everything whole again. This is both the message and invitation from God in our text today from Isaiah:
Come.
I have a place for you.
Come to the waters of baptism.
Come to the feast of the Eucharist.
Eat and drink only the best.
Fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention.
Come closer now.
Listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
I have a plan.
I’m about to do a new thing.
Because when my Word goes out
--when my life-giving, life-nourishing Word goes out
--he will not come back empty-handed.
He will do the work I sent him to do.
He will complete the assignment I gave him.
This Word that became flesh.
This Word made flesh. Giving so much life that it simply takes our breath away.
May we live breathlessly, knowing that God is faithful and that God’s Word will do the work it has been sent to do. Amen.
Preached Sunday, December 10, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
Third Sunday of Advent
Readings: Isaiah 55:1-11, John 4:13-14
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fall. Show all posts
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Misseo Deo
After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.
So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” But he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.” Exodus 2:23-25; 3:10-15; 4:10-17 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God--our Creator, Redeemer, and Restorer. Amen.
This past summer, when our worship committee made the decision to shift to a new lectionary--to the Narrative Lectionary--it was after we’d spent much of the summer immersed in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures.
I don’t know about your own experiences, but these are the stories I grew up with. The stories that were told to us in Sunday school and in Vacation Bible School. The stories of creation and of the fall, the stories of Noah and the ark, the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the stories of Moses and Israel. First, in Egypt and, then, freed from the bondage of slavery. And on and on and on. There were the stories of our faith, I was told. The stories of who we are as a people.
But, somehow, I could never really connect the dots. What was God’s meta-narrative anyway? How did these stories connect to it? And, more importantly, what was my connection to these stories and to this meta-narrative?
It was only until seminary, in a missiology class, that the light bulb went on.
Missiology is just a fancy word for the study of mission. More particularly, it is the study of God’s mission. The misseo Deo. Of God’s plan. And how, as God implements that plan, God continues to reveal more and more of God’s nature to us.
What that plan is--that meta-plan or meta-narrative--what it is has long been debated among theologians. Generally, though, it can be reduced down into four basic elements: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Creation. Fall. Redemption. Restoration.
At the beginning of September, we started at the beginning with the creation story. About how God--a god already in relationship (Creator-Father, Redeemer-Son, Restorer-Spirit)--desired to be in even greater relationship. And so, this relational God creates. God enters into the world and begins to create. To first bring a place of chaos into an ordered world. Then, to populate that newly-created, newly-ordered place. With animals and birds and other creatures. And then with human beings--called to be caretakers of that world. God entered in and created a place of beauty and flourishing. God created a place that was good.
Creation.
And, then, it all fell apart. Literally.
Beginning with the fall of those first beings and then a continued descent into anger and hatred, murder and devastation. God saw how sin and brokenness was tearing the world--God’s good and beautiful world--apart. Full of wickedness. And falling apart. The result of sin and brokenness.
The Fall.
At first, God regretted God’s creation. Genesis 6:7 tell us that God was sorry he had made creation. God regretted it--but, just a moment. God refused to walk away. Instead, God devised a plan. God’s mission. The misseo Deo, if you like. And that plan started with a remnant of people. Noah and his family. People who continued to follow God, who sought to live out who God desired them to be. Human beings who found “favor in the sight of the Lord.”
So, God started on a plan of redemption. To begin with a remnant of humanity and to form them into a select people. To enter into a covenant with them. A covenant that sought to redeem them and bring them back into full relationship with God. And, then, to expand that to all of humanity.
Redemption.
The story of God seeking to bring redemption to a fallen humanity began with Abraham. It began with Abraham and a promise. A promise that through Abraham this blessed nation would come and that Abraham and his descendants would be blessed so that they could be a great blessing to others.
Today, in our reading, we have an important next step in that redemption narrative, in the formation of God’s people. Last week, we left off with Jacob. Jacob, that son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, who lived so fully into his name. Meaning trickster.
If you haven’t noticed it yet, names are really important in scripture. Jacob’s name would eventually be changed to Israel. Which means “God strives.” It would be through Jacob--through Israel--that God would strive to continue to grow God’s people. To grow them into a nation.
By the time our story begins today, several generations have passed. We have moved out of the book of Genesis (meaning “beginning”) and into the book of Exodus (meaning “departure”). The book begins in Egypt, which is where Jacob would eventually end up. Jacob (or Israel) has grown into a large nation. So, large, in fact, that they are becoming a threat to the Egyptians. Particularly to the political leadership of Egypt, who are watching them grow and become increasingly worried that their own people will become a minority people.
And, so, they begin to oppress Israel. Ruthlessly. The first two chapters of Exodus tell us that the Egyptians made their lives bitter. And that Israel groaned under their slavery. That they cried out. That out of their slavery “their cry for help rose up to God.”
God heard them. We read in the first verse of our lesson today that [read Exodus 2:24-25].
So God devised a plan. To rescue Israel.
Do you notice here that God doesn’t choose to work alone, to rescue Israel alone? God could, you know. God could make that choice. God takes the initiative, develops a plan, but does not work alone. God calls Moses. “Moshe” in the Hebrew, which means “to draw out.” God calls Moses to draw the Israelites out of Israel, out of bondage and servitude, out of slavery.
Then, there’s this amazing dialogue after God calls Moses. Moses doesn’t drop everything and run. He doesn’t immediately agree with God. He raises sharp objections to God over God’s call. Eight objections, to be exact. God never tells Moses to be quiet. Or ignores his concerns. Instead, God responds to each objection in turn. One after the other. It is through this conversation, this dialogue, that Moses gains fuller knowledge. In God’s interaction with a questioning human, God more fully reveals who God is.
It is one of God’s responses to Moses, in particular, that we gain a much deeper understanding of who this God is. When Moses asks God, “When they ask me ‘Who this God’s name is?’ what will I tell them?” God responds with God’s name. For the very first time, in conversation with a questioning Moses, God gives him God’s own personal name.
The Hebrew here is actually untranslatable. Ehyeh-asher-ehyeh. Untranslatable. The earliest recorded understanding of the divine name--of God’s personal name--was as a verb derived from a three-letter stem. The verb “to be”. An absolute Being. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic. We know it in English as the Tetragrammaton, which means the “four consonants.” A name that has been translated to mean “I Am That I Am,” or “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be. A name that would be so revered by Israel that, in later Jewish history, they would not say it out loud.
In giving God’s own, personal name to Moses, God is saying to him, “I am entering into relationship with you.” God has called Moses into relationship. And promises “to be” for Moses. Absolute. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic.
In the same way, God has called us in our baptisms. Giving us God’s name. Children of God. Entering into relationship with us. And promising, in Christ, “to be” for us. Absolute. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic. God’s meta-narrative becomes our micro-narrative. One by one. Redeemed and restored into relationship with God.
And, yet, our story, our micro-narrative, is part of God’s overarching story. A story of salvation. Of God seeking redemption for us in Christ Jesus. It is a story of freedom from bondage. And it is a story of God’s formation of God’s own people. So that we, and all of humanity, might be restored into fullness of relationship with God. Into fullness of relationship with our animals here, with all creatures, and with creation. With God and all of creation.
This is God’s plan. God’s mission. We are part of it. Fully redeemed in Christ, it is our mission, too. Our mission with God to all the world.
May God bless out work together. Amen.
Preached October 1, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Pentecost 17.
Readings: Exodus 2:23-25, 3:10-15, 4:10-17; John 8:58.
So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’:
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.
But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” But he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.” Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him. Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.” Exodus 2:23-25; 3:10-15; 4:10-17 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from God--our Creator, Redeemer, and Restorer. Amen.
This past summer, when our worship committee made the decision to shift to a new lectionary--to the Narrative Lectionary--it was after we’d spent much of the summer immersed in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures.
I don’t know about your own experiences, but these are the stories I grew up with. The stories that were told to us in Sunday school and in Vacation Bible School. The stories of creation and of the fall, the stories of Noah and the ark, the stories of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the stories of Moses and Israel. First, in Egypt and, then, freed from the bondage of slavery. And on and on and on. There were the stories of our faith, I was told. The stories of who we are as a people.
But, somehow, I could never really connect the dots. What was God’s meta-narrative anyway? How did these stories connect to it? And, more importantly, what was my connection to these stories and to this meta-narrative?
It was only until seminary, in a missiology class, that the light bulb went on.
What that plan is--that meta-plan or meta-narrative--what it is has long been debated among theologians. Generally, though, it can be reduced down into four basic elements: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Creation. Fall. Redemption. Restoration.
At the beginning of September, we started at the beginning with the creation story. About how God--a god already in relationship (Creator-Father, Redeemer-Son, Restorer-Spirit)--desired to be in even greater relationship. And so, this relational God creates. God enters into the world and begins to create. To first bring a place of chaos into an ordered world. Then, to populate that newly-created, newly-ordered place. With animals and birds and other creatures. And then with human beings--called to be caretakers of that world. God entered in and created a place of beauty and flourishing. God created a place that was good.
Creation.
And, then, it all fell apart. Literally.
Beginning with the fall of those first beings and then a continued descent into anger and hatred, murder and devastation. God saw how sin and brokenness was tearing the world--God’s good and beautiful world--apart. Full of wickedness. And falling apart. The result of sin and brokenness.
The Fall.
At first, God regretted God’s creation. Genesis 6:7 tell us that God was sorry he had made creation. God regretted it--but, just a moment. God refused to walk away. Instead, God devised a plan. God’s mission. The misseo Deo, if you like. And that plan started with a remnant of people. Noah and his family. People who continued to follow God, who sought to live out who God desired them to be. Human beings who found “favor in the sight of the Lord.”
So, God started on a plan of redemption. To begin with a remnant of humanity and to form them into a select people. To enter into a covenant with them. A covenant that sought to redeem them and bring them back into full relationship with God. And, then, to expand that to all of humanity.
Redemption.
The story of God seeking to bring redemption to a fallen humanity began with Abraham. It began with Abraham and a promise. A promise that through Abraham this blessed nation would come and that Abraham and his descendants would be blessed so that they could be a great blessing to others.
Today, in our reading, we have an important next step in that redemption narrative, in the formation of God’s people. Last week, we left off with Jacob. Jacob, that son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, who lived so fully into his name. Meaning trickster.
If you haven’t noticed it yet, names are really important in scripture. Jacob’s name would eventually be changed to Israel. Which means “God strives.” It would be through Jacob--through Israel--that God would strive to continue to grow God’s people. To grow them into a nation.
By the time our story begins today, several generations have passed. We have moved out of the book of Genesis (meaning “beginning”) and into the book of Exodus (meaning “departure”). The book begins in Egypt, which is where Jacob would eventually end up. Jacob (or Israel) has grown into a large nation. So, large, in fact, that they are becoming a threat to the Egyptians. Particularly to the political leadership of Egypt, who are watching them grow and become increasingly worried that their own people will become a minority people.
And, so, they begin to oppress Israel. Ruthlessly. The first two chapters of Exodus tell us that the Egyptians made their lives bitter. And that Israel groaned under their slavery. That they cried out. That out of their slavery “their cry for help rose up to God.”
God heard them. We read in the first verse of our lesson today that [read Exodus 2:24-25].
So God devised a plan. To rescue Israel.
Do you notice here that God doesn’t choose to work alone, to rescue Israel alone? God could, you know. God could make that choice. God takes the initiative, develops a plan, but does not work alone. God calls Moses. “Moshe” in the Hebrew, which means “to draw out.” God calls Moses to draw the Israelites out of Israel, out of bondage and servitude, out of slavery.
Then, there’s this amazing dialogue after God calls Moses. Moses doesn’t drop everything and run. He doesn’t immediately agree with God. He raises sharp objections to God over God’s call. Eight objections, to be exact. God never tells Moses to be quiet. Or ignores his concerns. Instead, God responds to each objection in turn. One after the other. It is through this conversation, this dialogue, that Moses gains fuller knowledge. In God’s interaction with a questioning human, God more fully reveals who God is.
It is one of God’s responses to Moses, in particular, that we gain a much deeper understanding of who this God is. When Moses asks God, “When they ask me ‘Who this God’s name is?’ what will I tell them?” God responds with God’s name. For the very first time, in conversation with a questioning Moses, God gives him God’s own personal name.
The Hebrew here is actually untranslatable. Ehyeh-asher-ehyeh. Untranslatable. The earliest recorded understanding of the divine name--of God’s personal name--was as a verb derived from a three-letter stem. The verb “to be”. An absolute Being. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic. We know it in English as the Tetragrammaton, which means the “four consonants.” A name that has been translated to mean “I Am That I Am,” or “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be. A name that would be so revered by Israel that, in later Jewish history, they would not say it out loud.
In giving God’s own, personal name to Moses, God is saying to him, “I am entering into relationship with you.” God has called Moses into relationship. And promises “to be” for Moses. Absolute. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic.
In the same way, God has called us in our baptisms. Giving us God’s name. Children of God. Entering into relationship with us. And promising, in Christ, “to be” for us. Absolute. Eternal. Unchanging. Dynamic. God’s meta-narrative becomes our micro-narrative. One by one. Redeemed and restored into relationship with God.
And, yet, our story, our micro-narrative, is part of God’s overarching story. A story of salvation. Of God seeking redemption for us in Christ Jesus. It is a story of freedom from bondage. And it is a story of God’s formation of God’s own people. So that we, and all of humanity, might be restored into fullness of relationship with God. Into fullness of relationship with our animals here, with all creatures, and with creation. With God and all of creation.
This is God’s plan. God’s mission. We are part of it. Fully redeemed in Christ, it is our mission, too. Our mission with God to all the world.
May God bless out work together. Amen.
Preached October 1, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Pentecost 17.
Readings: Exodus 2:23-25, 3:10-15, 4:10-17; John 8:58.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Order Out of Chaos
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.
--Genesis 1:1--2:4a (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from the Triune God--The Creator of the world, the Word made flesh, and the brooding Spirit, hovering over the waters. Amen.
Beginnings. Fall always feels to me as a time of new beginnings. We’re moving from summer and returning from those last days of summer vacation and getting down to business. Or, to school, which is beginning for some and already started for others.
We’ve just come off Labor Day--that holiday that seems to mark the end of summer--and we’re moving into fall. The temperatures are beginning to drop. The days are beginning to grow shorter. The football season has started. Soon, the leaves will be turning and we will definitely have transitioned from late summer into the beginning of autumn.
We’re in beginning days here, too, at Grace & Glory. Today is our Rally Day--the start of our fall programming, including the start of Sunday School and the beginning of Children’s Church. We’re starting cross-generational Sunday School today, which we’ll continue once a month into the fall and spring. In another week or so, we’ll begin a new Table Talk opportunity with our sisters and brothers at Shiloh Church. In a couple weeks, we’ll have a healing service, which will also continue through the year. And, then there’s October. That month in which we will celebrate and celebrate and celebrate Reformation 500--a major anniversary in the church, particularly for us Lutherans. It’s as though, after the lazy, hazy days of summer, we are ready to get down to business.
Then, there’s one more thing that we’re beginning this year. Along with Shiloh, we are moving to a new lectionary--a new series of readings. For years, we’ve been in the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that mostly focuses on the New Testament. Today, we begin the Narrative Lectionary, a newer lectionary that has been developed by a group of professors at Luther Seminary. A lectionary that spans four years and that will focus on all of scripture, both the Hebrew scripture (or Old Testament) and also the entire New Testament. Each year over the 4-year cycle, we will begin in the fall in the Hebrew scripture. And, then, in the spring we will focus on the New Testament.
The purpose of making this change is to remind us once again of the broader arc of the history of salvation. The meta-narrative, if you will. The whole story of God from creation through to the formation of the church, after Christ. To see the big picture. And, mostly, to try to figure out where our story fits into God’s story.
And, so, appropriately today, we begin at the beginning. With creation.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, the story opens. “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.” Or as Eugene Peterson writes in The Message Bible, “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”
It was shapeless. It was chaos. It was darkness.
It’s important to note here, that the word in Hebrew for “darkness” is a rather evocative word. The opposite of darkness is light and, particularly, for us believers, light often symbolizes God. We read today, for example, in the first verses of the Gospel of John that through the Word--through Jesus--light entered into the world. The light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness does not overcome.
By contrast, in the Hebrew, darkness means everything that is the opposite of God, everything that is anti-God. The wicked. Judgment. Death. All are signified by the word for darkness.
So, in the beginning, when the world was without form or shape, when it was chaotic and without any order, when it was dark--it is here that God enters in. That God enters in and speaks the Word. Saying, “Let there be light.”
This first word changes everything. It is with the dawn of light that the incredible story of God as sovereign creator of the world begins. It is with the dawn of light that God enters into time and space and begins to order things, to separate them. The light from darkness. The waters, separated by the dome, and earth and sky. The separation of the earthly waters into land and seas. God separates and creates boundaries. And God names time and space to be a world for all humanity. In this very action, Claus Westermann writes, “[God] shows [Godself] to be the master creator of the world.” By simply acting and speaking.
But, that’s not everything.
Did you catch verse 11? After God spoke light into being and separated and ordered the chaos, God then shares God’s creative powers. In verse 11: “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.”
God is not a creative control freak. God shares creative powers with the earth. Mother earth. Birthing all vegetation. This is not a God that powers over. This is a God that powers with. That shares creative power with the earth and, eventually, with humankind.
As the earth is bringing forth vegetation, God continues to create. Now he begins to populate the earth. First with creatures. Swarms of living creatures. And birds, flying above the earth across the dome of the sky. And, then, in the oceans and seas--great sea monsters and other living and moving water creatures. And, then, more creatures: the cattle, and the creeping things, and the wild animals of the earth.
Then, once again, God shares creative powers. This time with the creatures that have populated the earth. God blesses the swarms and says, “Go! Create! Fill the waters! And the earth! And the sky! Be fruitful! Multiply!”
Finally, humanity. Male and female. Our story says that humankind was created in God’s image, in “our” image, verse 26 says. In the image of the Three. In the image of the Trinity. Without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, God, the spinner of this creation story, indicates that humankind is found in two varieties--male and female. And that this humanity, in its complementary nature, is a reflection of the Deity. That God has both male and female traits.
God also shares creative power with humanity. And, then, God also gives men and women responsibility. Our text reads that God tells the newly-created humans to have “dominion” over the earth and all its creatures. The word is really better translated as to steward. Or to be caretaker. Or, better yet, to care for earth and all its creatures.
Because that is the image of God. God is not a “powering over” God, but a God of “powering with.” Stewarding. Shepherding. Caring for God’s creation. For all of God’s creation. As we humans are to care for all of God’s creation.
Six days. Six days of creating, of co-creating with earth and its creatures, and with male and female. Six days of goodness.
Yes, I said six days. Because God enters into our time and our space. Into days as we mark days. Twenty-four hours. We so often get hung up on the story of creation, as though it is a story of science. It is not. It is a story of God, of who God is. The story of the One who enters into our world and creates. And who co-creates. And who continues to create and co-create.
And it is a story with a purpose. With a goal. After six days of creative activity--of good creative activity--God rests. God takes a break. A respite. God marvels in God’s creation. And then God lets creation be for a period of time and makes room for it to create by withdrawing. By allowing us and all creation to come to be what God intends us to become.
This is a metaphor for our lives, isn’t it? When we are in the midst of darkness and chaos, God enters in and begins to separate. To make order out of the mess. Creating life out of death and then, allowing us to become fully who we are. To become God’s people.
It’s a marvelous story to begin with on this day of beginnings! Knowing that God has created and continues to create. That God continues to co-create with us and with the earth and all its creatures. And trusting that even when God takes a brief respite, God is always there, ready to break in and speak a word of light into the darkness of our lives. And to bring creative blessing after blessing to us and to all of God’s creation.
May God continue to grant us new and creative beginnings, now and for all time. Amen.
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.
--Genesis 1:1--2:4a (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from the Triune God--The Creator of the world, the Word made flesh, and the brooding Spirit, hovering over the waters. Amen.
Beginnings. Fall always feels to me as a time of new beginnings. We’re moving from summer and returning from those last days of summer vacation and getting down to business. Or, to school, which is beginning for some and already started for others.
We’ve just come off Labor Day--that holiday that seems to mark the end of summer--and we’re moving into fall. The temperatures are beginning to drop. The days are beginning to grow shorter. The football season has started. Soon, the leaves will be turning and we will definitely have transitioned from late summer into the beginning of autumn.
We’re in beginning days here, too, at Grace & Glory. Today is our Rally Day--the start of our fall programming, including the start of Sunday School and the beginning of Children’s Church. We’re starting cross-generational Sunday School today, which we’ll continue once a month into the fall and spring. In another week or so, we’ll begin a new Table Talk opportunity with our sisters and brothers at Shiloh Church. In a couple weeks, we’ll have a healing service, which will also continue through the year. And, then there’s October. That month in which we will celebrate and celebrate and celebrate Reformation 500--a major anniversary in the church, particularly for us Lutherans. It’s as though, after the lazy, hazy days of summer, we are ready to get down to business.
Then, there’s one more thing that we’re beginning this year. Along with Shiloh, we are moving to a new lectionary--a new series of readings. For years, we’ve been in the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of readings that mostly focuses on the New Testament. Today, we begin the Narrative Lectionary, a newer lectionary that has been developed by a group of professors at Luther Seminary. A lectionary that spans four years and that will focus on all of scripture, both the Hebrew scripture (or Old Testament) and also the entire New Testament. Each year over the 4-year cycle, we will begin in the fall in the Hebrew scripture. And, then, in the spring we will focus on the New Testament.
The purpose of making this change is to remind us once again of the broader arc of the history of salvation. The meta-narrative, if you will. The whole story of God from creation through to the formation of the church, after Christ. To see the big picture. And, mostly, to try to figure out where our story fits into God’s story.
And, so, appropriately today, we begin at the beginning. With creation.
In Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, the story opens. “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.” Or as Eugene Peterson writes in The Message Bible, “Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness.”
It was shapeless. It was chaos. It was darkness.
It’s important to note here, that the word in Hebrew for “darkness” is a rather evocative word. The opposite of darkness is light and, particularly, for us believers, light often symbolizes God. We read today, for example, in the first verses of the Gospel of John that through the Word--through Jesus--light entered into the world. The light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness does not overcome.
By contrast, in the Hebrew, darkness means everything that is the opposite of God, everything that is anti-God. The wicked. Judgment. Death. All are signified by the word for darkness.
So, in the beginning, when the world was without form or shape, when it was chaotic and without any order, when it was dark--it is here that God enters in. That God enters in and speaks the Word. Saying, “Let there be light.”
This first word changes everything. It is with the dawn of light that the incredible story of God as sovereign creator of the world begins. It is with the dawn of light that God enters into time and space and begins to order things, to separate them. The light from darkness. The waters, separated by the dome, and earth and sky. The separation of the earthly waters into land and seas. God separates and creates boundaries. And God names time and space to be a world for all humanity. In this very action, Claus Westermann writes, “[God] shows [Godself] to be the master creator of the world.” By simply acting and speaking.
But, that’s not everything.
Did you catch verse 11? After God spoke light into being and separated and ordered the chaos, God then shares God’s creative powers. In verse 11: “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.”
God is not a creative control freak. God shares creative powers with the earth. Mother earth. Birthing all vegetation. This is not a God that powers over. This is a God that powers with. That shares creative power with the earth and, eventually, with humankind.
As the earth is bringing forth vegetation, God continues to create. Now he begins to populate the earth. First with creatures. Swarms of living creatures. And birds, flying above the earth across the dome of the sky. And, then, in the oceans and seas--great sea monsters and other living and moving water creatures. And, then, more creatures: the cattle, and the creeping things, and the wild animals of the earth.
Then, once again, God shares creative powers. This time with the creatures that have populated the earth. God blesses the swarms and says, “Go! Create! Fill the waters! And the earth! And the sky! Be fruitful! Multiply!”
Finally, humanity. Male and female. Our story says that humankind was created in God’s image, in “our” image, verse 26 says. In the image of the Three. In the image of the Trinity. Without establishing relative rank or worth of the genders, God, the spinner of this creation story, indicates that humankind is found in two varieties--male and female. And that this humanity, in its complementary nature, is a reflection of the Deity. That God has both male and female traits.
God also shares creative power with humanity. And, then, God also gives men and women responsibility. Our text reads that God tells the newly-created humans to have “dominion” over the earth and all its creatures. The word is really better translated as to steward. Or to be caretaker. Or, better yet, to care for earth and all its creatures.
Because that is the image of God. God is not a “powering over” God, but a God of “powering with.” Stewarding. Shepherding. Caring for God’s creation. For all of God’s creation. As we humans are to care for all of God’s creation.
Six days. Six days of creating, of co-creating with earth and its creatures, and with male and female. Six days of goodness.
Yes, I said six days. Because God enters into our time and our space. Into days as we mark days. Twenty-four hours. We so often get hung up on the story of creation, as though it is a story of science. It is not. It is a story of God, of who God is. The story of the One who enters into our world and creates. And who co-creates. And who continues to create and co-create.
And it is a story with a purpose. With a goal. After six days of creative activity--of good creative activity--God rests. God takes a break. A respite. God marvels in God’s creation. And then God lets creation be for a period of time and makes room for it to create by withdrawing. By allowing us and all creation to come to be what God intends us to become.
This is a metaphor for our lives, isn’t it? When we are in the midst of darkness and chaos, God enters in and begins to separate. To make order out of the mess. Creating life out of death and then, allowing us to become fully who we are. To become God’s people.
It’s a marvelous story to begin with on this day of beginnings! Knowing that God has created and continues to create. That God continues to co-create with us and with the earth and all its creatures. And trusting that even when God takes a brief respite, God is always there, ready to break in and speak a word of light into the darkness of our lives. And to bring creative blessing after blessing to us and to all of God’s creation.
May God continue to grant us new and creative beginnings, now and for all time. Amen.
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