“What God Intends: Goodness and Delight” The Holy Trinity May 18, 2008

(First, read the text for this sermon: Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

I hate to see those car emblems of a fish with feet, with the name, “Darwin” within the fish. Do you know the emblems I’m talking about? I hate to see one of those emblems because it indicates that the car driver has taken a side in a fight that does not have to be a dispute at all. There is, in fact, no conflict between science and the Bible. That’s because the Genesis creation stories and the other material in the Bible were composed long before there was any concept of “science” -- a concept that's only a couple of hundred years old. The Bible contains stories that witness Truth about God. Communicating scientific truth was not in the minds of the authors and editors of the stories in the Bible.

And so, for instance, I see absolutely no problem with being a Jew or Christian who believes that God created the universe – while, at the same time, considering the theory of evolution to be the best scientific explanation of how God created the universe.

And I wish that the Genesis creation stories would not be dragged into this pseudo dispute between religion and science for another reason. That’s because it flattens them out and makes them boring! Trying to make them be science robs them of their power as stories – which is in their ability to evoke Truth about God (Truth with a capital “T”).

Let me lead us into this morning’s reading from Genesis in a way that might show what I mean.

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. Think of that. Formlessness. Darkness. Chaos! But still – God! “A wind from God.”

The story invites us into big questions: When have you experienced chaos? When have you felt a desperate need for order?

I think that’s what’s happening when someone is diagnosed with cancer. Cancer cells are pure chaos within a human body. They are cells gone berserk; out of control; multiplying malignantly! Cancer treatment is the attempt to kill those chaotic cells, and to restore the order of cell production within the body. To use language from the creation story, cancer treatment is the attempt to bring form to the formlessness.

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. Do you know that there are two creation stories in Genesis? They are very, very different. Let me offer a couple of examples. The second story, the older one, in chapter two of Genesis, begins with dry dust; while the first story, in chapter one, begins with the chaos of water unbounded. In the second creation story, a single human being is the first thing created; while in the first story, all human beings are created at the same time, as the final act of God’s creation. (If this was a Bible study I’d continue. It’s fascinating to compare the two stories side by side.)

This morning we read from the first creation story. It was composed sometime around the 6th century before the common era. It was composed as a faith statement during the Babylonian exile – after the Babylonians had overrun Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, which was the very place where God resided according to the Judaism of the day. Could the people even believe in God without the temple? It was a shattering experience. All of the peoples’ religious assumptions were in chaos! Their religion had become formless.

Generations later a new religious consensus would evolve, as the prophets opened the people to God’s continuing revelation. But that hadn’t yet been worked out when the author composed this first creation story. This story was addressed to those experiencing utter chaos and formlessness. They had been driven into foreign lands where their religion was unknown. They were in exile, physically and spiritually. (At this point, I think of those of you who have described experiences of feeling spiritual exile, times of being in the wilderness, of not knowing how to make your way back home to God.)

The Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that this creation story is poetry used for worship by these people of God engulfed in this chaos of exile that was like a “formless void and darkness covering the face of the deep.” This would mean that these verses from Genesis are liturgy, drawing the worshipers into the mystery of God, as all good liturgy does; that, even in this seeming hopelessness, still, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

Into chaos, the story tells us, God brings order. The story describes creation happening in seven days. (“Seven,” of course, is a number denoting perfection, the special working of God.)

The story is witnessing to the fact that, even and especially in the midst of chaos and terror, what God intends is goodness and delight! The story moves “from God’s confrontation with chaos to the serene and joyous rule of God over a universe able to be at rest.” (Brueggemann)

Look at how this movement happens. The first thing God creates is what? Light! And look at what God thinks about the light – (verse 4): And God saw that the light was good.

So. Now that there is light to banish the terror of darkness, what’s the next thing needed? It is to bring some order to the chaos and formlessness of all this water. So the next thing God creates is a “dome in the midst of the waters” – the sky! (Now put yourself in the world view of these ancient people. Obviously, that membrane of sky must be protecting us from water that’s up there! Have you looked up this morning? What color do you see when you look up at the sky? Blue! It’s obviously water!) And so, as God speaks this word of creation, there is order restored, there is water separated from dry land. And what does God think of that? Verse 10: And God saw that it was good.

Next is created vegetation, plants and trees; and then the sun and moon and the stars; and then water creatures; and then earth creatures – and look at how God judges each stage of the creation in the story. Verse 12 (“it was good’). Verse 18 (“it was good”). Verse 21 (“it was good”). Verse 25 (“it was good”). You see how the refrain in this hymn is repeated – “it was good”; six times? It’s a liturgical refrain, repeated again and again, just like the refrain we sang three times this morning, in the Hymn of Praise in our liturgy.

Finally, God needs to create someone to take care of all the rest of creation. And so, as the crown of creation, God creates human beings – all human cultures, all at the same time.

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

After these six days of work, as God surveys all God has created, what does God think? Verse 31: God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. God is delighted with the creation! It is full of goodness! That’s what God intends: goodness and delight! (What good news, when you and I are experiencing the terror and anxiety of chaos and formlessness, that God is the creator, that God brings order, that God intends for us goodness and delight.)

But still, in the story, not all is perfect. That comes on the seventh day. What does God give to us human beings on that day?

God gives the permission to rest! The permission to rest in grace. God gives us permission to let go of our compulsions and our need to constantly drive ourselves. We receive the ability, instead, to be delighted in God’s goodness! God offers you and me the opportunity to let down the particularly sinful burden we carry – that it all depends on us – and, instead, gives us permission to open, to enjoy the gifts from God that come to us new every day.

What joy there is, when we receive this permission from God to let go of our compulsions. That’s what sabbath rest offers. What freedom!

What joy there is in the life of faith, engaging in such faith practices as sabbath rest. The life of faith is the life-long journey more and more deeply into the grace-filled mystery of God.

So, I issue a call to repentance. Turn away from those compulsions and anxieties that deaden your spirit. Turn, instead, towards God who creates us, and who intends for us goodness and delight!

In the name of that God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia