Looking Ahead to September 22, 2024 -- Creation 3

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Job 37:14-24
• Psalm 104:24-32

The Sermon title is Can We Understand It All?

Early Thoughts: Sometimes we need to be a little bit humble. Humanity, as a whole, understands a whole lot about physics, chemistry, and biology. We know a great deal about how the world works. We don't know or understand everything -- not even those people who are at the top of those scientific fields claim to know or understand everything. Those of us making do with high school science classes or maybe some post-secondary science can certainly not claim to know how the universe works.

Humility is a good thing.

Which is what led me to look at Job for this week. Job is a strange book, but one which pushes us to consider some pretty deep questions. Certainly, and for some very obvious reasons, it is often used to get into questions of justice and fairness and "why bad things happen to good people?". But I also think as the text pushes forward it raises questions about humility.

The section we are reading this week comes from the end of one of the speeches of Job's so-called friends and supporters (personally I don't find them to be all that supportive to Job). As Elihu draws his soliloquy to a close he pushes Job to consider that he can not know or comprehend the full mind of God. Job can not know how the world God has created works because God's majesty is so far beyond our existence. Interesting theology of nature perhaps, and not one I totally agree with but it raises some interesting questions, particularly given what comes next...

In the next chapters, starting literally the verse after this reading, God finally shows up to respond to Job's complaints and accusations. Speaking out of a whirlwind God asks Job a series of questions and issues a series of challenges about Job's level of knowledge and control over the way the world was created, the way the world works. (There are multiple sections from these chapters that I could have chosen to use this week instead of the words of Elihu.) By the beginning of chapter 42 Job responds in humility, humbled before the majesty of God.

In context both Elihu's words and God's response out of the whirlwind are not really about eco-theological concerns. They are about recognizing the God who is in control and in charge. However I have come to think that humility and being willing to say "we don't know how that works" or "we don't really know how to do that" or (to re-purposes some words of Hamlet) "There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of in [our] philosophy".

We want to know it all. We want to understand it all. Humans are, and I suspect have always been an inquisitive and curious species. We also tend to be a little bit proud. Sometimes a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing. We might start to think we have all the answers. We don't. Interestingly I find that often the people with the most knowledge and understanding are more likely to be the ones who admit there are limits to what we know and understand (and that limit keeps changing as time goes by). Some of the people most insistent that we have all the answers are the ones who have limited direct experience in the field -- take the furor over a certain Olympic boxer this summer and questions around gender as an example.

In the most recent United Church faith statement A Song of Faith God is repeatedly referred to as Holy Mystery. I remember talking to someone whose (either agnostic or atheist) son was a physicist, working at a high-level. The son told his father that beyond a certain point they could not explain how things worked, it was a mystery. Faith and science agree that there are things (they may not always agree on what things) that can not be explained. We have to be humble enough to accept the mystery (at least temporarily -- science and curiosity will continue to explore and search for answers) and trust that there is meaning in it.

HOw do we live with the reality that we don't, or possibly can't, know everything about the world? First are we willing to admit it? Then how do we live in the uncertainty? As people of faith I think part of the answer is trust. Part of the answer is trust in the God who has created and is creating both to continue to reveal the world to humanity and to be at work in the world around us. After all God loves the world that God calls good (and yes that is a faith statement, not a scientifically provable claim).
--Gord

Looking Ahead to September 15, 2024 -- Creation 2

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Genesis 2:4b-22
• Psalm 104:14-23

From Hamlet Act 2,Sc. 2 Image Source

The Sermon title is How Important Are We?

Early Thoughts: Is humanity the apex of God's creation? Or are we just another part?

It is easy to read Scripture and think that humanity is indeed the apex, the pinnacle of God's creation. It the hymn to creation we find in Genesis 1 humanity is created last. In the second creation story, the one we find in Genesis 2, humanity is created first and then helps God name all the other creatures. In both stories one could get the sense that the rest of the creation, the flora and fauna in particular, are there for humanity to use.

Then there is Psalm 8 which says (in a passage a later writer would refer to in Hebrews 2):

³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
⁴ what are humans that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them?

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

 That seems a clear statement about humanity's importance (at least according to humanity).

But is that a true representation? From a another point of view humanity is, at best, a mere blip in the history of the planet and the cosmos. Even if humanity manages to make the planet uninhabitable for humans life and the planet will continue. We might have a lot of ability to manage and alter the world around us but still the world would continue if we were suddenly gone. [Some might say the world would continue better if we were suddenly gone but I am not sure the equation is that simple.]

When I consider our relationship to the rest of creation I have to wonder if seeing ourselves as the pinnacle, the apex of creation has been healthy for us or for the wider world. Seeing the rest of creation as being there to serve us has maybe made us, as a species, a little arrogant. It has maybe given us a 'me first' attitude towards our brothers and sisters. If, as many cultures in history have done, we refer to earth as our Mother does our care for the earth match how we would actually care for a parent?

I don't think our relationship with the rest of creation has always been as it is now. I do think that earlier iterations of human society have had a different sense of inter-relationship than has developed since (largely) the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe. At the same time I think we can sometimes romanticize how those other understandings might have looked in practice. Human activity has always impacted the world around them. Part of the issue is that we have developed the ability to make more of an impact and not always paused to consider the ramifications of that ability.

What happens if we try to see ourselves not as the top of the pyramid but part of an inter-connected web of relationships? Does that help us be more faithful followers of God who we name as Creator? If we see those other things that God has created (particularly flora and fauna) not as our tools or servants but as siblings how might we act differently?

As a species, and certainly as individuals at times, we can get an elevated view of how important we are. That can lead us to do wonderful things. It can also lead us to be really selfish. According to our faith stories God created humanity as a part of the larger world. We are told to care for the earth, maybe to subdue it or maybe to be stewards -- caring for something placed in our care by the one whom we follow. I suspect that to be faithful to the God who has created and is creating, the God who calls us to care for the earth means we need to stop and re-evaluate how important we are (positively or negatively) in shaping the world into the Good Creation that God first called into being.

Humanity is an important part of the equation (for now at least). That does not mean we are so important we get first billing. But we are important -- so are our siblings in God's creation.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to September 8, 2024 -- Creation 1

 We will be celebrating the Sacrament of Communion this Sunday.  All are welcome to join us at the table.

 In recent years churches have been encouraged to take a few weeks in September (usually from just after Labour Day until Thanksgiving) to mark Creation Time. The intent of Creation Time is to reflect on how we as humans interact with the rest of God's Creation, or as the New Creed puts it "to live with respect in creation". We will be doing that this year.  Over the next few weeks we will hear most of Psalm 104, which is a hymn to creation and various other  passages that will, hopefully, help us reflect on our role as part of that which God has created.

This week's Scripture Readings are:

• Genesis 1:1-25
• Psalm 104:5-13

The Sermon title is Who Has Created and Is Creating...

Earthrise

Early Thoughts: In the United Church statement of faith we call the New Creed one of the first things we say about God is that God has created and is creating". The stories of our faith (as translation in the old King James) begin with "In the beginning God created...". God is many things in our lives and in our world but the first thing is that God is one who creates.

How does it change our relationship to the world around us to name that it is a creation of God, who then calls it good? Why is it important to say that God has created the world in which we live?

I think it is vital. Next week we will talk about humanity's place in creation (which is why this week we cut off the hymn to creation just before God says "let us make humans"). This week we pause to remind ourselves that creation is God's work. We pause to remind ourselves that creation has value just because God created it, not because of how we might be able to use it for our benefit. Certainly we will explore that deeper next week when we ask how important we really are.

Another gift that comes from reminding ourselves that the world is a creation of God and that God calls it good is that it pushes us to see the goodness of the world. Why does God call it good? In Christian tradition the Creation is one of the places where God's Word is written, one of the ways God is revealed to us. What does the world tell us about God?

There is a third point about calling God the Creator. What I like about the New Creed phrase is that it reminds us that the work of creation (and re-creation) is not actually finished. The hymn to creation that we find in Genesis 1 comes to the 7th day and rests because the work of creation is finished. But as I read the stories of Scripture I meet a God who continues, in different ways, to create (and sometimes to destroy and re-create -- looking at Noah for an example).

There is a theological position known as Deism. One of the markers of Deism is that God created the world but then stopped intervening in the world. Some have referred to the God you meet in Deism as the "Clockmaker God"; a God who set it all up, would the spring then sat back to watch it play out. It is worth noting that some of the prominent founders of the United States were Deists (despite the often repeated claims that the US was founded as a 'Christian Nation').

I find a deistic view of God to miss the point of Scripture. In my opinion if God looks at creation and calls it good and God seeks to be in relationship with that creation then God is going to remain interactive with that creation in some form. And that interaction means that God is still creating. The world is not a finished product. Where do you see God at work creating, re-creating, or renewing the world?

One final note about saying that God is the Creator. This is a faith statement, a philosophical statement. It is not a scientific statement. Genesis 1 or Psalm 104 are not science or history textbooks. Saying that God is the one who creates does not negate what we have learned about how the world was formed, about evolution, about how the world works. It does tell us about the God who is at work in the world and loves the world and calls it good. I see no reason why faith and science have to be enemies. We may delve a bit further into that topic on our third Sunday of Creation time when we ask ourselves how much we can understand about creation.

For this week we start with the affirmation that God has been at work creating the world from the beginning. We affirm that the world is God's handiwork. And we ask ourselves how that shapes what we see, how we act, how we perceive the world around us.
--Gord