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
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