There is a restaurant in
Austin Texas, El Arroyo, that has become famous for its sign. Every day they
put up some new witty saying – often reflecting one of the issues of the day,
sometimes just off-the-wall funny. Like
this one: There’s no way that “everybody” was Kung Fu fighting.
Or this one: We all think
we’re smart until we try to turn on someone else’s shower.
The sign has its own
Twitter account. It’s very popular, and it caught my attention because, many
years ago, I worked there – for about five minutes.
I started working there as
a waitress when I was in graduate school. I had worked in other restaurants
before – it wasn’t the greatest work, but it wasn’t bad. So I thought this job
would be okay. But then I had a run-in with the manager. I going about my
business and suddenly she snapped on me, barking out orders like a bad mother. If
you’d heard her, you’d know what I’m talking about. I didn’t respond to it very
well; I called her the next day to tell her I was done.
This was unfortunate. It
could have gone so differently. Because it’s so easy to ask for something
kindly rather than scream murderously.
And that is one of the
things that struck me this week as I spent time with this creation story from
Genesis 1. God speaks the world into existence – gently, gently.
Let there be light. Let there be; it’s like a suggestion from the
creator of the world, from the source of all wisdom. It’s as though God looked
around at this formless, wet, dark, limitless void and out of pure goodness thought
to do something about it. “Let us bring light into this void,” God said,
because God is light. We light the candles in worship to symbolize the presence
of the light of the world here with us. God brings light into existence, God
brings light to us.
Then God separated the
light from the dark, giving order to the cycle of days. And God then tackled
the waters. There is much to say about water.
Ancient people had a
healthy fear of water. Water is a forceful thing, a chaotic thing – storms,
floods, mudslides. People have always known that water has the power to give
life, but also has the power, when unleashed, to take life. And the people of
Israel knew their God to be the one who brings order out of the chaos. The
story imagines that God’s first act to tame the waters was to separate the
waters into the water above and the water below. When these people looked up at
the blue sky they imagined that it was all water, and that God had created a
dome which protected us from the waters above. And the dome was called sky.
Then God turned back to the
earth and gathered the waters together, organizing the wet and the dry, so
plants would have a place to be and grow. In a similar way, God ordered the
lights in the sky, separating day from night. Then God got about the business
of creating life.
Creatures of all kinds, we
are told, God says, let there be. The creatures that walk and creep upon the
land, the creatures that fly in the sky, the creatures that swim in the seas –
every kind, let there be. The rich diversity of life on this planet is God’s
good intention of how it should be.
Finally, God created
humankind. God spoke us into existence, saying “Let us create humankind in our
image.” And God created them in God’s image; male and female, God created them
in God’s image.
Notice that this is
different from what we read in the second chapter, the second creation story
about Adam and Eve. They are different stories, coming out of different
traditions, each with its own purpose. The story of Adam and Eve, you might
say, is the “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People,” version. The story we have
before us today, the first story, is the grand, ordered narrative where God is
truly at the center of it all, where God reveals God’s essentially good nature.
At every stage of creation,
God declared God’s pleasure with it. “It is good.” And at the end, God said,
“It is very good.” Then God rested.
And this is, perhaps, the
most extraordinary thing of all. God rests, and the planets still spin. God
rests, and the rains fall, the sun shines, day follow night, season follows
season, plants, animals, and humans are born and live and grow and die, then
new lives begin and so it goes, on and on. And God takes God’s rest.
This is not to say that God
grew bored with the world and disengaged from it. The rest of the scriptures
make very clear that God is deeply connected to us and the whole creation. Isn’t
it fascinating, though, that God can let go? And that we, of course, are called
to do the same.
As God rests, so should we.
God made us as co-creators of this beautiful world along with God. And I assume
we are to follow God’s lead. As God is gentle and kind, as God takes pleasure
in the creation, so shall we.
The commandment that would
come later says, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” We would do well to
remember it.
We might remember the
Sabbath as a statement of our inherent worth to God – a worth that is given to
each one of us in equal measure. As I read this story of creation, I see it as
a story of gift. God holds the world lightly, with grace and blessing, and in
the end, takes sacred joy in this creation. How could we ever imagine that we
should do any differently?
Hold it lightly, as God
holds the creation lightly. Know that we are all, every one of us on this earth,
created in God’s image. Hold it lightly, with an open hand, not a closed fist. We
are all, every one of us worthy. Remember this as we prepare to write our
letters today. All have the right to food and shelter and human dignity. God
made this beautiful world with enough for us all. And we each have a hand in
keeping it this way.
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