We're going with the Season of Creation and this is Creation Sunday and we're going to use Genesis 1.
Genesis 1:1-25 Why do we still hang on to the Genesis hymn as a literal image of creation? We have a habit of hanging on to images of the past and paint them as the ideal for all time rather than just that particular time. We're fascinated by digital speed and how we can take an image of ourselves and put it into a computer and see oursevles as we were 2.5 minutes ago. John Bell used this image at Greenbelt this year. His whole talk is at Greenbelt Talks Sabbath for beginners.
This creation story isn't about what God did in the past like some 7 days in the life of a creator. This is imagery for the future: God's future. This is creation as it can be and is willed to be becoming a place, a time, a system, a love, a grace, a love.
Of course this is only the first story of creation. It's a statement of faith that claims the divine perogative and intent to create and to create us as part of that whole creation. I wish this hymn went on to day 8 in all of this (perhaps the rest of the bible is about Day Eight). We seem to think we are at the pinacle of it all. Day 7 God needs a Sabbath but then the fun really begins on the first day of the following week where we prove to everyone, not that we aren't good for creation but that we just don't know it.
So perhaps we could engage the passage not so much about being about our past, but this is what we are aiming for. We came from the love of God, the power of imagination, the urgency of grace but really, it's as if we are only at day 2. We've a long way to go before we get anywhere near to taking our full place in the great scheme of things on day 6.
Recent Comments