Rev. Rachel Lewis Cooley
“Creation in Progress”
Eastwood Christian Church, Nashville TN
January 24, 2021
Last March, right at the beginning of the impacts of the COVID virus in the US, now 10 months ago, many of us joined one of the first of our noon zoom rooms, showing up however we were to be together in the fear, sadness, and uncertainty. We checked in by letting each other know how on earth we were doing, and any reflections we could muster around the question of where we were seeing God. I can’t recall exactly now who shared what or how exactly we came to this image—maybe some of y’all remember better than i—but I do know several of us built on what others of us were saying to come to the image of God as a bird, seeing the bigger, wider, and longer picture which we could not see. I was driving South to Florida through the rolling hills of Tennessee at that moment, and it was beautiful. Mitzi told us she grew up in that area, and it was like we glimpsed together a picture of God’s good creation there in TN, and really all over the world. I saw a big bird flying high above the trees and highway, and it felt as though God was present. I knew God was. I believe we all did, together on that call.
Those first weeks and months seemed to bring many moments where I was aware of God’s presence. I think this was the case for many of you, too, as we connected with neighbors in ways we hadn’t before, and were surprised by the holy moments that were possibly over the phone and zoom. Maybe we were praying more, with our words, hearts, and breath, with our love for each other and conviction to speak it and show it.
In some ways, I almost miss that time period, where we seemed so aware of God with us, of silver linings, and the unexpected holy in the ordinary. Do y’all miss it at all? Or am I crazy? maybe I miss it because it seems desirable as compared to now, when it seems we’re in some dark middle time, where the good of the past or of the future seems far off, and we’re wondering if we can see an end and if the situation will get worse before it gets better. There are vaccines coming folks, so I do see legitimate hope there, but we’re wondering when they’ll really be distributed enough to bring some of our old normal back, and if some other variant will be worse. We’re worn down, and maybe we or our workplaces or communities aren’t acknowledging that fatigue so much anymore. We ask, how did we get here, and where are we going?!
If this is a lost in the middle of the forest moment, a we don’t even know what time of day it is, or what date, a we’re not sure what it all means moment, it is no doubt hard to remember the presence of God still flying overhead, seeing the whole forest, and the passage of time; seeing us, and calling us toward the paths ahead.
Hear now from Genesis, the first creation story, read by Eastwood folks back in the early months of the pandemic for “Creation Sunday.” Perhaps today’s scripture can help us remember the God who sees, and sees to it that there is good.
Genesis 1:1-2:4
1 When God began to create the heavens and the earth— 2 the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— 3 God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. 4 God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God named the light Day and the darkness Night.
There was evening and there was morning: the first day.
6 God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” 7 God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. 8 God named the dome Sky.
There was evening and there was morning: the second day.
9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky come together into one place so that the dry land can appear.” And that’s what happened. 10 God named the dry land Earth, and he named the gathered waters Seas. God saw how good it was. 11 God said, “Let the earth grow plant life: plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened. 12 The earth produced plant life: plants yielding seeds, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was.
13 There was evening and there was morning: the third day.
14 God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will mark events, sacred seasons, days, and years. 15 They will be lights in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth.” And that’s what happened. 16 God made the stars and two great lights: the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. 17 God put them in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was.
19 There was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.
20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with living things, and let birds fly above the earth up in the dome of the sky.” 21 God created the great sea animals and all the tiny living things that swarm in the waters, each according to its kind, and all the winged birds, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was. 22 Then God blessed them: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
23 There was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.
24 God said, “Let the earth produce every kind of living thing: livestock, crawling things, and wildlife.” And that’s what happened. 25 God made every kind of wildlife, every kind of livestock, and every kind of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw how good it was. 26 Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”
27 God created humanity in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them,
male and female God created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and everything crawling on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it. These will be your food. 30 To all wildlife, to all the birds in the sky, and to everything crawling on the ground—to everything that breathes—I give all the green grasses for food.” And that’s what happened. 31 God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good.
There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.
2 The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed. 2 On the sixth day God completed all the work that he had done, and on the seventh day God rested from all the work that he had done. 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work of creation. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
Herein, we seek comfort and understanding.
Will you pray with me?
God of the mountains, the eons, and the birds,
God our creator,
We take a few deep breaths in this moment to feel your presence. You are ever here with us. Your breath which calmed the waters flows through us, and through the other plants, animals, and people with whom we share creation,
From your beginning to create to your continuing to create now.
May we create with you in this moment a time of reflection, a time of assurance, a time of resolve as we remember who we are, which is beloved, and who you are, which is loving.
May it be so, amen.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” is a line we’ve all surely heard many times and may imagine in a big booming announcer voice, which may make it sound very final, and unquestionable. But as every translation is an interpretation, and every presentation an interpretation, we can realize that the original Hebrew text may have had a slightly different meaning than we think. I took a class last year, when this pandemic was beginning called the Book of Genesis, with professor Choon-Leong Seow at Vanderbilt Divinity. Dr. Seow is a big time Hebrew Bible scholar, and the class not only featured his readings of the text drawing on his knowledge of the language but also the interpretations of Jewish and Christian commentators throughout the ages. So while every translation—including Dr. Seow’s—is an interpretation, his is one drawing on knowledge of the original Hebrew and imagining meanings the original writers might have wished to convey. We also considered how some interpretations of the Genesis 1-11 texts have been used in the world for good and for ill, including for instance understandings of the word “dominion” in this text as justification for humans to take over and extract from creation whatever we need. Josh discussed this problematic interpretation and reframed how we could think of ourselves as stewards rather than domineers so thoroughly when he preached on this text last May. Our underlying goal in the class, then, was to see a myriad of different meanings in the text, and seek to interpret and apply them in ways which do no harm (that we can tell) and are faithful to our understanding of God’s love and care. I do not wish to ask you today then, to somehow disprove or throw out any of your current understandings of this text, or meanings you’ve heard and held dear. It may be possible, though, for you to see other meanings in the text as well, and ponder what they might mean for you and our world today.
With all that said, let’s consider the “In the beginning line,” which sounds so clear, firm, and final. The original Hebrew actually has no “the” article in it, so the line would be “in beginning” or even “as beginning.” These acts by God were, perhaps, then not the very first chronologically. Why “beginning” then? Maybe it’s more about how these acts by God were “first” in terms of importance and significance as part of God’s creative love and long-view hope for creation. Maybe it’s like “In beginning a vision of love and redemption…” or “As beginning the processes of co-creation that would stretch out for millennium.” It certainly sounds to me like it helps us think about creation in progress then, and in progress now too. We have not arrived at a stopping place – not in the 7 day creating then, nor in our moment right now. And thank goodness, because our moment right now seems grim.
Some of the interpreters we talked about linked this “in beginning,” “in progress” line with God’s long-term vision then. They maintained that we can’t take this one line out of context of the rest of creation and time, though it may act as a kind of thesis statement for God’s continuing creation. To over-simplify what they said, many of the Jewish folks said God’s creating acts here were important because they enabled the revealing of the Torah, the preeminent Hebrew texts which the Jewish people continue to turn to. Many of the Christian folks said God created in order to redeem through Jesus the Christ, sent to live enfleshed in creation later. Perhaps Jesus was present at creation too, as the Gospel of John’s opening lines—which Martha preached on just a few weeks ago—might indicate. That Jesus is the word and was with God and was God from God’s beginning to create.
This is some of what they thought was significant about God creating. What do you, at this moment, think or guess about God’s vision begun in these lines in Genesis and continuing?
I know we don’t often talk here at Eastwood about hopes or ponderings about an ultimate arrival point, or end time, or time when Christ returns in glory, or eschatological hope, or whatever you want to call it. But I invite you to ponder on that today, in this moment when we may seem very much in the middle of things. You don’t have to look deep into any biblical text if you don’t want to, nor do you have to read theology, unless you want to. You may know it in your bones, if you take a moment to tune in again, even in this wilderness. What is God continuing to create?
Okay, now moving on to verse 2, so if I lost you in all that end times, theological talk, now is a moment to return. “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.” I used to think sometimes as a kid when pondering the big bang or the universe how it is impossible to imagine nothingness or the presence or existence of nothing. I think now maybe it’s also impossible to imagine what this “formless void” and “face of the deep” might have been like. The interpreters we talked about in class had various ideas. Martin Luther noted that it sounds like a mess, a formless mess, without order. The Jewish commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra imagined it as dark, and scary. Folks hearing this line close to the time it was written might have imagined a sea monster of chaos there, as some of the other religious texts then talked about. That certainly sounds scary.
And yet, “a wind from God”—maybe like God’s spirit, or God’s breath, or a divine wind of creation—hovered over this deep, formless and scary mess, and seems to calm it or hem it in. What is God’s breath, God’s wind, God’s spirit calming and subduing now? Is there chaos it can hold at bay? In the whole of creation even as within us, where our breathing can reassure us of God’s presence and help us calm a torrent of anxieties and uncertainties?
Out of this formless void, God creates. God makes order and forms out of formlessness, separating things, giving them a place. Everything has a place—the light and the dark, the sky and the waters and the dry land—and each place a meaning, and an ability. Now the earth can bring forth plants, seeds, and fruit. The waters can bring forth vibrant creatures in interlocking ecosystems where each being is needed by others and all are interdependent.
God “sees” it all, and calls it good, the text repeats over and over. Dr. Seow thinks it’s a big deal that it’s repeated 7 times that God sees, and each time, it is good. The Jewish interpreters we studied felt this was not just about sight, God literally seeing with God’s eyes, and had various thoughts as to how it might mean God is examining creation, or anticipating what will come next. Dr. Seow’s interpretation is that God repeatedly “seeing” here indicates an intentional, providential seeing: meaning God is carefully creating the good, providing for the good, seeing to it that good is created and comes to life, is fruitful and multiplies.
We may not see as God sees, as a bird flying over the forest and seeing to the good, but we can trust, according to this account of God’s creation—which continues!—that God is seeing to the creation of good. This creation does not mean the end of evil, or chaos, as Dr. Seow reminded us we can see in the biblical texts that follow. But it does mean that God will always push back against that which is not good, again and again, subduing the chaos and looking toward God’s ultimate vision of salvation, liberation, and goodness. As the saying goes: God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good.
I think we can see this hope from God in our day to day lives, not only in a long-term, some-day future too. I may have a harder time seeing it now than I did at the beginning of this pandemic time, when our faith and our connection to each other kept us strong. But I trust that in our faith, hope is still possible, and God is still present—and working toward the good—whether I am sensing it or not.
May we with God, again and again, and intentionally, see to the good: trying to construct for ourselves meanings which give us life and hope; and to support others in the different meanings they may make even as we seek to come together for the good where we can. Surely our nation and our world need us to continually co-create with God and with each other those stories, goals, and actions which bring forth life and creative love. With the God who sees, and in the creation which is good, may it be so.
Amen, and thank God.