Rev. Maureen Frescott
Congregational Church of
Amherst, UCC
June 15, 2014 – Trinity
Sunday
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
“One is the
Loneliest Number”
If
you were a child growing up in China, you would probably be familiar with the
story of P'an Ku.
P’an
Ku is a fur wearing giant, and he’s the central character in an ancient Chinese
creation story.
P’an Ku is hatched from a giant cosmic egg.
Half
the shell is above him as the sky, the other half below him as the earth. He
grows taller each day for 18,000 years, gradually pushing the sky and the earth
apart until they reach their appointed places.
After
all this effort, P'an Ku crumbles into pieces. His limbs become the mountains,
his blood the rivers, his breath the wind and his voice the thunder. His two
eyes become the sun and the moon. And
fittingly, the fleas that crawl on his fur become humankind.
If
you were a child of the Native American Cherokee tribe you would have heard the
story of Dâyuni'sï.
Before
the earth was formed, there was only sky and water, until Dâyuni'sï, a little
water beetle, came from the sky realm to see what was below.
He
scurried over the surface of the water, but found no solid place to rest, so he
dove beneath the water and brought up some mud.
This
mud expanded in every direction and became the earth.
The
other animals in the sky realm were eager to come down to the new earth, so Buzzard
was sent to see if the mud had dried.
When he flew down his wings brushed the earth, gouging mountains and
valleys in the soft ground.
When
the land was finally dry all of the animals came down.
But
it was dark, so they took the sun and set it in the sky, at first setting it
too low, scorching the shell of the crawfish and turning it red.
They
elevated the sun seven times in order to reduce its heat.
As
they did this, all of the plants and animals were told to stay awake for seven
nights, but only the owl and panther succeeded and they were given the power to
see and prey upon the others in the dark. Only a few trees succeeded as well, cedar, pine, and spruce,
so the rest were forced to shed their leaves in the winter.
The
first humans who appeared on the earth were a brother and sister.
One
day the brother hit his sister with a fish and told her to multiply.
She
gave birth to a child every seven days and soon there were so many people on
the earth, that all women were forced to have just one child every year.
(The
message to woman here is beware of men throwing fish)
Nearly
every human culture has a creation story of some kind -
a
story that explains how our world, and how we, came to be.
Many
of these mythological stories involve heavenly creatures, jealous Gods, or races
of giants who battle to the death, and human beings are often the residual and
flawed byproduct of their violent creative fits.
When
the Hebrew decedents of Abraham spent 70 years in captivity in ancient Babylon
they would have heard the creation story of Enuma Elish - a story that elevated
the Mesopotamian God, Murduk, above all other Gods.
In
this story, Murduk battles and defeats Tiamat, the chaos monster of the seas.
Murduk becomes the supreme God over all, and humanity is created to serve him
as slaves.
This
story dates back to the 12th century B.C. and is believed to be 300
years older than the Hebrew creation story that we read here in worship this
morning.
For
the Hebrew people languishing in the despair and drudgery of captivity, there
wasn’t much hope to be found in these stories of warring Gods who created a
violent and evil world to serve their own needs.
So
the Hebrew people began to tell their own story.
In
their story there is only one God above all Gods, and this God created a world
that is good.
This
God created light and dark, the sun and the moon, the plants and the animals,
and named it all as GOOD.
This
God created humankind, male and female, in God’s own likeness, and named it as
GOOD.
This
God did not create a race of slaves, this God instead created a family of caretakers.
Beings
formed from dust and given life through divine breath.
Beings
whose purpose was to care for creation and celebrate the one true God who gave them
life.
This
is the story that the exiled Israelites told their children when they tucked
them into bed at night - children who were facing a very hard and painful life,
and had never seen the Temple that was built for the loving and powerful God
that walked with them in their misery.
The
Israelites told and retold this story in the hope that it would help them to tune
out the prevailing story of the culture, which said they were destined for a
life of sorrow in a chaotic world created by power hungry Gods. And it was
hoped that they would instead embrace the story of the one, true God, who
created a world of beauty and order, where life had meaning and purpose.
Perhaps
the most amazing part of this story that that the children of Abraham told is
that this God created a being that was meant to serve as the voice of creation
itself.
A
being that would not only care for creation but speak for it.
A
being capable of communicating with and loving its Creator.
A
being that was created to live in relationship.
With
God, with the created world, and with other beings like itself.
As
Christians this relational triangle – or trinity - is familiar to us.
We already
think of God as having three parts –
God
the Creator.
God
the redeemer – through Christ.
And
God the sustainer – through the Holy Spirit.
In
human terms, this is a God who is our life-giving parent, our forgiving and
loving brother, and our guiding and providing sister.
It’s
natural that as a being created in God’s image that we too would long for this
three-fold relationship – with God, with creation, and with each other.
Perhaps
this is why we feel so alone or unsettled when any one of these relationships
is missing, strained, or in need of healing in our lives.
If
we think of God as having three aspects that live in relationship then it seems
odd to suggest that perhaps God created us because God was lonely and was
longing for someone to talk to.
But
I believe there is some truth in that.
As
much as God could sit back and enjoy the beauty of the created world – the wind
in the trees, the roar of seas, the cycle of life as lived out through the
birds of the air and everything that walks or crawls on the earth – there was
something missing.
Perhaps
God longed for a creature that would one day be aware of God’s existence – and
reach out as a child reaches for a parent, as a friend reaches for a beloved
companion.
If
you think about it, the fact that we have such an awareness is quite
extraordinary.
You
don’t have to be a quantum physicist to marvel at the wonder of how particles
smaller than the eye can see, come together to form creatures capable of doing
all that we are capable of doing.
God’s
creation is amazing indeed.
Here
is a God who created the light sensitive cells that make up the eyes of most of
the world’s creatures, and then creates a being who would one day use those
cells to look through the lens of a microscope and contemplate the wonder of its
own existence.
Here
is a God who created a being out of dust - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur –
the same stuff that stars are made of, in the hope that one day this clump of
stardust might compose a hymn of praise.
As
the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor so eloquently put it:
God may well love the sound of waves and spring
peepers, but I have to believe there was joy in heaven when the first human
being looked at the sky and said, “Thank you for this.”
Just
as any parent delights in seeing their child explore, learn, and grow,
and
is joyous when they receive expressions of their child’s gratitude for all they
have been given, I believe God longs for the same with us.
In
the same way, God longs for us to turn to our Creator, our redeemer, our
sustainer, when the world is not as ordered as we expect it to be, when in our
sorrow and in our suffering we are in need of comfort, courage, and strength.
God
created our world and declared it to be good.
The
ancient Israelites told this story of a loving God and the gift of creation to
counteract the prevailing story of the Babylonians who held them captive.
When
we tell the Hebrew creation story to our children, we’re hoping to counteract
the prevailing stories of our culture that hold us captive as well.
The
stories that tell our children, and us, that we were created not to live in
relation with on another but in competition.
The
stories that tell us that we were created not to care for our world, but to
consume it.
The
stories that tell us that God is not a loving, relational redeemer, but is
instead an angry, distant punisher.
The
stories we tell about ourselves say a lot about how we view the world and how
we understand the purpose of our existence.
The
fact that in 21st century New England we’re still telling the
stories carried by an ancient desert people who longed to escape captivity,
says a lot about the power of these stories to transcend time and space and
culture.
Regardless
of how technologically advanced we are, how affluent we are, or how privileged
we are, we can’t escape the nature of our creation.
We
are relational beings.
We
long for, and thrive, when we live in relationship -
with
God, with the created world, and with each other.
And
as long as we continue to share our creation stories,
we
will continue to see the value in nourishing and healing those relationships.
Because
in God’s image we are created.
And
in that image, we can create a whole lot of GOOD in this world.
Thanks
be to God.
Amen.
*
Quote from Barbara Brown Taylor, The
Luminous Web, Cowley Publications, pg. 31-32
