again and again and again...

again and again and again….,

Trinity Sunday – June 14/2014      Genesis1

I love the story of creation – I love the poetry of it, I love the rhythm of it – “and there was evening and there was morning, the first day”  I love the order of it – from nothing to form – from form to understanding and mostly I love the fact that God is creation, at the helm in the midst –beginning and ending - within and without,  imminent/eminent – God is creation and then God takes this incomprehensible unknown and gradually moulds it and shapes it

·       until meaning emerges

·       until understanding happens

·       until human beings emerge deeply connected to their creator.

I also love how this ancient piece of poetry comes from a world view so completely different than the world view of 2014 with a entirely different understanding of 

Ø  science

Ø  cosmology

Ø  astronomy

Ø  biology

Ø  physics and even

Ø  theology

Yet, in spite of that -  the order is correct about how the world was formed The order of the formation of the earth according to the best scientist of this day, was correct in Genesis 1

o   from void to water

o   from water to earth

o   from earth to seed and fish

o   from fish to fowl and fowl to mammals from

o   mammals to finally humans  - the last of the species to come to earth

Let’s listen again to creation – this time in the words of the great African American poet James Weldon Johnson  – it is called:  The Creation

THE CREATION

by: James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

ND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
"I'm lonely --
I'll make me a world."

 

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

 

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, "That's good!"

 

Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, "That's good!"

 

Then God himself stepped down --
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

 

Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

 

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.

 

Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, "Bring forth! Bring forth!"
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, "That's good!"

 

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, "I'm lonely still."

 

Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, "I'll make me a man!"

 

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;

 

Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.[1]

I hope this won’t surprise you when you hear it but both this poem from James Weldon Johnson and the poetry from Genesis 1, are myths – they are myths about creation. 

One wise child once said that a myth is something that is not true on the outside but is true on the inside.  And this myth is exactly that – true on the inside…

Our scientific minds can no longer believe in the facts of creation that in six of our days – 144 hours and all powerful being sat or stood somewhere in outer space with a magic finger going 

v zap – shape

v zap – light

v zap – sun and moon

v zap – plants and pets and people

v zap –zap –zap

Scholars believe that this beautiful poem was written not in fact in the beginning but in the midst of the Babylonian exile – which was only about 2500 years ago.  This was when the world was turned upside down for the Hebrew people – when chaos reigned – when confusion was the order of the day.  A scribe sat down and re-membered how the world came to be.

§  Re-membered it in poetry

§  Re-membered it in story

§  Re-membered it in song

§  Re-membered and re-connected himself and his people to their Creator.

This story, this song, this re-membering re-established the relationship that God had to God’s people from the beginning – in the midst of Creation.

The word re-member means what it says – it takes the members and puts them back together again.  To remember means to bring into your mind an awareness of what it was in the past, to recall an event, but also a reconnection to what was.

This story put the people back together again – it re-membered the Divine Being that made heaven and earth and the people for a reason, for a purpose for connection.

Creation story is a song about power for the powerless / life for the lifeless and hope for those who have been living in hopelessness.  Creation story is a song of love from God to God’s people.

For what is more hopeless than your world being torn apart  - all the things you know no longer working – when you believe yourself to be the chosen people and you are being conquered by a culture that does not respect you or your God –what do you do?  Actually this is our question too!  When a culture is overtaking us, here in this church, that does not respect what we do, who we are, what we stand for nor does our culture seem to have any use for our God – what do we do?

We re-member!  We re-member just like the Hebrews did in the midst of their turmoil.

We re-member how we came into being in the ancient story, for in the midst of the cadence of the poetry – in the core of the rhythm of the words – there you hear it – there beats the heart of God – “and it was evening – papom – and it was morning – papoom – the first day – papoom.  The heartbeat of God beating in love for all it’s creation.

God created the world – God created the light – God created the animals – God created you!  You are God’s creation….and that’s not all.

Cause you know what – the words that the scribe used to describe the beginning of all things – “In the Beginning”  well in fact the translators from Hebrew to English added the word “the” which means that the ‘the’ is not really there the first sentence should be read:  in beginning or in a beginning

And that changes things for without the ‘the’ – creation is longer reads as a one time thing…no longer does God only act for six days.

The first Creation is only a beginning – one of many, one of thousands, one of millions.

God – creator God, Creating God – God of this Hebrew scribe, our God creates again and again and again… and our bible proves it.

God created and things fell apart and Eden was over, and God created again

A tower was built, to try and get closer to God, and it fell apart, and the people began to babel, and God created again

An arch was built for animals 2 x 2 and a giant flood that destroyed the earth and doves and rainbows, and God created again.

And with a childless couple – descendants as many as the grains of sand,  

To a boy in a colourful coat, when brothers turned against him – God created an opportunity to save not only his family but also his people.

and God comes to create again in the voice in a burning bush, and through the waters of the red sea

and God creates new opportunities and new life with judges and kings and prophets and continues to create new covenants and new promises and new hope for the people…

God created in so many ways and then into the midst of it all – God sends godself – God comes as a baby – Emmanuel – God with us

And the child is called Jesus and the world is re-created once more – and still it ended – on a cross with death – and still God creates – and life begins again – resurrection!   God is not done – creation is not over!

And Jesus ascends and the spirit descends and a new life is created in the disciples and God’s word is shared in a new ways and church is born

Over and over and over again – God creates and recreates and re-re creates

And God is about to do it again – and all it is going to take is these simple foods on this table here – for in a moment we are going to share this bread and this juice and re-member.  We are going to re-member – put ourselves back together again, to be reformed into God’s people sharing a meal at the table.  We are going to re-member that this meal was shared by Jesus with his disciples, and this meal comes from a longer tradition that connects us to Moses and the Exodus people and we are going to remember that the elements of this meal, these simple foods of bread and juice are part of the earth, grains from the fields and fruit from the vine, vine from the earth, watered by the rains and grown from seeds – and God creates again and again and again..

And we are re-created

I believe that God created and is re-creating this world again and again.

And that by creating humanity God gave us that spark of faith and love that reflects Godself... this is what it means to be created in God image.  We all have within us the ability to create - to bring life from death, to re-vision the world, to work with God in the resurrection business.

God gave us choice: to choose to follow, to seek God out,to share the good news, to heal the sick and feed the hungry, to love and care for each other.  To be the church, this place that has the opportunity each and every day to be as Christ in the world.

To choose to honour and respect each other

To choose to do good - to choose to forgive.

To choose to love God, to love others and most of all to love ourselves – for if we do not value our own lives, how can we value anyone else’s?

God created all this and all of us.

God doesn’t expect us to do it alone: for we are never alone, for God

Creator, Redeemer, Breath  -   

Designer, Liberator, Life-force

Parent, Brother, Helper   -  

 source of love, love incarnate, loves power

Maker, Saviour, Friend

Father, Son and Holy Spirit    

 Creator God is with us always.  Amen.

---

[1] James Weldon Johnson:  "The Creation" is reprinted from The Book of American Negro Poetry. Ed. James Weldon Johnson. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1922.

A Pentecost Sermon

She Flies On

Pentecost – 2014               Acts 2:1-21  and 1Corinthians 12:3b-13

What a week – my oh my – who would have thought we in Canada could ever spend time living in fear and trepidation as the a part of the city of Moncton, NB was in lock down mode for over 24 hours this past week searching for a cop killer – hiding in the bushes of the city.  I can’t imagine what it was like for the people of Moncton – it must have been horrific – and what is it that disenfranchises a 24 year old man so much that he straps a number of of knives, guns and ammo to his body and goes out to purposely hunt and kill police officers?  How do you even make sense of such an event?  My sons are this age, had we lived in the same area they would have gone to school with him…I am asking myself what is so different that the choices made by one young man and the choices made by another are so different– and in sharp contrast to the event unfolding in Moncton – the other major news story focused on the beaches of Normandy.d – we also celebrated – maybe that is the wrong word – we paid homage to the young men who were roughly the same age as Justin Bourque, who on June 6, 1944 risked their lives and participated in the D-Day operations that eventually turned the tide in World War 2.  It was the beginning of the end.  It was such a strange juxtaposition to watch the television and see both stories happening simultaneously – on one hand a angry scary freaked out man killing cops and on the other, men who gave their lives to a cause of peace, justice and democracy, and fought for their country.  Humans are such complicated creatures that in one instance we can focus our power and strength hate and discrimination or we can band together as one to use our power and strength to combat hate and discrimination.  The power of one with an idea in his mind that is about hatred for other human beings is a destructive force.  The power many with the noble idea to liberate a nation for oppression is a constructive force.

Our readings today are about the power of many – and how all together we can be a force of love and justice and liberation and creation – we can be a constructive force.  And what binds the groups as  we witness today has nothing to do with uniformity or conformity -  is not that they are all the same, nor that they have all the same ideas or skills or abilities – what they have that binds them together that makes them a force to be reckoned with – is the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit – this gift of divine love that is part of this world and has been part of the world since its beginning…. 

And so the spirit comes…and the world was created, and God’s hands was in the beginning when all was a formless void and the spirit began its dance on the earth, God came into the world in so many different ways – the scriptures records just a few, God encounters with Abraham and Moses and David and Deborah – and God being there and with God’s people as they struggled to know God, so God sent prophets, prophets to speak for God, prophets with words that were sometimes difficult to hear.

The prophet were inspired to share the word of God to the people to offer them hope and to offer them reminders about who they were – and who God was and how they were deeply connected to their creator – it is easy as we all know so well that when we get caught up in our every day lives and things get challenging it is sometimes easier to think that going it alone is preferable to going it with God and we can get distant and we can get disconnected – but God was not done with the world yet – and God was not done with his people yet…
And then came Jesus – then came Jesus into the world a baby, born into humble circumstances and the spirit is unleashed like never before.  And this fully human man, and his ministry becomes a testament to the work of the Holy Spirit,

·       And the lame walked

·       And the blind regained their sight

·       And the deaf could hear again

·       And the outcast and the sinners are invited to the table

·       And woman are treated as equals, and food is shared with those whom society deems as unworthy

·       And he tells stories about grain falling on the ground and lost pearls and mustard plants and the world is turned upside down.

God sent Jesus and the world has never been the same since…let us sing about the spirit moving in the life of Jesus…

She Flies On – chorus, verse 3,4 chorus

She comes sailing on the wind,

         her wings flashing in the sun;

         on a journey just begun, she flies on.

         And in the passage of her flight,

         her song rings out through the night,

         full of laughter, full of light, she flies on.

To a gentle girl in Galilee, a gentle breeze she came,

         a whisper softly calling in the dark,

         the promise of a child of peace whose reign would

                 never end,

         Mary sang the Spirit song within her heart.

4       Flying to the river, she waited circling high

         above the child now grown so full of grace.

         As he rose up from the water, she swept down from the sky,

         and she carried him away in her embrace. 

She comes sailing on the wind,

         her wings flashing in the sun;

         on a journey just begun, she flies on.

         And in the passage of her flight,

         her song rings out through the night,

And after it was finished, the trail, the death, the resurrection the ascension – those that lived with Jesus, those that walked and talked and were the closest to him – well they struggled, they struggled to figure out how they were to live in the world in this new reality ---and then the Spirit came –
There they were Jesus disciples and others who witnessed to the Christ, other who were touched by who Jesus was and what he came to say – there they were – locked in a room again.  It is about 50 days past Passover, and they are once again in Jerusalem, and once again gathered in a room and once again they have locked the door – fear is pervasive, and the memory of the death of their leader is deep and present – the city is once again teaming with people from all over – they are gathered to celebrate Shavuot – which is the celebration of the day that God gave the law, the Torah, to the Jewish people.   The city is full of Jews and here they are as people who are challenging the traditional way that God is worship at the temple, and by the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes and Rabbis – they are becoming more Christ focused and less Law focused so it is understandable that being out sight might and out of mind might be a good idea as the celebration of the “Law” goes on around them.  And then the spirit come – the spirit of God – the Holy Spirit descends like flame and wind – imagine – imagine what this must have been like for all those in that room in that moment – how awesome – how terrifying – how liberating, how amazing –

It must have been pretty incredible because this wind and flame, this Spirit of God was able to these scared, unfocused disciples and friends and spurred them on and shook them up and transformed this rag-tagged group of disciples into preachers and teacher and prophets and the church was born – in that moment – these men and woman unlocked that door and walked or more probably ran out into the streets to share with anyone who would listen the transforming love that Jesus, their friend had shared with them.  And the Spirit flew into the streets and enlivened and enraptured the people.  Out of that moment the church was born and people began to gather in homes and support one another, and share food, and care for others, love and Jesus loved and do and Jesus did…but it wasn’t always easy and it wasn’t always good.

Let me tell you about the church in Corinth – it is a mess – it has just barely begun – just barely gotten its feet wet as a Christian organization  and already there is conflict, there is chaos, there is the body of Christ spending more time and energy dealing with it’s internal issues that the message of Christ is getting lost.  By the time Paul writes his letter, the church is dividing because of jealousy, and quarrelling amongst themselves.  There are some who are boasting about their personal spiritual gifts, at least one of their members is guilty of a sex scandal, the whole community is guilty of tolerating immorality.  Some of the believers are using outside judges to settle internal conflicts.  There were some who were thoughtless to their brothers and sisters and eating food that had been offered to pagan idols.  Some wealthier Christians were using the Lord ’s Table to humiliate poorer members.  They also were ranking spiritual gifts as being more important than others and the list goes on and on and on – that why it takes Paul a couple of letters to set things straight.  But God does not give up on the church when it becomes a cesspool of problems -  no, in fact this is when the Spirit comes the most – for it is when we are struggling and when we are challenged and when we face fear and discomfort, this is the time when we are most open to the Spirit moving in our midst.  Look what Paul reminds the Corinthians this morning – he reminds them that they are the ones that are the gifted ones, they are the ones that God has graced with the ability and the resources that they need to live both in the church and in the world as God wants.  Paul reminds us that the gifts that we need to live a godly life, to be the church – they are here – here in this room.

Cause you know what – you are the church – you are the body of Christ – you sitting right there in that pew – and even if you think – not me, not here – cause I only come a few months of the year – or not now – cause there is too many other things going on in your life at the moment or not yet cause you are not ready– or even if you believe that you do not have enough faith to be part of this body of Christ – even if all those things – you are a too busy, occasional worshiper who is not prepared and is more of a doubter than a believer – you too are part of the body of Christ – you too are the church – and you too have gifts – gifts from God that we in the church need to keep going. 

What if you are the eyes of this body of Christ and you can see in the distance some obstacle that we are approaching – what would happen to the body without those eyes?

And what if you are the index finger of this here church – and we need to point out the direction to go in out in the world– what would happen if you decided to curl you finger up and not use it – where would we go?  Back inside ourselves?

And what if you are the knee cap of this operation – and we need an opportunity to bend and move and you decide that you have nothing to offer so that the legs of your church would stiff leg-a-dly and in pain and discomfort, move slowly forward?

And what if you are the ears of this place and you have heard a message from God, but you choose not to share it, how are we able to hear the full word of God if you withhold this information?

And what if you are the big toe – you may think – well that’s not important – the big toe – but what if we need you to stabilize us and without you we are tripping all over out feet.  

From the eyes to the ears, from our fingers to our toes – we are all part of the body of Christ and we all have a part to play in being the church.

You are part of the body of Christ – and we need you! 

The spirit comes and comes and comes – it is Jesus promise to us.

In Moncton yesterday, when the killer had been caught and charged and the lock down ended, the people did not remain in their homes contemplating the unsafe world that that we live in – no the people of Moncton, and more, people from all over New Brunswick left their homes and went to RCMP headquarters and left flowers, and tokens, one woman even left an small maple tree – all to let the police know that they cared and felt for them in their loss.  And in the neighbourhood where the lock down occurred, the people of that area gathered together and made speeches about how it was still a safe place and how they will not let fear ruin their neighbour and a bunch of boys decorated their bicycles and drove around with coloured streamers and flags and signs happy and safe in their neigbourhood…and the Spirit come again and again and again…she flies on.  Happy Pentecost everyone!