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Creation Continues
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18 May 2005 We believe that life in all its forms is a gift from God. And we believe that human life in particular is so very precious that we speak of being made in the image of God. So when we witness, even at some distance, a single cyclone that wipes out tens of thousands of people, or when the evening news reports a string of small tornados shattering homes, when an earthquake flattens schools, devastates whole towns, and leaves thousands more without basic necessities, when drought brings famine and starvation to the parched regions of northern Africa, we are stunned and saddened and sobered. When the Jewish exiles in Babylon wrote the majestic text of today’s scripture, they weren’t dealing with the specifics we have wrestled with in just these past two weeks. But those exiles were no strangers to destruction and devastation; those exiles were no strangers to a head-on assault to their whole understanding of God. After all, they’d seen the streets of Jerusalem run with the blood of the slaughtered; they’d seen conquering armies round up survivors and march them from Jerusalem to Babylon. They’d seen their beloved temple, the one built by Solomon, razed to the ground, completely and utterly destroyed. They wrestled with the possibility that the God they had worshiped in Jerusalem had no power in Babylon; they agonized over how they were even going to be able to worship God when the sanctuary created for that purpose no longer existed. How could they worship God and sing God’s song in a foreign land? Today we welcome as full adult members two of the confirmands who have spent this academic year preparing for membership in the church. Between the natural disasters of the past two weeks, the ongoing disasters of human origin, the mounting disasters of human arrogance and greed, and the context of our own scripture reading, one thing should be abundantly clear: faith is not for sissies. It is challenging to be a person of faith now; it was challenging to be a person of faith twenty-six hundred years ago; it was challenging to be a person of faith two thousand years ago, or sixty years ago, or any other time you care to name. Because being a person of faith means that you are taking a hard-nosed, no-nonsense look at what we all call ‘reality’ in its most awesome and its most gruesome forms, and still having the audacity of claiming relationship to God. Because that’s what you are doing today; so from my vantage point, it would be hard to have a better scripture than the first story of creation. Born of the cauldron of hardship and suffering, this story “challenges any diminished notion of human value.”[1] It puts it right out there: because we are made in the image of God, everything, everything is sacred about the value of an individual life. So whether that life travels to the moon, or is swept away in a cyclone or buried in the rubble of an earthquake or discovers the cure for cancer, something of God’s own self is there, wrapped up in that human being. It’s like our confirmands reminded us last week: we are individual members of the body of Christ, and whether the member celebrates or suffers, the body is caught up as well. This means that we have an amazing gift. The confirmands, and each of the rest of us in this sanctuary bears the image of God, so part of what we learn and practice in the church is how to treat every living being as if, in them, we are dealing with God’s own self. When we hurt one another, we hurt God. When we love each other, we love God.[1] But there’s more: we also have an important and distinctive part to play in the world.[1] We are loved for who we are, and we are called to image God in our particular time and place. How would God deal with hurt, or anger, or conflict? What would God value? How would God interact with classmates? With colleagues? How would God resolve injustice?[1] The creation story reminds us that the world wasn’t created once and for all; it’s being created as I speak, and each of us has a unique, priceless spot to fill in the tapestry…our lives are a critical part of the tapestry of creation itself. “As those who are made in the image of God, it is our privilege and our calling to be co-creators with God”[1] As those made in the image of God, it is our privilege, our calling to bring healing and compassion and justice and blessing to the world. ### [1] And It’s Still Good, Bev Lewis, 2005 |