It Was Very Good

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June 15, 2014

Genesis 1:1-2:4A

¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the 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. ³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights — the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night — and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” ²⁷So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ²⁹God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

^2:1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

⁴These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Sermon: “It Was Very Good”

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging ---

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

To me, creation is poetry.  That’s why I can’t help but share a favorite poem from Mary Oliver.  Genesis 1 is a verse-by-verse love poem to the created world, with God expressing that love over and over again like a proud parent proclaiming, “and it was good.”

I read this text as poetry, and so it doesn’t really matter to me whether it all happened in a certain number of days or millennia.  It matters that it touches our souls, not just on the pages of this holy book of ours, but also on walks in the woods, in the painted barns of Cameron becoming one with vines and branches, in the eyes of a beloved pet, in the thundering power of a storm and the hushed calm afterwards.

It’s not enough to just hear or even believe the story of creation.  We must let it enter our bones, stir within our souls, so that we do not take this precious gift for granted.  No one forced God to create the world.  God did not create out of coercion, or boredom, or curiosity about what might happen.  There was one and only one reason God created – and creates still: love. 

Each leaf and branch is filled with the love of God, each drop of water (the same water that has ever been, by the way: we drink the very waters the Spirit hovered over at creation) each drop of water is holy, each creature that soars through the skies, walks the earth or swims in the ocean proclaims the handiwork of that great poet Creator.

It was all called good.

And then we were made.  Now to be honest, there are a few words that create trouble in the story in Genesis of us being made.  They are: very, subdue and dominion.

Let’s start with very.  That poetic naming of everything as “good” reaches a pinnacle it seems after we were created: God then said it was “very good.”  Like children proudly brandishing a gold star, we are quite fond of that “very.”  It means we’re perhaps just a little bit better than everything else.  That we matter more, that we’re more important and certainly more powerful.

And therein lies our arrogance as human beings, right from the start of things.  That “very” isn’t just for us, you see.  It’s for the whole of the created order, which includes us, but isn’t limited to us.  God took a good long gander at everything God had made and God saw that it – all of it – was very good.  We’re made in God’s image, yes, but we only bear that image in the context of the entire created community God made.

On to that next troubling word: subdue.  As in, “fill the earth and subdue it.”  We human beings like this even more than that very!  We have long assumed this is a permit from the Divine to bend creation to our will and profit.  And perhaps if someone else was asking us to rule or subdue the earth, it would mean that.  But it wasn’t a politician or executive asking us to subdue the earth.  It was God.  And remember, every single thing God made was made not out of coercion or curiosity, but out of love.  

So any subduing or ruling we are called to must come from a place of loving all God has made: every tree and rock, every drop of water, every child made in God’s image.  Subdue looks more like stewardship than a dictatorship over the planet. 

It’s also important to realize that we’re not the only ones who rule in this creation text.  The sun rules over the day, giving light and vitality to all green things, and the moon rules the night, crafting the ebb and flow of the oceans like a great orchestra conductor.  The ruling of creation is always done with love.

And now for that final problematic word: dominion.  Humanity is told to fill and subdue the earth and “have dominion” over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

But like a contract with our Creator, there are conditions to this sort of dominion.  We’re not told we are to have dominion in order to build our national resources, or add short-term jobs to our state economy.  The terms of this “dominion contract” don’t include promised benefits of money, status or security.  The only benefit included in this dominion contract with our Creator is food.  We are to have dominion in order to eat, but even that sort of dominion must be rooted in a love for God’s creation.

All of creation is indeed very good.  As Mary Oliver would say, creation is our best way to communicate with the Creator.  It is our prayer.  Let’s not neglect those prayers, or silence them with our ambition and thus cut off our lifeline to the One who made us. 

Let us pray: with each song of a bird, with each clean drop of water, with each sunlit tree.  That prayer of creation goes on whether we join in or not, but if we do, we will find the same prayer said to our Creator over and over again, first uttered by that greatest of Poets, “It is very good.”   Amen.