Holy Trinity Sunday Year A June 15, 2014
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Genesis 1:1-2:4a + Psalm 8 + Matthew 28: 16-20
Come Holy Spirit, renew the hearts of your people and kindle in us the fire of your love. Amen.
Today’s lessons have us beginning at the beginning. At creation. In the garden. With God, the great artist, molder, painter, musician. We heard the reading from a newer translation and while some of the phrasing might have seemed unique, what is happening is the same….God is creating. God is crafting a wondrous place filled with creatures and plants and waters and sky. Paradise.
God’s intention for this place, for this paradise, is that it be a place that is designed and intended for all of the plants and animals and beings that dwell there.
The Creation story is one of those stories that we hear over and over again; it can become so familiar to us that we take it for granted. That’s why I chose the translation from the Inclusive Bible this morning. The words are just different enough to make us pay attention and hear the story in a new way.
The story of the Creation of paradise is so rich, it is so full of preaching possibilities, that it’s almost overwhelming to consider them all. So, this morning I’d like for us to consider three aspects of the Creation story together.
First, the pattern and creation of time.
Second, what it means for something to be good.
And third, what it means to be a steward of what God has made.
If we hear the story read aloud, as we did this morning, we are aware that it has refrains and repeats, almost like a song. Scholars believe that this was likely a priestly liturgy, used by the priests in the temple in worship. God calls things good. God says. And one of the phrases that is repeated throughout the story has to do with the creation of time…Evening came, and morning came….another day. To be sure, these were likely not days in the way we understand a day….they were likely not 24 hour periods of time…but they were rhythms of existence that did not exist until they were created by God. Evening and morning. Daylight and darkness.
A few years ago Bruce and I went to Alaska for the wedding of good friends. It was summer; the sun didn’t set until almost midnight and it rose at something like 4:30. We would find ourselves moving at daytime speeds when we would normally have turned in for the evening. I hear Iceland is like this as well.
No matter where we live, though, or what our vocations find us engaged in, our lives have rhythms to them. And that understanding of time as something created by God with intention for the good of all of creation reminds us of the sacredness, the holiness of each day.
This is not an understanding that is unique to religious folks….there’s an awful lot of self help material and poetry and fortune cookies that remind us to make the most of our time. But when we add to that an understanding that the time is a gift, created and crafted by God, just as the rest of Creation is, then time becomes a sacred space in which we dwell.
A second refrain in this passage is that of things being called good by God. I want to suggest that these things weren’t good just in and of themselves, but that they were good in the way they related to one another. The light is good as it relates to the darkness. The waters are good as they relate to the dry land. The plants and trees that bear fruit are good in relation to one another. The sun that illumines the day and the moon and stars that illumines the night are good in the relationship they share. The fish and sea creatures and birds are good in relation to the one another and in the way they increase their numbers, and likewise the animals of all kinds.
To put it in a simple way….for those of you who enjoy baking or cooking. It is one thing to bake that pie or grill that steak, but doesn’t the goodness come from the relationship of what has been made to the ones who are eating it? If we bake a blueberry pie and it’s gorgeous and the crust is just right and then we just sit it on the counter and admire it…where is the goodness in that? But if we bake a blueberry pie and invite our friends to the table and enjoy it together…then it is good, indeed.
But here’s perhaps the most important thing, the key to this whole passage of Scripture. It’s the transition from the understanding of the goodness of things as a relational reality to the how we steward what God has given us. Because after God creates humankind, female and male, God does not call them good. Instead, God blesses them. God blesses them. And then God says to them: “Bear fruit, increase your numbers, and fill the earth – and be responsible for it. Watch over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things on the earth. Look! I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit carries its seed inside itself: they will be your food; and to all the animals of the earth and the birds of the air and things that crawl on the ground – everything that has a living soul in it – I give all the green plants for food” Then, the text says, “God looked at all of this creation and proclaimed that this was good – very good.”
Goodness is present in our faithful stewarding of the Creation God has entrusted to us.
Even the Psalmist understood this. In our Psalm today the question is asked: “What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?” And the answer is that God’s vision for us is one of us caring for all flocks and cattle and wild beasts, all birds and fish and creatures in the sea.
This is the intention and reason for our existence, that we are to steward what God has entrusted to us.
One day this week, as I was leaving the church early in the evening, I saw out front, in our garden, our corner of paradise, neighbors working together in their garden plots. Some were dressed in the full covering of their religious tradition and some were wearing cut off overalls. Some were young and others were old. There were men and women. There were developmentally delayed young adults, working with their caregivers. Their languages were not the same, but their smiles were. And it hit me….THIS is the Kingdom! And THIS is what God calls good….being together, in spite of our differences, and because we are all created in God’s image. All of us. We don’t get to say that some of us are and some of us aren’t. We are all, every one, created in God’s image.
And God has given to us, people of Luther Memorial, this land here on the corner of Greenwood and 132nd and told us to steward what we have been given.
How do we use what we have to further the Kingdom? How do we use what we have in ways that create relationships that God would call good?
I believe it is a question that as good stewards, as faithful followers, we must always keep in front of us. I believe it is what we asked when we cleared and crafted a garden out of a chaotic, formless corner. And I believe it is the question before us in these days, when people are living in their cars and sleeping on our steps and hungry at our window. How do we use what we have been given to further the Kingdom?
Thanks be to God. Amen.