INTRODUCTION: Our first Scripture reading this morning is from the first chapter of the first book in the Bible: Genesis 1, verses 26-31. These verses pick up near the end of the Story of Creation, after God has created the earth, the sea, the plants, and all the non-human creatures that live on land or in sea. In this passage, the writer describes, in poetic terms, God’s creation of human beings and their relationship to the other creatures of the earth. Let us listen for the Spirit speaking through these words.
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 1:26-3126 Then 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.’
27 So 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.
INTRODUCTION: Our second Scripture reading is from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 1, the first part of verse 20. Paul reminds the church in Rome that if people pay attention to the world around them, they can easily notice God in creation. I will be reading from a modern-language paraphrase of the Bible, called “The Message.”
SCRIPTURE: Romans 1:20 (The Message)
But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being.
SERMON: “Noticing God in Creation, Culture, and Creativity”
My sermon today is based on Chapter 6 of Richard Peace’s book, which is entitled, “Noticing God in Creation, Culture and Creativity.” I will take these topics in turn, starting with “Noticing God in Creation,” then moving to how we reflect God in culture and creativity.
First, “Noticing God in Creation.”
Professor Peace begins this chapter with a quote from Laird Hamilton, who is “arguably the greatest living big-wave surfer,” who has ridden waves over 100 feet high all over the world. Regarding such waves, Hamilton is quoted as saying, “If you can look at one of these waves, and you don’t believe there is something greater than we are, then you’ve got some serious analyzing to do and you should go sit under a tree for a very long time.” (Laird quoted by Richard Peace in Noticing God, p. 103.)
Professor Peace goes on to say, “In creating this planet and all that is on it, God left fingerprints all over creation [isn’t that a great image?!]: in the wind and the waves, in the breathtaking beauty of a sunset, …in the complexity of a drop of water, in the annual two-thousand-mile, multi generational migration of Monarch butterflies, and so on. [And then Peace reminds us:] you [each] have your own examples [of where you have seen the fingerprints of God in creation].” (Peace, p. 104)
A few years ago I asked a group of people at a Bible study if anyone wanted to share an example of a time when they had witnessed “the fingerprints of God in creation.” Sometimes I ask questions like this, and I’m met with silence because people have a hard time coming up with examples on the spot. Not this time. People had so many examples of times when a they had seen the fingerprints of God in the world, I had a hard time keeping the group to its agreed upon time limit. Perhaps the most vivid example was witnessing the phosphorescence of ocean water at night—which, amazingly to me, almost everyone in the group had seen at various times in various places throughout their lives. I won’t give you a list of all of them, but the most dramatic was a description given by a woman in her late 60’s who remembered a vacation she had taken as a child with her family on Vieques Bay in Puerto Rico.
The woman was a retired marine biologist, so she could share with the group the scientific explanation behind phosphorescence--which is usually caused by tiny algae that glow whenever they are jostled. But, she told the group, her voice hushed in awe, even knowing the science behind it, seeing it again years later, it still feels like magic when you run your hand along the surface of the water and leave a trail of shimmering light in your wake. She talked about her family diving into a sea of phosphoresence and coming up out of the water as if “dripping diamonds” off their fingers. Beautiful!
Richard Peace says that “Creation is a gift to us that expresses the giver, and so we can find God in [the beauty and wonder of] creation.” (Peace, p. 107). That’s not to say everything in God’s creation is beautiful or uplifting, but “in spite of…the destructive forces on our planet…we can still sense [God’s] glory [even if sometimes we sense it] through the fog of distortions.” (p. 107)
Our first Scripture reading this morning is from the first chapter of the first book of the Bible—Genesis. It is an ancient text often referred to as “the Creation Story.” But let me be clear—2500 years ago it was NOT written as a scientific account to be taken literally, but rather as a poetic work meant to inspire faith and worship. (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, p. 341.) It was written to express a truth: that God is behind the creation of the world.
The writer of Genesis—it is traditionally attributed to Moses but understood to be edited by priests and scribes—the writer was NOT interested in exploring the means or method that God used in creation, but rather in reminding us that GOD is the author and artist who brought the world into being.
But, back to the topic, “Noticing God in Creation.” One of the things often claimed from the reading in Genesis is that humanity is the crowning achievement of God’s creation, made in the image of God. Down through the centuries, there has been much discussion and argument as to what that means exactly. Most current scholars believe that “the image of God” refers to the “entire human being, not [just] to some part, such as the reason or the will.” (NIB, p. 345.) And while scholars do not rule out the possibility that being made in the image of God might somehow refer to our physical bodies, they agree the emphasis is more on our behavior, how we act in the world. One scholar puts it this way: being made in the image of God means that we human beings—BOTH male and female—are called to “mirror God to the world.” (NIB, p. 345) In other words, we are called to reflect God’s love and care to each other, our planet, and its creatures.
One of the tragedies of this passage is that it has often been misinterpreted--with destructive consequences. Specifically, when this passage talks about how humans are to have “dominion” over the world and its creatures, that word has been taken to mean—by some-- that we human beings have been given free reign by God to exploit the world’s natural resources for our own gain, however we see fit. But that is NOT what the word translated as “dominion” actually means. In fact, it means just the opposite. The other places in Scripture where the word “dominion” is used refer to God’s loving care of humanity, especially God’s care of the poor and needy, the injured and weak, whom God rescues from violence and oppression (Psalm 72 & Ezekiel 34).
Being made in God’s image means that we are to offer this kind of loving care to our world: the kind of care that prioritizes the needs of the most vulnerable above the needs of the most powerful.
Which brings us to the second topic of this sermon: how we reflect God in culture and creativity. When we notice God in the beauty of creation and recognize that we are made in God’s image, then we can work together to create a culture where care and love take precedence over violence and exploitation. Richard Peace describes culture like this:
Culture is what we humans make of creation. Our cultural products give testimony to the reality of God when we have eyes to see and ears to hear. So it is that we turn in a God-ward direction under the power of a great symphony, through the transcendence of medieval murals in majestic European cathedrals or via the mesmerizing vision of Dante’s great poem Divine Comedy. Our cultural products in all their creativity move us toward [God’s Love.] (Peace, p. 108)
Having been part of a group of people here at FFC who are reading Ibram Kendi’s book, How To Be an Antiracist, I am aware that all of the examples of culture given in that last paragraph are limited to White European culture. They are still wonderful examples of culture, but to get a full picture of the Love of God, we need to add to them. Our understanding of God’s Love can be expanded when we look, also, at creative works by artists of color, including, for example, Amanda Gorman, whose poem at the presidential inauguration called us all to be our best selves and Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose musical Hamilton invites us to see American history from multiple perspectives.
If we look for it, we can see God’s Love in creation and culture that is all around us. We can also reflect God’s Love in our own creativity, even if we are not famous artists, writers or poets. In Professor Peace’s words, “Each of us has been given the ability to create. We can weave together various elements to produce something unique, something that sparkles with truth and reality…In the creative process, we are touching God in us and around us.” (Peace, p. 117)
Whether our creativity is expressed in photography, cooking, writing, gardening or playing with our grandchildren, may we see it for what it is--a reflection of our Creator’s Love. May our awareness of God in the world around us increase with each new day, and may God continue to work in and through us to creatively bring healing and wholeness to our neighbors, ourselves, and our world. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt
Franklin Federated Church
Franklin, MA
Note: An earlier version of this sermon was written and preached by Marlayna on March 18, 2018.