From Relatives To Strangers...and Back

Sermon for the Stated Meeting of Presbytery
Friday Night, Feb. 28, 2014

My brother has a cabin on a lake near Delta Jct.  The shallow lake water gets so much heat from the sun that the algae grows green in it like pea soup, and I don’t really like to drink it.  So, one June day I took my boat to collect drinking water from a freshwater stream.

As I came around a bend, there, lying nestled on the bank, surrounded by lush green grass was a baby moose.  It’s large eyes, and long legs identified it as a newborn, and it was beautiful.  I felt a connection at that moment: a connection with this beautiful creature, with God’s marvelous creation and with God, the Creator of us all.  What an amazing, holy moment!

Looking at today’s reading from Colossians we see that Jesus Christ is the image of God and the firstborn of all creation.  We also see that it is in Jesus Christ that all that is created is held together.  Somehow, in the Christ, this very universe is held together. All physical laws have their grounding (their code) in Jesus, the connection between creation and God.

Is that mystical or what?  Well, if not mystical, it is certainly mysterious.  There are days when I look at God’s creation—like that baby moose, or the wonder of water and land—and I grasp something of God’s connection to it all through Jesus, who is creature and God.  Whenever I allow myself focus on this awareness I am filled with wonder.  I hope you are as well, if not every day, then on some days.

There is also an amazing amount of wonder to be found in today’s reading from Genesis.  It begins with the first account of creation in the Bible—six days of creation, followed by the Sabbath, ending with this verse: Genesis 2:4

These were the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they

were created.

That phrase “these are the generations of” appears over and over in Genesis:  These are the generations of Adam (and Eve), These are the generations of Noah, of Noah’s sons, of Terah, of Ishmael, of Isaac, of Esau, and of Jacob.  Each time the phrase תּולדה is used in Genesis it means a genealogy.  It means, “Here are the genealogical annals of Adam and his offspring, etc…”

That being the case, I wonder if we shouldn’t approach the whole biblical account of creation as a genealogy?  And with that understanding, the youngest members of the creation family are the human creatures.

As in many traditional cultures, Old Testament Hebrew culture placed a high value on honoring elders.  The Bible put it in the commandments with “Honor your Father and Mother,” and we see it elsewhere in the ethics code when speaking of honoring the elders at the gates and elsewhere.  Honoring our elders is a part of biblical tradition.

Which, of course, raises the question: How are we doing as a species—as the human creatures in creation—in caring for our elders in the creation family?  According to all evidence, we are not doing very well. 

As the youngest members in the family tree of God’s created order, we have certain family obligations.  As creatures with the kind of power we have, we also have the moral obligations that come with power.   We can work either for the good of the web of life on the planet, or we can ignore that good and opt for our generation’s selfish gain, even though it requires us to the harm of the web of life on the planet, and therefore put generations of other humans at risk. Clearly, we need to pay attention to how we are using human power on the planet, and we need to be willing to learn from the evidence nature is setting before in order to respond and adapt. 

Caring out our obligations to God’s beloved creation family requires all of us to take care with how we use power.   We must not believe the knowledge and power we possess is to be used simply for selfish purposes.

In fact, the last verse we read today in Genesis was Gn. 2:15—and God put the human creature in the garden—that is, in God’s creation—and told the human to till it and to care for it. 

Translators know how powerful language is.  They are also painfully aware of how translations often fail to express the depth of meaning originally conveyed when trying to render a statement from its original language into another.  So for the Hebrew word that is translated “to till” in this passage, the meaning goes much deeper.  It carries a strong meaning of service.  It means to care for the land, and help it to thrive and be fruitful.  It is certainly about getting our food from the land, too, and so the translation, “to till the land” is a very appropriate part of it.  But down deep, it is about caring deeply for land and life.  Similarly, the term we translate “keep” also means, “to protect.”  So maybe a good way to look at this whole passage is that we are, “to serve and protect the land.”

Isn’t that the motto of our public safety officers?  Our mandate is to serve and protect the land.

In many ways, the concept that we are somehow related to all of creation, and that we are to serve and protect the land, so that we and the land can thrive together—in many ways this is gospel today.  Because the impact that human beings are having on the health of this planet’s life systems absolutely requires that serving and protecting the land must be a number one focus for the humanity of this generation. 

Personally I do not believe it unreasonable to think that we do carry the obligation of knowing ourselves as the land’s relatives.  Elsewhere in the Bible we find imagery that indicates that we are relatives of the land.  Check out Psalm 139, verses 13-15, for instance.  This passage indicates that we are not only born from our mothers’ wombs, but also from the womb of the earth.

It must be noted, however, that the people of faith generally do not treat this Genesis passage as a genealogy.  Indeed, even as I make the case for now considering all of creation as relatives, it is no surprise that we have not done so up until now.

Indeed, the Biblical witness is also quite clear that each of us is related to all the rest of humanity.  The Bible traces Jesus’ genealogy, and our genealogy, all the way back to Adam and Eve.  If this means anything, it means that we are all related.  Yet, the Bible also makes it clear that we experience most other human beings as strangers, rather than relatives.  

Strangers are feared in nearly every culture.  In the United States, we are greatly worried about the stranger issues.  We are asking a whole host of questions:

• How should we deal with illegal immigrants? 
• How do we address our proclivity toward racism and every form of human trafficking? 
• How do we deal with marriages, where we don’t even know how to get along with those people who should not really be strangers to us? 

These are big issues for our generation; and the issues surrounding strangers are big issues for every generation.

The Bible recognizes how hard it is to really be related and loving with our fellow human beings, and goes out of its way to make rules for treating foreigners well.  “Remember,” the Bible cautions, “you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt and I brought you out,” says the Lord.  The reality is that our sin causes us to experience our own species mostly as strangers.  We cannot be too surprised that we are blind to our relatedness to the rest of the cosmos.

Yet, our Christian confession of faith offers a different perspective.  In Jesus Christ, the Holy One chose to come to us, though to God we are truly different, even foreign.  How strange that God would insist on establishing communion with us foreign creatures, and would insist on demonstrating that communion not only by coming to us, but by joining us.  How strange that God would name us “good” after creating us, and would love us so deeply that God would act to save us from the true offense: our sin.

It is that kind of reality that must give focus to our interpretation of who we are as human beings living with the rest of creation.  We are to have dominion over the animals.  If we focus on how foreign things are—in other words, if we let sin be the first thing in our view—then we will think that dominion means going to the savage land and taming it, so we won’t have to fear any more.  Of course if we do that, then we will also have the same attitude toward foreign people.  Unfortunately, we have a history of doing that very thing.  When one tribe bumps up against another, historically, they have tried to kill the other tribe.  European Christians eventually tried to be better—we eventually worked on our culture to not kill the indigenous peoples, but to colonize them.  Even so, we know now that colonizing other peoples still means treating them as less-than relatives—as less-than, even, the biblical mandate to care for the stranger.  It is time to try to learn how to be good relatives to one another, and to all of God’s creatures.

So if instead of focusing on the sin that is in the world that would alienate us from other creatures and, of course, from one another…if instead we should focus on Jesus Christ, who is the peace between us...Jesus Christ, who shares human DNA to show he is related to us…Jesus Christ in whom all creation holds together…Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwells with great pleasure…then we must do two things:

• We must claim each other and all creation as relatives.
• We must finally understand filling and subduing the land, and dominion over the animals.

Jesus shows us what dominion looks like.  The dominion of Jesus does not look like a king lording over others.  The dominion of Jesus looks like a servant, washing others feet; it looks like a Savior doing what it takes, even going to the cross, to save mere creatures from destruction.  It looks like coming together with foreigners—communion, you know?  It looks like love.

Indeed, the deeper meaning of the Hebrew word מלא, which we translate “filling” (as in the land) in this passage, is “fill the hand.”  To “be fruitful and multiply and fill the hand of God through the earth and through our dominion stewardship” is a hugely important purpose for humanity.  Filling the hand of God with the land is very different than lording it over things.  Isn’t that what Jesus showed us in his life, death and resurrection?  Jesus shows us dominion is stewardship.  Dominion stewardship fills the hand of God by the fostering of a thriving, relational ecosystem.

And so I am taking Genesis at its word.  We do have dominion power, we humans, whether that is for good or for bad.  We can see that the way we are exercising dominion now—the way we are living now—is destroying the web of life, our relatives.  And it is destroying us, too.

Even so there is hope.  According to John 3:5, we must be, and can be born anew—born of the Spirit: for in Jesus Christ we have communion with God.  And in that communion the Spirit teaches us, and forms us freshly into different kinds of communities—communities foreign to today’s ways of life: we are formed into faith communities.  In the Spirit we are called to become learning communities—communities that are becoming something different than the human world expects these days…to make a difference, and demonstrate a difference in the world!

Conclusion:

People of faith may honestly have a couple of different understandings of what I am saying today.  So let me speak to three of these understandings.

1.     If you accept my interpretation that all of creation is our relatives, and that we are the youngest members of creation, it raises a whole series of questions: 

a.     How are we doing in caring for our elders, and how are we caring for our relationship with our elders?  As a species the answer is, we are doing very poorly, indeed.  And so that raises the question the necesary faith response: 

b.     How can we repent, both as individuals and, very importantly, as a species?
And this raises yet another question:

c.     How can we form a church—a faith community—that is dedicated to learning how to not treat one another as the world does: how not to treat the each other, or the earth, as anything other than relatives? 

2.     If you are not so sure of the “relatives” interpretation—if your interpretation of this passage is more the traditional interpretation—that we experience nature as stranger—then the Bible asks another question:

a.     How well are we offering the biblically mandated care for the stranger? 

In the Bible, strangers (foreigners) lacked legal power.  It was up to the people of faith to insist that society care for the stranger—because we understand all too well that in our history, we (or our offspring) will all be in the position of the stranger at some point.  Sin makes sure of that. 

Biblically, we are called to welcome the stranger, to care for the stranger, to assure the wellbeing of the stranger, and even to allow God to transform us through the stranger.  We are specifically called to care for and to protect God’s beloved creation.  We are not doing that at all well.  How are we, as people of faith, to respond in this day?  Indeed, our own fellow humans are suffering today from environmental degradation.  Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are depending on us even more.

3.     And finally, given the power that we have, we have to admit that we do have dominion power over the balance of nature.  The decisions we make about how we live, both as individuals and as nations, are having a decisive effect on the whole balance of life.  We, who are created in God’s image, must be the image of God in this place, whether we like it or not.  That is, we are here to make a difference in the issues of the moment. 

So, for us, people of faith who are aware that we are created in God’s image, what will we do?  How will we begin learning to make a difference, because in Jesus we are different?

Genesis 1:26-2:4, 2:15
²⁶ 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.

²⁸ God 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.” ²⁹ God 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. ³⁰ And 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. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

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

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
…
¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

Colossians 1:15-17

¹⁵ [Christ Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶ for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Have you ever seen a scripture passage filled with such wonder?  Here, in the very first chapter of the Bible, we find that we humans are created in God’s image!  What wonder.  Every time I look at you, I see the walking image of God!  Every time the faithful come together, we people who know through faith that we are created in God’s image, every time we come together we seek to live out what it means to be God’s image--reflecting the kind of fellowship that exists in the inter-related communion of God—three persons in one. 

And as Christians, we go even further.  For we recognize that it was in Christ that God was showing us the way—the way to live out being God’s image, and the way of living on this planet.  God, the King of the Universe, refused to be alienated from us, but joined us in Christ Jesus—in full communion with us, serving us as king so humbly, even dying for our sin.  In Christ, we recognize that the King of the universes insists on being related to you and me and all creation—indeed, In Christ Jesus God even took on our DNA and our suffering of injustice, and betrayal, and weakness and death. 

And we are created, we humans, to be that image.  We are to be the image of the God who is not separated from us, even though our sin should make us strangers to God forever.  How do we make sure we do not cut off from one another—or from the ones who would be strangers to us in their own hearts?

We are to be the image of God.  And in Jesus, we know God, our Creator, who would not be separated from all creation, but insists on establishing communion—a real proclamation of the unity of being in covenant relationship with us—and we will celebrate that once again in the communion of the Lord’s Supper tonight.  Yet, our reading from Romans today tells us that God’s salvation is not just for humans, but also for all creation.