The light of Christ has entered this place. Now let the light enter our hearts, as we receive the words of scripture. Send your light, O God, like the first morning; send your Spirit like the first bird. Amen[3]
The Reading: Genesis 2: 4b-9, 15 Another Account of the Creation
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
May we find ourselves renewed and re-created in this ancient reading. Thanks be to God!
Sermon: “Which Story is True?”
Today in the church calendar we celebrate Earth Sunday. It’s a time to celebrate the wonder of this place we call home and a time to focus our attention on the effect our way of life has on it. It’s also a good time, I think, to look at the creation stories found in the Bible. Yes, I said “stories” because there are more than one. There is the beautiful poetry of Genesis 1 – “In the beginning…” where God creates the Earth over six days, adding more wonder each day and declaring at the end of each one, “And God saw that it was good.” Humans appear at the very end of the work on the sixth day – first come all the other creatures of the water, the sky, and the land. And then, humankind is created in the image of God, male and female.
“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.’ 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. 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.”
This was the end of God’s work week and on the next day God rested. God was satisfied with a job well done and a world functioning smoothly.
And then, just a few verses later, we read a different creation story, the one we heard Ruth read for us today. In this one, God creates humankind right at the beginning, as soon as there is dry land to stand on. In fact, this story tells us that “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground.” God breathes life into him and then creates a garden from that same dust, with every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to till it and keep it.” After that God uses that same dust to form every animal of the field and bird of the air… and finally, a partner for man is created from his very body – the same body that was created from that same dust.
Of course, millennia have passed since these stories were first told. The world has progressed and science has added a lot of information and understanding about not only the beginnings of life on this planet but also on the context of this planet we call Earth in the vastness of the universe. Today we know much more about evolution and how living things adapt to the changes that have happened over the eons of time. We have a new creation story to add to our repertoire.
All of these stories have common elements but each one is unique. The problem for our modern minds is that they seem to be totally different stories… Which one are we supposed to believe? …Which one is true?
Thomas King is an award-winning author and scholar of Native descent. One of his areas of scholarship is aboriginal oral traditions and storytelling. In his Massey Lecture series for CBC, captured in his book, “The Truth About Stories”, he talks about how our view of the world is connected to the stories we hear and the stories we tell. “There are no truths,” he says, only stories.” We build our truths from the stories we hear, the stories we live, and the stories we tell. Each time a story is told, it changes slightly depending on who is doing the telling, or where, or when. It might change because of the mood of the storyteller or the reaction of the audience. When a story is passed from person to person, it can change to emphasize the things the teller found most important or what they think is most important for you to know. The story might change, but it always contains some element of the original.
Each lecture or chapter in King’s book begins with a creation story that he knows about the world being built on the back of a turtle. He’s heard the story many times and every telling is different, he says, but in every telling, the world never leaves the turtle’s back and the turtle never swims away. That’s the important part, the part we need to hear.
To me, that’s the place we find our truths. The way we learn about the world. I think of it like this: “I don’t know if it really happened this way, but I know this story is true.”
In our first creation story, humankind is created last. What does this tell us about our place in the evolution of the world? It certainly seems to fit with what Darwin and science have shown us, doesn’t it? Everything was in balance, all needs were addressed – food, air, water, companionship. It’s interesting that men and women arrive just when God is ready for a rest. God gives humans a job, puts them in charge, gives them dominion over it all, and then settles into a blessed and hallowed day of rest.
In the second, man is created first, then all of the other living things, both plant and animal, and finally woman. This time man is present to witness the wonder of creation, to marvel at the diversity of life that comes from the same dust, to see how each piece fits into the whole, to witness the intricate weaving of the needs and gifts of all living things, the interdependence built in to the whole amazing picture. Man was there to witness the beautiful choreography from the very beginning. And, once again, God gives man a job. Man is placed in the heart of it all, to till it and keep it. Up to this point, man is set apart from the other living things created by God. He is a separate entity, with all this incredible world in his hands. God brings each new living thing to man and asks him to name them. He is unique – one of a kind, in the same way God is unique – there is no other one. Man is given a role in creation by naming and categorizing each thing God creates. Man is given a responsibility to care for creation and to help it grow – to till it and keep it. But man is not God; he needs companionship, he needs a partner. When God sees this, woman is created – not as a new creation from the dust of the earth but out of the very man himself. She is the same, but unique in her own right. She is separate and yet part of the whole. Together they are given the gift of choice, the gift of free will.
I don’t know if it really happened this way, but I know the stories are true.
The first “truth” in the creation stories, for me, is that in creating this incredible world, humans are just one small part of that creation but an important part, unique and different from the rest. Whether we came at the very beginning or at the end, we humans were given special responsibility to maintain creation and to help it grow.
Another “truth” I hear in these stories is that we humans have a unique relationship with God. We are trusted with knowledge and insight into the workings of this amazing world – not just of our planet home but, more and more, of the universe itself.
Whether man and woman were created together or whether they are part of the same body, I hear the truth that they are equal in the eyes of the Creator and are meant to work together as partners in carrying out the responsibility they were given.
The truth in each of these stories – including the science that we now know – is that everything was created from the same elements, the same dust, the same “star dust” that was swirling about in that chaos before Creation.
The question, perhaps, is not “did things really happened this way?”, but rather “what do we do with these truths?”
Today, Earth Sunday, and Thursday on Earth Day, we are reminded to celebrate the beauty and complexity of the world, and our place in it. It is not a religious holiday, although the premise certainly fits with our beliefs and those of many other faiths. The message of this focus on the Earth is one that transcends religious beliefs. It is a vital call to all of us who inhabit this planet. It is a call to all of humanity to see, not only the beauty and bounty Earth has to offer us, but also the effect we are having on it – to remind us of our responsibility.
I recently watched a documentary by David Attenborough called “A Life on This Planet”. In it, he reflects on the changes that have happened to our natural world over the ninety years he has been alive. It’s very powerful and I highly recommend that you watch it. It features the incredible beauty of our world that we expect from David Attenborough, but it also lays out, in stark statistics and disturbing footage, the places and species that are wounded and dying. Underlying it all is the clear message that this devastation is happening because of us. We humans, the ones entrusted with the responsibility and the ability to “till and tend” Creation, have instead exploited the gifts it offers to the point where it is struggling to survive. Maybe we’ve been caught up in the power of that “dominion over” and of naming everything rather than the responsibility that came with them. He begins with a walk through the city of Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. When it happened, 35 years ago, the city was evacuated. Because of the intensity of the radioactive fallout that will last for hundreds of years, it remains uninhabited. What we might expect to be a dry, burnt out place, is anything but. In the decades that have passed, nature has made a comeback. Plants have come up through the concrete, trees flourish – some even growing through buildings! Wild animals have come back and are multiplying. The truth that David Attenborough wants us to hear is that Creation will survive in spite of whatever disaster strikes – natural or man-made. It may not be the same, in fact it will likely be transformed, but life of some kind will rise again.
Spring is a perfect time to be reminded that the force of life is strong and resilient. After months of freezing temperatures, of ice and snow, of short hours of daylight, our gardens are coming alive! Forsythia bushes burst into bloom, flowers push their way up through the earth, buds appear on branches, birds and frogs begin to sing a chorus of love songs. Some of it happens because we have taken good care to protect the plants and to feed the wildlife through the hard months, and some of it happens in spite of us.
In this season of Easter, resurrection is the source of our celebrating and the source of our hope. We read last week about the disciples, huddled in a locked room after Jesus’ execution who found him once again among them. We read on Easter Sunday about how Mary, devastated by the loss of her teacher, encounters him again in the voice of a stranger in the garden outside the empty tomb. In the season of Easter, we encounter the story of the disciples meeting Jesus in a stranger on the road to Emmaus who shares a meal with them, and again on a beach sharing an unexpected bounty of fish. Jesus is resurrected over and over again in the weeks following his crucifixion. Most of the time he is not recognizable as the man they knew, even to those who loved him most – but he is alive again in words spoken, in meals shared, in the ordinary but amazing blessings of their lives. His body had been broken but his spirit and his dream lived on. For me, in many ways, he is that part of the creation story that never changes, the truths… use the gifts you have been given to care for creation, help it grow and flourish… there is enough here for all… there is wisdom and order in the diversity and complexity… life is eternal… We hear it all again in the stories of Jesus.
A meteor devastated the life on earth in the time of the dinosaur, but new life emerged from the dust. Chernobyl was poisoned but new life emerged from the rubble. Winter kills the green of our summer gardens but new life emerges every spring. The new may not look like the same as what was lost but the life that God breathed into the dust at the time of Creation continues to grow and evolve in new and sometimes even stronger ways. We are surrounded by resurrection.
What is humankind’s role today? Is it any different from the role given to the first humans in our creation stories?
The miracle of Creation is that it thrives on diversity and bio-diversity. Each living thing depends on others for life and provides the necessities of life to another. It is beautifully designed to provide enough for all. The world is designed to carry on living. We have the power to help it flourish or to exploit it to the point where it can’t sustain us anymore. It all depends on how we interpret our role of “dominion over every living thing” or “till and keep the garden”.
Two creation stories in our faith tradition and many more in the traditions of other faiths and cultures throughout the world… Many creation stories in our modern world, stories of our beginnings, stories of our past, and stories about what is to come. I believe there are truths in every one of them, lessons to be learned, lessons to warn us and guide us and lessons to help us remember the glorious miracle of this world we live in with all its beauty and complexity.
Some of the stories in Thomas King’s book are traditional tales; many are personal experiences. Like the stories in the Bible, the truths and the lessons aren’t spelled out for us in black and white. We are expected to find in them the truth we need to hear in our context, from our place in the world.
Thomas King begins each chapter of his book just the way the Bible begins, with a Creation Story. In both cases, this serves to ground us and prepare us for what is to come. At the end of each chapter, he reminds us of the power stories wield – all stories. Stories may change over time and over the telling – even the stories that convey the facts of science and history change as we gain new information and insight and understanding – but they are vital to who we are and who we will become. And so, on this Earth Sunday as we contemplate our own creation stories, I leave you with Thomas King’s parting words:
“Take this story; it’s yours. Do with it what you will. Cry over it. Get angry. Forget it. But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.”
Prayers of the People Rev. Lorrie Lowes
(A prayer written by Pope Francis in 2015)
All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe and in the smallest of your creatures. You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love, that we may protect life and beauty. Fill us with peace, that we may live as brothers and sisters, harming no one.
O God of the poor, help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth, so precious in your eyes.
Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.
Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the earth.
Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light. We thank you for being with us each day.
Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle for justice, love and peace.[4]
All these things we ask in the name of Jesus, who showed love for all creation in his actions and his teachings, and the words he taught his disciples:
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kin-dom come, thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kin-dom, the power and the glory,
Forever and ever, Amen.
Invitation to Offer Rev. Lorrie Lowes
On this Third Sunday of Easter, as we celebrate the gifts of new life and the beauty of creation, we are invited to share our gifts of time, talents and resources as expressions of our gratitude to God’s blessings. If you are not on PAR and wish to send in your offering and donations, you can drop them in the mail slot by the kitchen door of the church. You can also send in your support through e-transfer. Thank you for your continued love and support to BCUC.
Offertory Prayer
Your love, O God, is evident as we look around us: birds and flowers, sky and sea, animals and plants, all work together toward the perfection you intend for the world.
Help us, as we look upon your world, to live out our praise as we respond to you for your great self-giving love. Amen[5]
Sending Forth Rev. Lorrie Lowes
May we be blessed by air and water, by earth and fire, by land and sky.
May we be a blessing to all that blesses us.
May we go with the brightness of Earth in our blood, attuned to the sacredness of the world where we live, and listening for our parts in the healing of the planet.
May we go as kindred of tree and seal and dear, of moss and flower, eagle and orca, as kindred of all the living world.
May we go to love and serve the God of Creation.[6] Amen.
Hymn: Called By Earth and Sky More Voices #135 - BCUC Choir
