This weekend we have lots of opportunities to engage in worship that is powerful and prophetic. In our Saturdays @5 service, we will welcome Rev. Paul Capetz, pastor of Christ Church by the Sea on the Balboa Peninsula as our guest preacher. Paul will be preaching on “The Gospel According to Matthew Shepard,” and then leading a discussion during our “Life Together” time about his experience as an out, gay pastor. It is an excellent way for us to think about our witness in the world during Pride month, to reckon with how often the church has been an instrument of harm and hate, rather than goodness and love in the world. As a way of living into our values of reflecting God's expansive love, I encourage all of you to make this a "double-header" weekend and join us for Saturday's service and discussion.
Then, on Sunday morning, I’ll be preaching on the creation story of Genesis chapter 1, kicking off a month of “Creation Stories.” Another important value for us at St. Mark is earth care. And one of the primary reasons many people in the larger church do not practice earth care is the troublesome word "dominion" in the first chapter of Genesis, where the humans are given dominion over the earth and told to "subdue" it. I would suggest that the church has long misread the first creation story in Genesis, including the use of this term "dominion." As a way of living into our values of environmental stewardship, I encourage you to be part of our worship on Sunday also. And, at the conclusion of the service, we'll have a brief Congregational Meeting.
Did you know that the very first sentence of the Bible does not read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”? That is how the King James Bible translated Genesis 1:1 many years ago, and so that is how it has been inscribed into our heads for many years. Even people who don’t attend church or read the Bible regularly have assumed that the first sentence in Genesis speaks of that moment when God created the world out of nothing. Many fine sermons have been preached on that verse, about how there was nothing then God made everything. I’ve probably preached a few paltry ones myself.
But, alas, what the King James Version has made so familiar to us is not a good translation. Verse one is actually a subordinate clause. The main verb of that sentence does not come until verse two. So, instead of beginning with a grandiose declaration in verse one that in the beginning God created everything, then circling back to a description of a formlessness void in verse two, these two verses together are one long sentence. Here’s how our sanctuary Bible (New Revised Standard Version) translates Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the 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” (my emphasis). Notice that that the word “created” is not the main verb, but the verb “was” is. The earth was a formless void when God began creating the heavens and the earth.
“So what?” you might ask. Well, it means a lot. First, everyone – regardless of which translation we read – agrees that the first chapter of Genesis describes God as the creator of the world. That’s not in question. What is in question is the nature of this creation story. Instead of a story about God creating everything out of nothing, a good translation of this text shows this to be a story of God bringing order out of chaos. Now we can imagine how critical this story might have been for the ancient communities, not only as a way of seeing the orderliness of the world as a gift from God, but also as a way of trusting that God brings order out of the chaos that we suffer. But, perhaps my use of the word “chaos” is a bit misleading. The Hebrew phrase, תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu va bohu) point to a kind of emptiness, which my mentor Bill Brown translates as “void and vacuum.” It’s not nothing, but it’s not something that has form or content either. My use of “chaos” does not imply a bunch of sugared-up third graders tearing up the teacherless classroom, but something that feels profoundly lonely, an arid, lifeless desert. It is out of that emptiness that God created, day after day, calling the creations of each day “good.”
That’s what we get with the first creation story, which we’ll be holding during worship on Sunday. Next weekend, June 10th/11th, we’ll look at the second creation story that begins in Genesis 2. On June 17th/18th, we’ll look at the heart-breaking story of Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve disobey God, do the one thing that was forbidden to them, and then experience “Paradise Lost,” another kind of creation story. Finally, the last weekend of June, we’ll look at the story of Noah and the Flood, which is yet another creation story, involving destruction and re-creation.
If you want to dig deeper into these topics with us, you can watch the Text Study videos that we upload each Monday, and participate in the Discussions that we have every Wednesday at 9:30AM. For more information, please contact me here.
Mark of St. Mark
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