This season we looked at six stories of creation in the Bible and considered what we are to learn from each.

What I saw in these stories were these reminders:

1. We are not God – The sun does not rise or set on our command.
2. All of creation is sacred – every piece is worthy of our respect.
3. We are to care for the people and natural world as God would.

And if you’re thinking that we knew this, might I remind us that we haven’t always acted this way. And a scripture passage we may need to be reminded of is: “Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18.

Our Psalm for today is believed to be an Entrance Liturgy both for what it says and a larger pattern with the Psalms beginning with Psalm 15, which is also an entrance liturgy.

When we look at the structure of this psalm, we see three-parts:

V 1-2 – Declaring God as the Creator
V 3-6 – Liturgy for humanity to enter God’s holy space
V 7-10 Liturgy for God to meet us there

Of particular interest is that this psalm, although it calls for being “clean” and “pure,” is looking for moral cleanliness and purity to come before God rather than physical – which was the norm in the ancient world. It was issues with blood or disease that made one “unclean” and therefore, unable to enter the Temple.

The “pure heart” is not referring to emotions but to one’s state of will. Is one coming with the best intentions? Pause for a moment and consider why you came today. Because in my experience of church over my lifetime, people have come for many reasons that had nothing to do with God, including me in my younger years.

Our scripture from Genesis is near the end of the story, where we hear God remind us of all that God has done, and God’s proclamation that it was all very good! I hear this as God inviting us to be grateful for all God has given us.

And yet, as we discussed last week, in Genesis Ch. 3 we weren’t grateful –  we wanted more – we wanted what we felt we were denied.

Could this be pointing to our tendency to play the victim? Is this why some of us needed a Savior, different from God? Well, I must confess that I tend to feel like a victim. I learned it well growing up, and I have lived through some situations where it felt justified. However, I can’t get stuck there because then I am surviving rather than thriving. Rather than focus on what we don’t have or get, God wants us to consider all that we do – AND be grateful to God for it all!

We also tend to think that we have earned it, and give ourselves credit rather than God! This leaves us with inflated egos. There are always contemporary examples of this behavior!

So we are going to take a few minutes in silence to reflect on what we are truly grateful for. Try to think more deeply than we did during the Children’s Time. For what are you grateful in the deepest parts of your being?

I will begin by reading Psalm 46:10: “Be still – and know – that I am – God. Be still – and know – that I am. Be still – and know. Be still.”

So what are the things for which we are grateful? Anything different than before?

But what is even more challenging is to be grateful in challenging or even terrible circumstances.

For this, I leave you with the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “I’ve had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.”

May it be so. Amen.
Like this Sermon? Click Here to View More in this Series
Prefer to Listen to this Sermon? Click Here to Listen to the Being Apostles Podcast

I just finished reading a book called “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich

Which is a historical fiction piece about the congressional 1953 “Termination Resolution” that made American Indians subject to the same laws and entitled them to the same privileges and responsibilities as other citizens. This all sounds very good; however, they already had citizenship, and what it did was take away their protections and their land. So these people who were already living in poverty, were now expected to move into the towns and cities and become assimilated. It took away their land and tried to take away their culture.

And why did we do this? Because they were not considered worth the cost of our support. We viewed them as “others” or “things” rather than people just as we have done with African-Americans and all of the non-white immigrant populations that have come to our country.

On this, the 250^th anniversary of our country, we need to admit that we have both a beautiful story to tell and many times failed to be our best selves. We brag about being a “melting pot,” but what we want is for everyone to conform to White Anglo-Saxon European Christian ways. And just to be clear, making someone out to be our enemy who we have the right to ‘rule’ is not new! It has been going on since the beginning of time. It is even described in our Holy Scriptures.                      

Today, as we consider these scriptures from Genesis and Proverbs, we are called to consider how we can become even slightly better rather than relenting that it is a helpless cause that others will just have to endure. Where, my friends, is the humility in that?

Now if you received the Come Sunday and read it, you are aware that there is a challenge in our scripture too. In Genesis 1, the pronouns used for God are plural – “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” (v. 26, NRSV) This has been a point of contention for scholars over the centuries with no clear answer.

Please do not misinterpret what I am about to say; this does not provide a clear answer; however, it is interesting when read beside Proverbs 8. The plural pronouns could refer to God & Wisdom – another theory is that they refer to the Trinity – Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

Historically speaking, Genesis is believed to have been written and compiled between the tenth and sixth centuries before the Common Era, whereas Proverbs is believed to have been written in the sixth or later centuries BCE. Some scholars believe that the female characters described in Proverbs are remnants of ancient goddess worship within Israelite society. But what may be even more profound is that over the millennia God has not tired of us and our foolish, destructive ways.

Or as the writer of Hebrews says, “What are humans that you are mindful of them or mortals that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels.” – Hebrews 2:6-7

If we include at this point what we know of the Genesis Ch. 2-3 stories, we will remember that God made a couple, but the couple was not able to follow the rules. They already showed their defiance by eating from the tree that was off-limits. They had everything, and yet, it was not enough!

This same truth applies today! Most of us have what we need and more, and yet we are SO afraid of losing it or not having enough that we demonize others and deport them out of our fear.

Our fear of losing something – Our fear of losing our power as the majority – Our fear of losing the ability to set the rules. And yet, we were created as part of God’s abundant creation with the ability to reproduce and prosper.

And in that scripture, what did we focus on? In the Revised Standard Version that some of you may have grown up with and the New Revised Standard Version, the word is “dominion.” The Inclusive Version used the word “responsible.” The Hebrew word means “to subdue,” so we realized God gave us authority over everything else – we were “King of the Mountain” and everything else had to submit to us.

But with this, we have forgotten that we did not create ourselves. We are all subject to God, the Divine, the Holy – or whatever name you wish to use – who created life. We were created to support and care for the rest of life with a respect for it.

It seems like the wisdom here is to have the humility to recognize our place in the grand order of things. But I wonder if wisdom has been replaced by our longing for power and control.

So I leave you with this question to reflect on: “Does what I do, or give, or offer, make any difference? Does it mean anything?” And a quote from distinguished environmentalist and academic, best known for his work in ecological design and sustainability education, Davis Orr: “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.”

May it be so. Amen.
Like this Sermon? Click Here to View More in this Series
Prefer to Listen to this Sermon? Click Here to Listen to the Being Apostles Podcast