Our priests continue to take such good care of us. I cannot imagine going through what our family has faced without the care and nearness of our All Saints family. This past Sunday our priest, Eris Stelle mentioned Steve in his sermon. I asked him if I could post it here....
Today is Trinity Sunday, the day we ponder perhaps the church’s most sublime insight to the nature and mystery of God. And, if that weren’t enough, today we read the first chapter of Genesis – the first chapter of scripture – the first word on who God is and who we are.
Really, it’s too much. It’s too much beauty and glory and mystery and hope to absorb in one morning; too much to absorb in a lifetime: The Trinity and the creation. I do believe that within these mysteries lie every word that our aching hearts long to hear. To speak of them is no small thing.
Before we start, I want to clarify something about the creation story.
The author of Genesis was not writing a science book. It is not a treatise on the physical development of creation. And we do violence to the text and the author’s intention when we force that kind of reading on it.
The story of creation is principally a theological text. It is an ancient form of writing that explores the nature and the character of God, using the form of a narrative. Don’t press this story to prove how God made the world; look to it to understand who God is, and what he intends for his creation. When we approach the text with this intent, it suddenly reveals itself to be one of the most extraordinary passages in the entire Bible. It is no exaggeration to say that every major theme in the Bible, every major doctrine of God and his work of redemption, finds its origin in this story. Every one.
Including the Trinity. But, to be clear, when the author of Genesis penned this opening chapter of scripture I do not believe that he himself had any formulated understanding of the Trinitarian nature of God. It was – at least – a thousand years after Genesis was written before the doctrine of the Trinity was articulated. But from our vantage point, we can look back to the story of creation and perceive in it the seeds of that truth.
And it is those seeds that I want to explore this morning.
So we start with God the Father. How is the father portrayed in this story?
Principally, God is portrayed as the one who creates order and goodness and life out of chaos and danger. Isn’t it fascinating that the author begins the story, not with nothing, but with a “formless void” and “darkness covering the face of the deep.” Three words: “formless, void, and deep”. The “formless void” envisions a barren wasteland, a desert, a place of desolation – a thoroughly inhospitable place where no life can exist. And “the deep” implies water, a deep ocean – again – a place of danger and disorder.
And then God speaks. He simply speaks and effortlessly begins to order that which had no order. “Let there be light” and there was light. There is an ease with which God reveals his authority.
One thing that scholars of Genesis are quick to point out is how similar this story is to other creation stories that existed in the Ancient Near East. And the assumption often made is that the story can’t be “true” if, in fact, it’s just a compilation of plagiarism from other sources. However, given that this is a theological text, I believe that what the author is doing is using those stories and turning them on their heads, to create a theological statement about the true nature of God.
For example, all the other creation narratives depict an epic battle between cosmic forces of Good and Evil. But what makes this story so distinctive is the ease of God’s creating. “Let there be light…Let there be dome in the midst of the waters…Let the earth put forth vegetation…” He speaks and makes it so, with just his words. The God we encounter in this story is a God of absolute and unassailable authority. Nothing is threatening to this God. Nothing can touch him or his intentions.
And what are his intentions? How does he choose to demonstrate his authority? He puts in order what has no order. He makes safe what was dangerous. He makes alive which could not live. The thing that is most evident about God in this is that he takes what is bad and makes it into good.
And this remains the foundational truth about God that we continue to depend on in our lives. Our lives are filled with disorder and chaos and fear. Where does the suffering come from? What is the origin of evil? I don’t know. And the Bible doesn’t tell us. But it does respond to that elemental question with this principal image of God: he is the one who creates order. He is the one who redeems, who sets things right, who makes good where there was no good. When we find ourselves in the “formless void” – when marriages fail, when loved ones die, when your work place becomes toxic – we turn to God. And when we do, we always encounter the God who says, “Let there be light.” And there is light. And the light is good. And this opening image of God is developed and reinforced throughout the entire Bible. On this you can depend. God the father.
Next: God the Holy Spirit.
Again we read: “darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” This image of the “wind of God” sweeping over the waters is the first of many such occurrences in Scripture. Think of the flood when the water subsides, or the Exodus from Egypt when God parts the Red Sea and later the Jordan. In each case it is the same word and the same image: this powerful wind blowing over the waters. In the original Hebrew, “wind” and “breath” and “spirit” are all the same word. It’s a safe conclusion to perceive in this opening line that God himself is somehow intimately present to the chaos, even before the ordering began. From the beginning, even in the worst circumstances, there we find our God, hovering over the face of the waters.
Recently, my friend Steve was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And no sooner had he been diagnosed, than his lungs began to fill with fluid. As I remember those pain-filled days, and as I read the Genesis story, the two stories begin to merge into one: The waters are no longer only some primordial sea – the waters become the fluid that was filling Steve’s lungs, the disordered waters of death stalking him, bursting their banks and flowing where they did not belong. Yet, even in the midst of this chaos, we perceive the intimate presence of the Holy Spirit. For it is a basic tenet of the Christian faith that through our baptismal waters, the Spirit makes its home in us. That spirit, that breath of God, was in Steve, was in him so intimately that his own breathing, in and out, was one with the breath – the Spirit – of God. Yes – the waters had come where they did not belong. But, even there, so was the Spirit, intimately and eternally present with him – never abandoning him.
And this remains our hope: God has made his home in us. We cannot, we will not, be abandoned by him, regardless of what waters overtake us. God the Holy Spirit.
And finally, God the Son.
The story of creation keeps building. Day after day, God puts this creation in order – increasingly making it full and fruitful and teaming with life. And at each step of the way he affirms its essential goodness. Then we reach the sixth day – this monumental day when God creates humanity. And the fundamental characteristic of humanity is that they are made in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps this phrase is so familiar to you that it has lost its power. Stop and listen afresh: we are made in the image of God. You and I and all humanity are essentially godlike beings. Just saying it and hearing it makes us uncomfortable. It sounds so presumptuous, heretical even. So let’s look at this more deeply.
In the Ancient Near East, this phrase “image of God” or “likeness of God” was used to describe a statue that a king would place in a territory that he’d conquered. It was a sign that the king himself was present there, claiming sovereignty over that land. The term was also used to describe idols, carved images of gods, that were placed in the temples. These images were perceived not just as symbols, but actual manifestations of the gods.
With this in mind, what is the author telling us about how God is sovereign and present in the earth? Through the imago dei, humans are the image of God, living representations of God himself. No other creation story made such an audacious claim. The only person in the Ancient Near East who would ever be given such dignity was a king. Kings were semi-divine. But not in this story. All people, male and female, without exception, are made in the image of God.
And what task are the people given? “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion”. In short, as representations of God on earth, they are given the task of behaving like God. What they are commanded to do is absolutely consistent with what we’ve seen God doing throughout the creation story up to this point: creating and ordering, making the world safe and habitable, fruitful and productive.
Make no mistake, subduing the earth has nothing to do with exploiting the earth and its resources. To the contrary, our engagement with all created things is to be godlike: to make whole what is broken, to make safe what is violent, to make good what is evil. This is the principal way God is described in this story. So this becomes the principal call for us who are given to this earth as the image of God.
This has and always shall be our human calling. But it is hard for us and we fail often. But as the scriptures unfold, there is one human – one image and likeness of God – who did not fail. I am speaking of course of the Incarnation. I am speaking of Jesus, fully human and fully divine, whose whole life and mission perfectly fulfilled this mandate. When he cured the sick and cast out the demons, when he dignified women and the poor, when he instituted the sacraments, and – ultimately – when he conquered death itself: at every point he was bringing order out of chaos: fully and completely the likeness of God, making manifest the reign of God on earth. So we see: God the Son.
The author of Genesis had no idea that he was planting seeds within this story that would grow and prove themselves the starting place of God’s revelation of himself as Holy Trinity. But, looking back, it’s all there. His work in creation made order out of chaos, but God himself needed no such ordering. God has always been a perfect, harmonious union, a complete community of being within himself. And, true to his nature to create and to give, he made us in that same image. He made us to be like him. And when we failed, God the eternal Son, become incarnate, making himself one with us. And if we are one with Christ and Christ is one with the Father and the Spirit, then our likeness to God has been restored. We live and participate in the life of the Holy Trinity
Our mandate remains the same: be as God to the world. For we are the body of Christ. We may lift up our heads and assume the dignity that is ours and live into that dignity. May our words and actions be godlike, bringing healing, love, forgiveness and light. And so may God say of our lives the words that he spoke that first day: “Let there be light.” And we shall be light to this broken world. And may God see us, his children and likeness, and affirm again, “It is very good.”