Sermon: A Good Beginning

Text: Genesis 1:1-2:4

Date: May 22, 2005

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

I heard a fragment of a news story on the radio the other day that was about foster children’s chances of getting a good education and good work as adults. I may not have heard this right, but I think the statistic was that only about 2% of the men and women who grew up in foster care in this country go on to get a bachelor’s degree in college. The man they interviewed, who was one of those 2%, said that his upbringing was an obstacle to be overcome, but that he felt confident more young people who come from foster care families could achieve what he had with determination.

The idea of having to overcome such odds just growing up got me to thinking again about what difference your origins can make. Not that I believe in determinism—that where you came from or the way you were brought into the world determines or defines who you are or will be. But our beginnings certainly have an effect. Consider the difference between these two stories of origin:

I was born in a refugee camp in the Sudan. I don’t know who my father is; my mother was raped several times by guerrilla soldiers and became pregnant. Not long after my birth, she put me in an orphanage because it hurt her too much to look at me and remember. All I have from her is a letter telling me what I’ve told you, which ends with “I’m sorry.”

I was born in a private urban hospital. My mom and dad had been trying to have a baby for ten years when mom finally got pregnant with me after half a dozen miscarriages. They spent all their savings on fertility treatments. The last two months of pregnancy my mom was on complete bed rest to prevent me from being born too soon. Both sets of my grandparents and all my aunts and uncles came to the hospital the day I was born. My Baby Book has a picture of each one posing with me, grinning like fools.

These stories don’t say anything about where these imaginary people will end up as adults. The finish line is a mystery. But there is quite a contrast in the starting lines, isn’t there? If we were given a choice about where we’d want to start and which story we’d want to tell about ourselves, I’d guess the majority of us would choose the second origin.

We made a little study of creation stories in the Bible study this past week, inspired by the assignment of the first of the biblical creation stories in the lectionary. Obviously, this is not a personal story but a story about the whole human race. It’s a description of our starting place as human beings. It’s not a deterministic story; it doesn’t tell us where we’ll end up. Nevertheless, it tells us something about who we are.

I personally don’t think of this story of origin as a scientific treatise or a historical document. There are many Christians who do read them as science or history or historical science, scientific history or something, but I’m not one of them. We can have a separate discussion about that on some other occasion if you would like. It certainly is fascinating to see how the way you read the story plays out in contemporary school board politics and textbook publishing, but that’s not what I want to talk about today.

If creation stories are not scientific or historical stories, what are they? Creation stories are theological stories. I find it more helpful to approach our creation stories as “truth in story form” and try to discover what they say about human beings, what they say about God, and what they say about the relationship of God and human beings. (Asking those three questions is one of the basic forms of Bible study that can be fruitfully applied to virtually any text.)

We may be so used to this first chapter of Genesis story of creation that we haven’t paid much attention to what it says about God or humans or their relationship. There’s nothing like a little contrast to invite attention to your own story. In our Bible study class we examined not only our first creation story (the second one is in the second chapter of Genesis) but also a few stories from other cultures. Many of the world’s ancient creation stories begin with violence. In the Enuma Elish, for example, a story that is similar in structure to the Hebrew creation story in Genesis 1, creation begins with a battle between the creator god and a sea monster, who represents chaos. The earth is formed out of the corpse of the slain sea monster Tiamat. Quite a few creation stories begin with bloody battles between opposing forces, one representing order and one representing chaos.

The Viking story of origin is a ferocious one. It begins with two separate spaces, one that’s all frost and ice to the north and another that’s nothing but volcanoes to the south. Sparks fly up from the volcanoes and land on the ice, and a giant, Ymir, emerges from the melting ice. Other giants are formed from his drops of sweat. A distinct race of gods emerges from another ice floe that is licked warm by a big thirsty cow, and they move south. So on one land mass there were gods and on another giants. They hated each other and each coveted the others’ living space. There were various fights and arguments but neither side had the strength to outmatch the other. But then three god-brothers decided to put an end to it by killing the first and biggest giant, Ymir. They cut him to death with knives. His blood, salt water, like that of all the giants, poured from him in a flood which drowned nearly all his giantling children and made the first ocean; when his body was drained the gods tipped it into the space between the north and south and used it to make the world. From his flesh they made earth, and planted in it the hairs of his head for trees; they built his bones into mountains, and hung up his skull to make the sky, filling it with sparks for sun and stars. Kind of grisly, eh? Later they make the first humans to be the gods’ caretakers on earth, to repair the damage done by escaped giants and trolls, and keep it green and fertile in case the gods come visiting.

What do we have in Genesis 1 that’s different? No epic battle to kick of creation. God creates the world not out of the corpse of a vanquished foe, but out of nothing but Word. Chaos does not disappear exactly; in the ancient Hebrew world view, it’s licking around the edges of creation in places like the sea and in hours of darkness. But though it’s not gone altogether, chaos is clearly under God’s power and control. The sea monster makes an appearance in Genesis 1:21, but rather than being an enemy of God’s it is one of God’s creations, part of the created order that is named good. Everything speaks of the sovereignty of God, a sovereignty that is a given without a cosmic battle needed to prove it.

So many other creation stories begin with conflict and violence. I can certainly understand why the ancient imagination looked around a human community full of conflict and violence and imagined that the cosmos was a battle ground from the get-go. I’m so happy that our biblical story tells another tale, one of peaceful creation and generativity. It gives the believer more hope that we might one day become a world of peaceful creation and generativity in which we are no longer hooked on conflict. It makes a difference to me that our ancient faith understands God to be a Creator, not a warrior or killer. It makes a difference to me that our earth is envisioned as order rising out of chaos by the power of creativity rather than being formed of the corpse of the slain. The two worldviews give us a different starting line, don’t they?

The origins of human beings in some of the other tales provide a similar contrast. In the Egyptian story of creation, the sun god Ra appears peacefully as an infant in an unfolding lotus. So far, so good. He is born in darkness, which endured until he opened his eyes—at which point dazzling sunlight came out of his eyes and filled the universe. Ra grew instantly to full maturity, and as he imagined his children and grandchildren Air, Rain, Sky and Earth, they immediately appeared. Ra towered over them. As he looked down at the sea, the dazzle of his own sunbeams glittered back at him from a thousand waves. The glare made his eyes water, and the water drops fell to earth and turned to insects, fish, birds, animals and human beings, shaking their bodies to dislodge the golden drops. “So,” the story says, “the world’s creatures were born from tears, and tears and sorrow have been their nature ever since. They are restless, fierce and cruel; they are forever preying on each other; they take more pleasure in arguing than in all the riches of creation spread around them.”[1]

Born from tears, and tears and sorrow our nature. How is our story in

Genesis 1 different? We are created out of Word, like everything else. And we are made in the image of God. The image of God; the likeness of God. Male and female, God created us out of God’s own mold. It doesn’t mean we are gods, but it does say that we have some spark of the divine in us. And God blessed us. That’s quite a different starting line, isn’t it?

One other story highlighted what unique in our story’s understanding of human character. The Thompson Indians of Canada have a rather delightful grandfather god, the Old One who is Chief of the universe. After a thousand ages, he gets tired of having nothing to do but take long walks on the clouds and lie on his stomach looking at his reflection in the ocean. So he decides to make a world, and he begins by making five beautiful daughters out of hairs he plucks from his beard which he sprinkles with sea water. He lets the girls decide what they want to be, and the first three decide to be Earth, Water, and Fire. The fourth daughter says, “I’d like to be the mother of men and women. My children will be wise and kind, and will live on Earth in peace and harmony.” The fifth daughter answers, “Rubbish! I shall be the mother of the human race. My children will be strong, cunning and pitiless, and will make slaves of all the other creatures in the world.” The Old One sighs. “So be it. You’ve both chosen, and your wishes are granted. From now on, you’ll live on your sister Earth, and Fire and Water will nourish your children and give them life. There will be good people and bad people, and the world will be full of murder, battle and misery.”[2]

What does our story teach that is different? Are there good people and bad people? No! All people are created in the image of God, and all are declared good. In fact, as creation culminates with the creation of humankind, God looks at what has been created and says that it is very good. We’re included in that evaluation: very good. That’s quite a different starting line, isn’t it?

Seems like we act sometimes like we believe in other accounts of how it all started. We behave as if the earth is a battle ground, now and ever shall be. We act sometimes like we the very ground we walk on is a dead thing. We talk as if being made of tears and sorrow is our nature. We evaluate others as if there are good people and bad people all mixed up in a drama of misery (we, of course, are among the good people, and we’ve got it sorted out which ones are the baddies).

But that’s not our story. None of those grim beginnings are ours. The truth the first Genesis story tells us about origins is beautiful and hopeful. It tells us we’re part of a complex design brought into existence on purpose, with purpose. It tells us that the God we worship is an artist, a creative genius. It tells us that we, made in the likeness of God, share creative powers. It tells us that we and all the rest of the creation are good. Good.

Our book group is reading Jamal Rahman’s lovely book The Fragrance of Faith. One of the things that stood out for me was his emphasis on being compassionate toward our selves. He points out that too much of the self-talk we engage in is negative—we say things to ourselves like, “Why did I do such a dumb thing?” or “I really sounded like an idiot just then.” Jamal passes on a suggestion from another teacher, that everyone should think of a term of endearment for themselves and when you talk to yourself, always address yourself with it. The possibilities are many: Sweetheart, Honey, Sugar Bun, Lovey, Precious, Dearest, Pet, Babe. Surely there’s something that fits you. You could call yourself whatever your mommy used to call you if you can’t think of anything else. I’ve given it a brief trial and it certainly changes the tone of inner dialogue to call myself “Darling.” Maybe it would work for you, to remind you that you are good.

Just in case that seems too weird to try, I think we should tell each other this little bit of our story. Turn to someone near you and say, “You are good.” Say it with feeling—it’s true. You can even tell your neighbor that she or he is very good; God started it.

Good people, we are here because God longed for us and created a thing of beauty. That’s our starting line. How will that influence the way we head for the finish line?

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[1] Cherry, Helen and McLeish, Kenneth In the Beginning: Creation Myths From Around the World Essex, England: Longman Group Ltd, 1984, p. 45

[2] Ibid, p. 44