Sermon by John Brierly McCall, D. Min. June 19, 2011
Genesis 1:1-2:4a – The first Creation account. In five days God fashions all things and pronounces them good; creates humankind in the divine image on the sixth day and calls this “very good,” and rests on the seventh day, the Sabbath.
In 1968 the British band “The Zombies” had a smash hit called “Time of the Season.” It began with the rhetorical questions: “What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich (is he rich) like me?” That phrase “who’s your daddy” quickly became a slang phrase that still surfaces now and then – boastfully saying I’m better than you are because of who my daddy was. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who’s_your_daddy%3F_(phrase)>
It’s a common taunt at baseball games and other sporting events – a way of challenging the opposition. I’d bet it was uttered more than a few times by Bruins fans in Vancouver on Wednesday night as the Stanley Cup finally came home.
Of course, that kind of playground duel goes back much further – all the way back to the Garden of Eden – all the way back to the beginning of time as we glimpse it in Genesis 1. Biblical scholar Barbara Brown Taylor suggests the creation story in Genesis was a protest by the children of Israel against the creation myth honored by their Babylonian captors, saying in effect “Our God is more awesome than all your gods put together!” <http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/weekly-seeds/this-is-good-june-13-19.html>
Who’s your daddy?
Genesis, of course, means “beginning” or “origin.” It tells us who we are and where we are in the created order. Over the course of the next 12 summer Sundays, Elsa and I will be preaching our way through the Old Testament readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, mostly from Genesis. These won’t be sequential readings of the whole book, rather selections from the significant, foundational stories, something like a string of pearls held together by a common thread.
And the common thread is the answer to the question I pose this morning: who’s your daddy? Genesis says it’s God – God the Creator of all things; Yahweh, the one beyond all words and concept – in whose image all humankind is fashioned.
From that, we know who we are. We’re the Children of God…
- formed from the earth, quickened with the breath of life,
- who live both independently and in community, and who co-create with God;
- as God’s creatures we’re mortal and that we will die, returning to the very stuff from which we have come – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
- Further, says Genesis, God chose unlikely characters – Abram and Sarai – to father/mother a great nation of descendants in the covenant.
Our mortality and God’s immortality are so clear throughout scripture. So, too are God’s steadfastness and our foolhardiness as we casually break the covenant promises; and God calls us back to obedience.
So today’s reading from Genesis begins… in the beginning. You’ve heard it many times, but likely haven’t read the whole chapter any time recently. And you may not know that Genesis includes two different and separate creation stories, written by different authors generations apart. This morning we heard the first of the two, recounting the six days of creation. Each day God looked at what she had made and said “this is Good.” On the sixth day God made humankind in the divine image, looked over everything and said “this is very good.” And then on the seventh day, the Sabbath day, God rested.
In this first creation story there’s no mention of Adam, Eve, the Garden of Eden, the serpent, or the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. That’s in the story that comes next in chapter two. In our memories we’re likely to roll the two stories together and think of them as one account. Yet ancient scholars were wise in keeping both stories – written centuries apart by different authors. Each has its own particular focus and its own testimony to that relationship between the divine and the human.
We can best read Genesis by acknowledging the obvious – it’s not science, recounting how God created. It’s not an historical eye-witness account, recounting what happened when. It rather is a creative imagining of why things are as they are – a thematic telling of what God has intended and what has happened to the covenant promises of old.
It’s clear in this reading that God sees Creation and calls it good, but not perfect. God created humankind and then said to us “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” (1:28) We, the covenant partners, are essential to this story and our active stewardship is critical. This is not license to use up or destroy the earth but to channel it and tend it like a garden.
Again and again God repeats the call – remember who you are. Remember how it all started. Remember I (God) created you in the divine image and you turned away. Remember you were first a nomadic people, then exiles in Egypt, then wanderers in the wilderness of Sinai, then pilgrims who crossed the Jordan River into a land flowing with milk and honey.
Most importantly, we remember today that the message of Genesis carries through every book, chapter, and verse of our entire Bible: through the history, the prophets, the poetry, the Gospels, the letters, and on to Revelation.
With one voice all of scripture reminds us that God fashioned the Children of Israel to be covenant partners; and that they (and we) have made promises in many ways to live faithfully in response to God’s call. The covenant first made on stone tablets with ten commandments was reclaimed and reframed when Jesus said to his disciples “I give you a new commandment – that you should love one another as I have loved you.”
This ancient Genesis account answers many questions; but it also challenges us to answer others:
- as our Creator looks at the Creation today, do you suppose God pronounces it “very good”?
- As we look at our world, our nation, our state, our community, our families, do they reflect Jesus’ prayerful commandment that we should love one another as God has loved us?
- If so, do we live as though we believe it?
- We know our ancient ancestors left the Garden of Eden because of their disgrace – their pridefulness in thinking they knew better than God… Just how far have we come from that paradise?
- Can we find the will, the passion, and the common purpose to reshape our communities into places of hope and prosperity for all?
Elsa and I hope this series of summer messages might encourage you to read through the book of Genesis, refreshing your mind and spirit, so together we might grow in faithfulness; and remember the true answer to the question: “Who’s your daddy?”