Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
11th January 2015, 11.00am
Genesis
1.1-5
In
the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 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. 3 Then
God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was
good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and
the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the
first day.
Mark
1:4-11 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean
countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were
baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with
camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild
honey. 7 He proclaimed,
"The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy
to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water;
but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." 9 ¶ In those days Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up
out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like
a dove on him. 11 And a voice
came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased."
One of the joys of travelling to work on the tube each
day
(and yes, there are some!)
is that I
have about half an hour each way
that I can
spend either reading a book on my Kindle,
or broadening my horizons by listening to a podcast.
Many of my regular audio companions originate with Radio
4,
and one of
them is the occasional science series
presented
by Professor Brian Cox and the comedian Robin Ince.
The former rock-star scientist and the English-graduate
comedian
host a
show with guest panelists
taking a
light-hearted look at issues relating to science.
Frequently, they also end up talking about religion.
This last week, I caught up with their Christmas special,
which I
listened to with interest,
because
one of the guests was a friend of mine;
she’s
the professor in Hebrew Bible at the university of Exeter.
The other
guests were Brian Blessed, the Revered Richard Coles,
and
the Astronaut Chris Hadfield,
who
became something of an internet sensation
when he performed
the song
‘Life
on Mars’ from the International Space Station.
It was a whole Christmassy show devoted to science and
the Bible,
and it was
great fun, not least because my friend, an outspoken atheist,
gave full
vent to her opinions on the relationship
between
science, the Bible, and faith.
And so we find ourselves in territory
triggered by today’s reading from Genesis chapter 1.
It’s with some trepidation that I come today
to speak
about the story of origins from the beginning of Genesis.
After all, it’s surely opening of Genesis which,
along with
the book of Revelation at the other end of the Bible,
generates
some of the more fervent divisions within Christianity.
In my experience, It doesn’t take very long in ‘certain’
Christian gatherings
for the
subject known as ‘creationism’ to crop up.
And how one might answer the question ‘what do you think
about Darwin?’
can almost
seem something of a test case
as to
whether one is a ‘proper’ Christian or not!
Well, it seems to me that with both Genesis,
and
indeed the book of Revelation,
a large
part of the problems we find ourselves in with these texts
come
from asking them to answer questions
that
they were never designed to address
Many of you will know that I’ve spent quite a lot of time
studying
the book of Revelation,
and if we were to go there, to the end of the Bible
with a
view to discovering a detailed
timeline of the end of the world
we’d
fairly quickly start getting involved in arguments
about
issues like postmillennialism, amillennialism,
and
partial rapture premillennial dispensationalism!
And this
would be because, I want to suggest,
we
would be asking the text
to
give us information that it wasn’t written
to impart.
And similarly, if we turn to the beginning of the Bible,
to Genesis,
With a view to uncovering a detailed timeline of the beginning of
the world,
we’re
fairly quickly going to start having arguments
about
creation, intelligent design
and
theistic evolution!
And this
is because, I want to suggest, we would be again asking the text
to
give us information it wasn’t written to impart.
A bit of textual history for a moment,
if
you can bear with me…
The first few chapters of the book of Genesis
took their
current shape in sixth century before the time of Jesus.
They were written down by the Jews in exile in Babylon.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t older stories in
there;
stories
passed down through oral tradition,
told
from parent to child around the fire in the evening.
But Genesis as we know it
reshapes
and transforms those older stories
to serve a
quite new purpose
Which is to argue against the theological claims
of the
Babylonians.
The Babylonians claimed that their gods controlled the
future,
and they believed that their gods had defeated the God of Israel
when the
Babylonians had carried off the
Israelites into exile.
The Babylonians had their own creation story,
known as
the Enuma Elish,
And it tells the story of how the human race,
came out
of the scapegoat killing of Kingu, one of the minor gods.
According to the story of the Enuma Elish,
the chief
God Marduk has just been attacked by the goddess Tiamat,
and
so he summons an assembly of the gods
to
ask them who instigated Tiamat's attack on him.
The gods turn on Kingu, saying:
"It was Kingu
who contrived the uprising,
And made Tiamat
rebel and joined battle."
The gods then bind Kingu, and sever his blood vessels.
Then, out
of his flowing, blood they fashion
humankind.
Meanwhile, Tiamat meets her own sticky end
as Marduk
splits her in half, ‘like a shellfish’ we are told,
and he
uses her corpse to make the heavens and the earth.[1]
So, according to the
Babylonian creation account,
the cosmic
and physical order is founded out of horrific violence,
and the
human race is born
from
the blood of an accused and executed renegade god.
The Enuma Elish continues, telling how Marduk then
organises the gods
into their
respective orders above and below,
assigning
them their different tasks.
They, in return, propose the building of a temple
as a place
for them to live,
and as
somewhere for Marduk to have his throne.
So, according to the Babylonian worldview,
social
order arises from the ritual execution of a victim,
and Marduk’s temple forms the centre of this social
order.
And it’s against these
claims that the Jews told their stories
of God as
the creator and lord of all the cosmos,
who created
the world out of love, not out of violence,
and who watches
over his creation,
working
to once again make all things good.[2]
To the despairing exiles,
the Jewish
version of creation
declared
that the God of Israel
was the Lord of all of Life
So the Jewish creation stories, at the time they were
first written down
were told
to address a genuine theological problem,
which was where to find a ground for faith in God
when the
experience of life in exile in Babylon
seemed so
readily to deny the rule of a God of love.
Where is the God of love and
goodness
when
the world seems ruled by gods of violence and war?
These stories certainly weren’t written down to provide
twenty-first century readers
with a
scientific understanding of the origin of the universe,
nor
to explain the emergence of humanity on the earth.
Rather, they were written to inspire faith in the one God
of love,
when all
the evidence of experience seems to argue against this.
They are stories to tell that God can be trusted
even when
it appears evident that all is not well with the world.
And for those of us who look around at the world,
and see
the evidence of sickness, poverty, war and violence;
for those of us who see the world now
much as the
ancient Israelites saw the world of Babylon,
these stories still speak to us of a God who is at work
in the world.
For those whose lives are in tatters, whose hopes have
been exiled,
these
stories articulate the hope of a God at work
to
bring new life from the dust of the ground;
creating
new hope, and offering a new dawn for humanity.
These stories offer to us the idea that a word has been
spoken
which
transforms reality.
They claim that the word of God which shapes creation
is also an
action which alters reality.
And this isn’t an historical claim, but a theological one.
This word of God, spoken by the Father in creation,
is,
Christians believe, spoken again most definitively in Christ,
and
spoken continually through the Spirit of Christ at work in the world.
The word that becomes flesh in Jesus, is the word of good
news,
the word
of hope, the word of life-giving and life-creating power,
bringing
and shaping hope from the dry dust of life.
So when we come to read the beginning of Genesis,
we need to
meet this text on its own terms,
and not to seek to impose upon it our modernist language
and ideologies,
of ‘scientific history’, or of ‘mythic history’.
These are not historical stories, they are theological.
So we need
to meet these stories of creation
as stories of proclamation.
They aren’t stories which tell us ‘how it happened’,
and to attempt to make them such
is
like reducing the wonder of encountering a great work of art
to
a discussion about the technique of the artist.
The concern of the Israelites in exile, of those who
shaped these stories,
was with
God’s intent in creation, not his technique.
And so they gave voice to the good news
that life
in God’s well-ordered world
can be a
joyous and grateful response to what God has done.
Rather than the short and brutish
response
that
the Babylonian worldview provoked.
This is the purpose of these stories,
and I
think we need to reject the seductions
of
literalism and rationalism,
to
discover once again this good news
announced
to the exiles in Babylon.
If we hear the text in this way
we can
leave the question of how the world
came into being
to
those scientists gifted by God
with
the ability to explore such issues.
And we can turn our attention to the question
of the
good news proclaimed through these stories of creation.
The Genesis story offers a perspective on human existence
that is
not predicated on violence and suffering.
It offers an understanding of a cosmos created good.
with the
God of that creation committed to its sustaining and its redemption.
But of course, those of us who inhabit this created world
are very
aware of the fragility of the goodness of creation,
We know how easily the land can be over-farmed,
how easily
the natural resources of the planet can be plundered,
how easily
the perfect balance of ecosystems can be distorted,
how easily
one human being can turn against another
in
hatred and violence.
In other worlds, we know how easily God’s good creation
can be
spoiled, distorted and destroyed.
And this, of course, is where we, the human race, come
into the story.
We have our part to play in this story of creation.
And the
Genesis story, as it goes on, tells us
that
human persons are honoured, respected and enjoyed
by the one who calls them into being.
We are born not from divine bloodshed,
but from
an act of divine love.
Humans are made in the image of God.
And in a world of Babylonian idols,
of domestic
gods and localised deities,
the Jewish assertion of one God,
the creator
of all and originator of humanity,
stood out
like a beacon in the darkness;
offering powerful counter testimony to the idolatries of
Babylon.
If you want to know what God looks like, said the Jews,
don’t look
at an idol, or a statue, or a picture.
Rather, look at your neighbor, look at yourself,
because
humans are made in the image of God.
And lest we should think this issue,
of whether
it us appropriate to represent God as an image,
is
an issue of the distant past,
the
disturbing reality is that it is terrifyingly and bloodily current.
The events in Paris this week show us
that the
debate over the representation of God and his prophets
is
frighteningly contemporary.
The thing is, if the insight of Genesis is to be
believed,
not only
is it true to say je suis Charlie,
but it is
also true to say nous sommes Dieu.
Not only do we share common humanity with the victims of
Paris,
but we are
made in the image of God.
And this is true of us all, from satirist to terrorist.
We are not, says Genesis, born from violence and destined
for violence,
rather we
are born from love and destined for love.
And as humans, created in love and gifted with free will,
each of us
had a choice as to whether we will live in love, or in violence.
Will we live according to the Babylonian creation
narrative,
or the
Jewish alternative?
Will we oppose any representation of God that is beyond
our control,
or will we
recognise our own place within God's good creation?
It is this same divine love for creation
that we
meet at the Baptism of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel.
God comes to his creation not in war or violence,
but in
love and new creation,
not in the waters of chaos,
but in the
life-giving waters of the Jordan.
The man who comes to John for baptism is the embodiment
of God,
he is
Jesus, a human being,
and he is
said to be the beloved of God.
The act of public identification that
is
signaled by the mass adoption of the je
suis Charlie slogan this week
is
an echo of the act of identification
undertaken
by Jesus at his baptism,
whereby
God declared solidarity, not only with Charlie
Hebdo,
but
with all those whom others would declare unrighteous.
In Baptism, Jesus declared not just je suis Charlie
but je suis homme, ‘I am man’.
The son of man, in his baptism,
undertakes
the ultimate act of solidarity with sinners
The offensive image here
is not
some cartoon representation of the divine
in
defiance of those who would see such a move as sacrilegious,
but an incarnation
of the divine in human flesh,
a
rendering of God himself in the body of a man.
If Genesis speaks of humans being made good, in the image
of Gold,
the
baptism of Jesus demonstrates God's ongoing commitment
to
divine-human reconciliation and reunion.
The original Jewish understanding of God’s
self-disclosure as ‘I Am’,
becomes ‘I
Am Human’ in the baptism of Jesus.
The voice from heaven at the baptism is God’s declaration
to the world
that ‘Je Suis’ has become je suis un homme,
‘this is
my son’, says the voice, ‘I am a man!’
And God declares himself well pleased with this:
God-become-human,
God in human form, is declared good,
just as
the rendering of humanity in the image of God,
in
the original intent of creation, was also declared good.
The presence of God on the earth
is found
not in the violence of Marduk,
not in the
rending of the body of Tiamat,
not in the
scapegoating of Kingu,
but in the one who is baptized by John in the Jordan,
in the one
who takes upon himself the sins of the world.
The God of creation, who spoke creation into being, and
declared it good,
is still,
it seems, at work to draw that creation back to himself,
in love and restoration.
The story of Jesus, which begins in Mark’s gospel with his
baptism,
is the
story of the redemption of creation.
It isn’t a story to explain why humans are evil and
creation is corrupt.
Rather, it
is a story that points to hope for good,
for the absolution and forgiveness of
sins,
and the restoration of all creation.
So in a world where so many would seek to control God
by
declaring that it is their responsibility
to
speak on his behalf,
to
defend his honor,
and
to police his image,
both Genesis and the baptism of Jesus
offer us a
powerful counter testimony,
where God takes the ultimate risk, again and again,
every time
a human being is born,
recommitting
himself to the stuff off creation,
for
better our for worse;
always seeking to bring good from the chaos of the world,
and light
to the darkness of our lives.
This is Good in human form,
baptised
in solidarity with the worst of sinners,
even
and including those who would take up Guns in a Parisian street.
This is the scandal of God made flesh,
and this
is the offence of the Christian gospel
that
finds its ultimate conclusion in the outrage of the cross,
as God in
human form not only identifies with humanity's sinfulness,
but
takes decisive action to bring about
forgiveness
and reconciliation once and for all.
So in a world divided, once again, on issues of religion,
perhaps we
need to discover, once again,
the
scandal of the Jewish creation story,
and to
embrace, once again, the offence of the baptism of Christ.
All those of us who would follow Jesus on this path to
new creation,
are
invited to join him in the waters of baptism.
And in so doing, we are invited to identify with him, as
he identifies with us,
and so to
share with him in the renewal of all things.
Today, je suis
Charlie, nous sommes Charlie.
Amen.
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