It Was Good, Is it Still?: Sermon Genesis 1:1-2-4a

Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.

Don’t you hate when you miss the first part of a movie or TV show? It seems that no matter how hard you try if you miss the beginning you never fully understand the rest of the story. You don’t go to the movies an hour late missing the first part of the movie that doesn’t make much sense. You don’t open a book midway through and begin to read. You start at the beginning. A story, whether it is a book, movie, or TV show has a beginning, middle, and end and to fully appreciate the story you must start at the beginning.

Our story is no different. Humanity’s relationship with God, our story and history, has a beginning and to understand where we are now we have to know where we have been. I think that is one reason why I love history so much. The events of history are not a series of isolated incidents, but weave together and connect together and fortunately and unfortunately history does tend to repeat itself. If we look at the story of our relationship with God, then we would begin with Genesis. The word genesis means origin or coming into being. It comes from a Greek word that means to be born. For the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths the story of Genesis is the beginning of what we know to be creation and it is begins our relationship with God and so if we want to really understand our relationship with God and with Creation there is no better place to start than in the beginning.

In the last 50 years the debate on the historical accuracy of Genesis has stirred debate and controversy. Was the Universe created in 6-24 hour days? If so, how old is the earth? Why does science tell us that the Earth is much older than the Bible asserts? Who is right and who is wrong? These are some of the controversial questions that stir up anger and division between religious folk and scientific folk and they deserve their own time and discussion. However, this morning I want to focus on a different part of the creation story. I want to look at God’s request and commandment to humanity over the care of his creation and how well we have cared for God’s creation. I also want to look at how we view this commandment today? Perhaps we need to go back to the beginning in order to fully appreciate this entrustment from God.

Our Scripture lesson this morning is the beginning, literally and symbolically. Genesis 1 and 2 contain the story of Creation; actually there are two separate and distinct creation stories in Genesis. We read the first of these stories a little while ago and most scholars believe that it was written by the Jewish priests. They claim this, in part, because Genesis 1:1-2:4 reads in a liturgical way. It follows a pattern that is unique in Scripture. If we look at this story from Genesis in a certain way then we can see the repetitive pattern that might have been recited in a worship setting. The pattern is that God speaks, “let there be…”, then there is a creation moment, then God looks over what he just created, and sees that it is good, and then you have the end of that particular day. That pattern is followed from day one to day six and of course on the seventh day he rested.

God creates the world, the universe, and everything in it just by speaking a word. Then after each step God looks over what he has just created and gives his stamp of approval, it was good. God looks at the sky, the waters and land, the day and night, the sun and moon, the plants and animals, and finally humankind and proclaims it was good. The Hebrew word tov translates to the English word good. Another way to translate the word is fantastic. Tov is something more than just good, as we know it today, it was fantastic. Theologian Richard Lowery calls this “God’s cosmic WOW”. God looks at the abundance and beauty of Creation and the love and grace that sustains it and says “Wow, this is fantastic.”

As God looks at creation today, would God still say “Wow, this is fantastic”? I am not so sure that he would. Although this country have taken important steps in the reduction of pollution and to increase ecological conservation, this country is still on of the biggest polluters in the world. We pump out almost 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually in the United States with China not too far behind us. That is in addition to all the other pollutants from manufacturing and energy production. These pollutants in our air and water affect the health of the people. There is an increase of cancer, heart and lung diseases, and developmental problems in children and infants that are caused by pollution. When I went to school in Knoxville they told us that breathing the air in Knoxville was like smoking 2 cigarettes a day. We have all seen the smog and haze over major cities caused by car and factory emissions. I have talked to many people who don’t drink water from their taps because of the bad taste and out of fear of contamination not only what is in it, but also what they put in it to kill what was in it. They tell pregnant women not to too much fish out of the Gulf of Mexico because of the mercury in the fish that they got from the water that came from a factory.

Why have we allowed these things to occur? Why does the Church remain virtually silent on these issues? Much of the answer rest on the interpretation of Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” The key word here is dominion. The Hebrew word here is radah. The same word is used in Scripture to describe a king’s rule over his subjects. This word sets humanity above the rest of creation, it makes us special. This makes sense of course because God created humanity in his own image and it stands to reason that we would be special and exalted over the rest of creation. However, the word dominion has justified the destruction of the abundance that God once called good. Humanity justified its abuse and malevolent dominance over nature by citing this verse from Genesis. God gave us control over the world to do with as we wish and so we shall. Some Christians look at the Book of Revelation and add that God is going to restore and renew everything anyway so why worry about conservation and ecological ethics. Humanity has destroyed what was once beautiful, abundant, and good and we use God’s own words to justify it. There is something greatly wrong in that kind of thinking.

I will not argue that God gave humanity dominion and control over Creation; however this does not give us the right to destroy it. If you were to lend me your house, let’s say you were going on an extended vacation, maybe to live abroad for a few years, and you needed me to move and live in your house. You told me that I had dominion over your house. What’s yours is mine and I could do anything I wanted. Let’s say that I took those words to heart. A few months rolled by and you came home to find your house in ruins. The dishes were not done for months and they were piled up in the sink. The garbage was thrown in the corner of the living room. Let’s say I had let couple of dogs and cats live in the house and they did what animals do without me cleaning it up. The stench is unbearable and the sight is disgusting and then you find me asleep on the couch having done nothing to keep the place up. Then you shake me awake and say “How could you have done this to my house?” and I reply “You gave me dominion over it.” I bet you would be a little bit upset. Look around at the world today and imagine what God would say to all this destruction. I think he has the right to be upset with us. God entrusted Creation to us and we have failed to maintain its goodness and abundance. God’s plan is for a natural balance between humanity and Creation. We only take what we need and leave the rest for future generations. We have not done this.

We must repent for our destructive ways and return to a sense of balance and stewardship with Creation. We must educate ourselves on the environmental impact of the products we buy. We should recycle as much as possible and whenever possible buy recycled products. We must buy our produce from farmers who love and respect the land. We must buy our meat from producers who respect nature’s way and avoid use of chemicals and hormones. We have to speak out against polluters who poison our air, land, and water. We must be good stewards of the Creation God gave us.

I know this might sound like a political speech and not a sermon, but ecological responsibility is a theologically important theme. It is based in Scripture and commanded from God from the beginning of time. God gave us this beautiful place in which to be fruitful and multiply and it is our responsibility to maintain it for future generations until that day when God renews and restored everything better than it was in the beginning.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Come Thirsty: Sermon John 7:37:39

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

I remember going to school at the University of Tennessee right after high school and one of the really cool things about being a student is that you get free football tickets. The season always starts about the first weekend in September while it is still hot in Knoxville. Especially those day games and being a college student most of the time I didn’t have enough cash to buy a coke at the ball game. So I had to wait till I got back to my dorm room to find something in the fridge. If you have ever gone to Knoxville to a game then you know that the UT campus is really remarkable. You can go to and back from Neyland Stadium the same way and be going uphill both ways. So getting back to my dorm room and opening that bottle of Coke was just wonderful. I don’t think I have ever had a Coke that tasted that good.

Thirst is our body’s low level indicator. In fact if you feel thirsty then your body is already dehydrated and you need to get some water in your system. Dehydration causes headaches, dizziness, and decreased blood pressure and if nothing is done it leads to death. We are made up of about 75% water and we need water for our bodies to function and the more we are hydrated the better our bodies function. But our souls also have a low level indicator also. Our souls need spiritual water, the kind of water that Jesus is talking about in the gospel of John this morning. When we fail to receive this living water then our spirits show signs of dehydration. We feel depressed, angry, bitter, full of resentment these are all signs on spiritual thirst.

Jesus knows of our need of spiritual water. Our scripture reading this morning has Jesus at the last and greatest day of Festival of the Tabernacles, which celebrated the miracles that the Hebrews experienced in their 40 years in the wilderness; including God bringing forth water from the rock. So the priests would bring large basins of water to commemorate that miracle. Jesus, in the middle of a big party, with thousands of people around stood up and shouted, I want y’all to imagine this, He stood up probably on a chair or even on a table and said “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now this was a festival, a party, most people I imagine were drinking wine some were drinking water, but I would be willing to bet that very few of them were thirsty, physically. However, Jesus could see through the physical and into the spiritual. He saw a deep thirst of another kind.

I want us, for a moment, to step back in the way back machine, all the way back to the creation of man, Day 6. God formed man out of the dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He did something else too. He gave mankind a need, a thirst, for God. He also gave man freewill. He did not preprogram us to worship Him specifically, why? I think it is because He did not want humans to be robots with no choice but to worship God, but for us to choose God of our own freewill. It is like the love we have for our significant others, one of the greatest joys is the fact that our wives or husbands or fiancés choose to love us instead of anyone else. That is what love is all about. God wants us to choose to love him. That is greatest feeling in the world, to know that people love you because they want to, not because they have to.

We have a void in our lives that is only filled by God. We try to fill it with other things, like money and stuff, some fill it with drug and alcohol use, some fill it with sexual improprieties, and others fill it by dominating and oppressing their fellow human beings. These things fill the void for a moment but the feeling does not last for very long. This is because these things are not what God wants for us. He wants to fill the void with the living water of the Holy Spirit.

The phrase “living water” is unique. Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit which would come on the Day of Pentecost. I want you to close you eyes and picture two different scenes. The first scene is a stream flowing to a lake. The stream is surrounded by trees and flowers. You look down at the water and you see clear down to the rocks at the bottom. You reach down and touch the water and it is cool and clean to the touch. You scoop some out of the stream and put it to your lips and it tastes good better and anything you get from a bottle. You see small fish swimming in the water and you have no problem dipping your toes in the cool, clean stream. Now I want you to think of another scene. This one is outside a factory. The water comes from a drainage pipe from inside the factory and the water collects in a pond outside. It is scummy with a green and yellow sludge. It stinks so bad you cannot get close to it and even if you did you wouldn’t want to reach down to take a drink. There are no fish swimming in the water in fact there is not life at all only a putrid, nasty pool. Which one of the two would you rather have? Which one is living water? Which one does God desire for us? The Spirit of God is a living spirit that dwells within us and helps us in ever aspect of our lives.

Jesus said “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’”. Come to me and drink. There is the answer. Come to Jesus, He will give you the Spirit which will flow out of your heart. It will reach every aspect of your life. Do you think you heart is too dry? There is nothing He hasn’t seen, he’ll understand, and he’ll forgive. His water is good, fresh water. His water heals and purifies. His water strengthens and renews. This is the living water of the Holy Spirit.

Water has a unique property. It will conform to any space it is put in, a glass, a fish bowl, a pond, or even the ocean. It also goes wherever it is needed. When we drink water we don’t have to tell the water which part of the body it needs to go into. The water goes where it’s needed. So does the Spirit through Jesus Christ. Need help in your marriage, there goes the Spirit, need anger management, the Spirit helps, do you have addictions that affect your whole family the living water moves there as well. .

The two scripture lessons today show two different symbols for the Holy Spirit. One is water and the other fire. I think God chose these symbols first because they were something everyone is familiar with, even in Biblical times, secondly because anything that is touched by water, like in a flood, or in a fire is never the same. So it is with the Holy Spirit. When we are touched by the Holy Spirit we are never the same. We cannot help but to be different. Paul tells us that those who are in Christ are new creations because the old is removed by the grace of God. We are purified by the power of God’s living water. We are strengthened by God’s living water. Remember the words of Jesus, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” We do not have to go to a well to fetch this water it comes from within each of us because it is grace of God dwelling within each of us. Living water is God’s grace that is abundant for all people and it is with us even before we know that its there.

I want to close today, by telling a story. It is a story about a small fish in a river. He was swimming around minding his own business when he happened to stop by a group of humans standing by the riverside. It was a class taking a field trip. The little fish stopped and listened to the teacher speak. He heard the teacher say, that water is one of the most important elements on earth. Without is life could not exist and every creature on earth would die. Well this disturbed the young fish and he went frantically looking for some water. He knew he had to have some of this stuff or he would die. So he went to a group of young fish playing and asked them if they knew where he could find some water. The young fish mocked him and told him to go away he was ruining their fun. So the little fish went swimming down the stream and came upon an older, wiser fish. He asked the old fish where he could find some water. The old fish looked and laughed that the scared little fish and said “You are swimming in water, it is all around you”.

We have a tendency to ask where God is. When there is a tragedy we always wonder where God is. Sometimes we get so deep in ourselves that we think that God gave up on us long ago. This is not the case. God’s living water is always around us and within us. We come thirsty to God and God tells us to drink in deeply. Jesus tells us to take in all that we can and more because our cup truly overflows with God’s grace and love.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Get Your Head Out of the Clouds: Sermon Acts 1:6-11

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Do you ever get lost in a daydream? Maybe you are sitting somewhere, at the doctor’s office or maybe just sitting at home and you start to drift off to somewhere else. Hopefully, you are not daydreaming during church or during one of my sermons. I confess that I find myself daydreaming a lot, even during my classes. I will sit there and think about things I have to do later, places I would much rather be than that classroom, and I even dream about events in the past. Sometimes I do it at home and Angie will ask me what I am staring at and I answer nothing I was just daydreaming. Why do we daydream? I think the main reason is out of boredom. We don’t want to be where we are and so we dream about being somewhere else, someplace better. We don’t like the present situation and so we dream about being somewhere else.

The disciples in our story from Acts this morning weren’t exactly daydreaming. They had witnessed with their own eyes Jesus ascending to the clouds. They were witnesses to his resurrection and now were witnesses to his ascension. Jesus disappeared into the clouds, back to the presence of God and the disciples stared at the sky. Jesus told them that he would be coming back, did the disciples really think it would be so soon. Jesus would pop back out as soon as he left. The disciples did not want to leave that moment and so they stood there staring at the sky. A chapter of their lives was now over. For the last three years the disciples followed Jesus and engaged in ministry with Jesus. They left their families, houses, and jobs to follow Jesus and now that journey was over, but a new journey was about to begin.

Then two angels appeared in the sky where they were looking. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” In other word the angels were saying “SNAP OUT OF IT!” “You’ve got work to do and there is no time like the present to get started.” Jesus completed his work on earth, at least for the time being and now it was their turn to proclaim the good news to the poor. Jesus will return in the same way that you saw him leave, but until then you’ve got work to do.

Why did the disciples want to linger in that moment? Why did they want to stay there and daydream? We can ask ourselves that question. Why do we, as the Church, want to remain in the past daydreaming? One reason is that they wanted things to return to the way they were before. They thought that with Jesus back they would go back to what they were doing before, preaching the gospel and helping those in need. They would be the same group they once were except for one. That was comfortable, that was familiar, and that was easy. It was what they were use to. The disciples were afraid of change.

We know all about that don’t we? Change is a bad word to use in the church. We don’t want to change, we want things to remain the same. We want the status quo to remain the status quo. It is familiar, it is comfortable, and it is easy. I kept up with General Conference online this week. They broadcasted the business sessions online this week and so I sat at my computer with a pen and pad in one hand and my Book of Discipline in the other, following the debates. The more I watched the more I realize that we are a denomination afraid of change. Some of these petitions wanted to change one word in the Discipline. They wanted to change the name of the Central Conferences outside the US to Regional Conferences. Some believed that this would make more sense and give a better definition to what those conferences are. People fought tooth and nail over changing one word. We fear change. When someone wants to change the way the church does things often we stick our fingers in our ears and shout “I can’t hear you. La La La” Sometimes change is good and sometimes change is bad, but the inevitable truth is that change is inevitable. Time marches on.

I have heard several of you reminisce about the way things use to be in this church. I have heard you talk about times when the pews were filled and laughter of children was heard echoing from these walls. I have heard many of you say that you want things to return to those days; those days when you had to get here early to get a seat. We long for the good ole days, but we can’t go back to those days. We cannot go back to the way things were because what is in the past is just that, past. There are many of us who do not want things to change, we, like the disciples, want things to return to the way things were before.

God doesn’t work that way. God does not resuscitate the past, but resurrects for the future. God makes all things new, not all things like they were before. God does not look back into the past, but is always looking forward into the present and the future, into what is now and what will be in the future. Remember what happen to Lot’s wife. God had a new future for Lot and his family, but warned him not to look back at the past. Lot’s wife didn’t listen. The people that were healed by Jesus did not cling to the past, but looked toward a new and bright future. At the Resurrection, Jesus told Mary not to hold on to her because things were not the same anymore. The past is past and the future is ahead and full of hope.

We cannot go back to the way things were at this church. However, there is good news. The future that God has in store for us is so much better that what was in the past. Christ will return to us in the same way that he ascended to the Father and that is with power, grace, and glory. We have promises from God, promises of peace that will cover the Earth. The tools of war and destruction will become the tools of creation and growing. These are promises for the future, but as Jesus told the disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” We don’t know when those things will come about, but we hope in them and we pray for them.

These are not the only promises that God has for us. God has promises for our church as well. Things can be better than they were in the past. These pews can be filled again with new families and the laughter of new children. We can reach out to a new generation of seekers and develop a new generation of Disciples of Christ.

However, this requires something of us. We have to be the witnesses to the good news of Christ. Before he ascended he commanded the disciples to witness the good news they had seen and heard to all corners of the earth. Their turn is over it is now our turn to be those witness, but we are not alone. Another promise is that the Holy Spirit is with us and guides us in what do and what we say. So, with the power of God through the Holy Spirit we have to be witnesses in Prospect, Elkton, Pulaski, and all over Giles County, but not only there, but also all over the world. We are now the witnesses not to the way things were in the past, but the hope we have in God’s promises for the future. That is the mission of the church, to make disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

We cannot spend our lives as Christians with our heads in the clouds, wishing for the past to come back again. We also cannot spend our time longing for the kingdom of God to come upon the earth and for Jesus to return. We hope in that promise, but until them we have work to do. We have people to help, we have stories to tell, we have people to feed, and the homeless to give shelter. Let us not daydream our lives away, but snap out of it and work for the kingdom of God.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.