GOD OF CREATION

The First in an Advent Series of Sermons
November 27, 1988
8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Services
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago
Scripture
Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31

John 1:1-5

"The Word was in the beginning with God, all things were made through the
Word..." -John 1:2-3

The story is told of the young minister, fresh out of the seminary:
She was having a lot of trouble with her preaching. Sermon preparation was
difficult, particularly the matter of choosing topics. So she made an
appointment with a seasoned veteran of the pulpit and asked, "What shall
I preach about?" He answered: “Preach about God and preach about twenty
minutes." ,

This is an Advent series about God. I'm not sure I can make firm
promises about the twenty minute part... but I know I can count on your
Christmas generosity. We will think about God...

God of the Creation
God of the Gutsiders
God of the Lost
God of us All...

There are two important questions —
Ts there a God, a supreme being?
- and -

Does it matter?

The first queslion is academic. It has compelled the best thinking

of the human race from the beginning of time.
The second question becomes quickly personal. Tt is not at all

academic.

a

Paul Tillich, one of the best theological thinkers of this or any era
defined faith as “ultimate concern." One time after a lecture, an elderly
gentleman approached and said, "Professor Tillich, what I really want to
know is whether the ultimate is concerned about me." ‘

That really is the question, isn't it? Does God exist - and does it
have anything to do with me? ,

This sermon intends to explore both of those questions, and in i
fact, to treat them, finally, as one and the same. :

The question comes at us from a number of different directions and
is asked in a variety of ways...

One of the most common is when we suddenly sense our own smallness in
relation to the natural order; when, for instance, we engage in star-
gazing.

One of the important things to do at the ocean is go down to the deck
an hour after the sun sets on a moonless evening, lie on a blanket looking
up at the sky and watch the stars come out. It's a favorite past time of
ours, almost a religious ritual. Perhaps you've seen the television

commercial recently... It is irreverently funny... and I probably
shouldn't be using it as a sermon illustration. It is a picture of a sky
full of stars. The voice over says something like: "Looking up into the

starry sky has always prompted us to ask important questions, like, 'Who
are we? Where are we going? And, will there be Michelob Light when we get
there?!"

The premise, at least, is right. Looking at the stars moves us in
the direction of important questions. I'll not forget one of my
youngsters, as we were lying on our backs looking asking me, "Dad, where
do we go when we die?"

in a John Updike short story, a young naval officer reflects on the
"devastating impression the black firmament of spattered stars made when
seen from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the middle of the
Pacific. How little, little to the point of nothingness, he was beneath
those stars! Even the great ship, The Enterprise, that held him a tall
building's height above the all-swallowing ocean was reduced to the size of
a pinpoint in such a perspective. As far as he could reason, religion
begins with this strangeness. [Made in Heaven, Trust Me, p. 195] |

Religion begins with star-gazing or something akin to it. Religion
began and life was forever changed for a group of shepherds tending their
flocks at night time, 2,000 years ago: Out of the starry sky something
shined on them which they called the "glory of the Lord.” Religion began
for those strange, wise astrologers, when they discovered, observed and
then set out in pursuit of a new star on the horizon. The first step
toward faith for Updike's young naval officer began as he looks up into the
fathomless mystery of a night sky in the middle of the Pacific

The “mysterium tremendium" Rudolf Otto called it in his classic
study, The Idea of the Hely. Religion begins when we perceive the

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11/27/88

impenetrable mystery behind the created order. Sometimes that can happen
without warning, when your eye falls on the breathtaking beauty of a
mountain side aflame with October color, or when the passionate truth of
great music speaks to your heart, or when you see a newborn child and feel
the incredible power of the life force within the whole human race, or when
you recall] the sweetness and ecstasy of love given and received; and
frequently it happens when you raise your eyes to the sky.

"0 Lord, our Lord
how majestic is thy name in all
the earth!
When I look at thy heavens, the work
of thy fingers,
the moon and stars which thou
hast established,
what is man that thou art mindful
of hin,
and the son of man that thou dost
care for him?
0 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy
name in all the earth."

Religion begins star-gazing.

It is intriguing that the scientists, the astronomers,
astrophysicists, and mathematicians who look at the heavens and-the: stars
with incredible sophistication and precision seem to know and to echo the
reverence of the Psalmist. One of this year's most fascinating books was A
Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. Hawking is a 46 year-old
British astrophysicist who has Lou Gehrig's disease, is confined to his
wheelchair, communicates by way of computer which responds to the touch of
his fingers and who is generally acknowledged to be one of the half dozen
most brilliant minds of our time. The book's subtitle is "From the Big
Bang to Black Holes," and it is Hawking's effort to put into something
resembling ordinary language, the fantastic discoveries, concepts and
hypotheses of astrophysics. It is about creation, that is to say: how,
when and inevitably, whos?

It is a remarkable book. Carl Sagan wrote the introduction and said,
"This is a book about God... Hawking is attempting, as he explicitly
states, to understand the mind of God." Hawking explains what the Big Bang
was, that moment before which there was nothing and after which our
universe began. He is bold enough to write about that very second, when
the universe was zero size and infinitely hot and the next 10060 seconds when
the temperature declined and protons and neutrons began to combine to
produce the nuclei of atoms. Hawking observed that the laws of
science contain many fundamental numbers ~ like the size of the electric
charge of the electron, and that “the value of these numbers seem to be
very finely adjusted to make possibie the development of Jife."

He paraphrases the eighth Psajm by explaining that “the earth is a
medium sized planet orbiting around an average star in the outer suburbs of
an ordinary spiral] galaxy, which is itself only one of about a million
milion galaxies in the observable oniverse.” [p. 126]

And then this remarkable testimony. "It would be very difficult to
explain why the universe should have begun in just this way except as the
act of a God who intended to create beings like us." [p. 127]

The remarkable thing about Hawking's book is that not very long ago,
everyone assumed that religion and science were incompatible: that when one
moved from star-gazing as a pleasurable activity to star-gazing as a
serious scientific pursuit, religion was going to be the casualty. 4
The sad truth is that religion and science have been adversaries frequently
enough that each came to be suspicious if not hostile to the other.
Copernicus was so afraid of the church that he didn't make public his
evidence that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa.
Biblical literalists have been opposing objective scientific truth for
centuries and incredibly, are still at it. But when Stephen Hawking looks
at the stars he sees the intentionality of the Creator.

Religion begins star-gazing. And, happily, the scientists and
theologians are talking to each other again. Christian religion - Biblical
religion ~ however, has more to do with the second question. Does it
matter? Christian religion makes the most incredible assertion that the
Creator - the one who was before there was a universe, the one in whose
mind the universe was conceived - is the same one who came into our history
in the life of a littie Jewish baby in Bethlehem.

It's a connection easy to overlook in the exquisite beauty of the
birth and in the cultural celebration. The birth is so charming, so
adaptable to greeting cards and store windows - that it is easy to miss
altogether its radical claim. That is why it is so important to hear the
witness of the Fourth Gospel during Advent. Instead of a birth narrative,
instead of telling again about shepherds and mangers and wise men, the
Fourth Gospel begins - at the beginning. This writer lifts the first
sentence of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible...

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and
paraphrases...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God... ail
things were made through the Word..." And later - "the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us."

The point? The same God who created the world ~- came into the world
in Jesus. The Creator is also the Redeemer.

The news is not only interesting in an academic sense, il is deeply,
profoundly and and personally good news.

In fact the Biblical account of creation is a theological]
affirmation, with very persona] meanings, not a scientific description at
all. The trouble starts as suon as someone tries to make it a scientific
description. Tt doesn't work. [Tt wasn’t Jntended for that purpose. The
only way to make it into science jis to keep out real scientific evidence.
The tragedy is that if you get drawn into that ef fert, you end up
wissime the slunning and radicul thealory the creation accounts conladn.

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The creation accounts were not written as an answer to the question,
“How did we get here?" but “Why are we here? Does God care that we are
here? Does God even know that we are here?" We know that they were
written when Israel was in exile, depressed, out of hope; looking at
extinction; not only death, but the end of the promise, the dream.

What Genesis says is that the Creator cares about the creation. The
Creator creates with loving attention. The Creator respects and loves the
creation. The Creator is committed to and wil] never abandon the creation.

What Genesis says is that this Creator is different: This God did
not put things in motion and then retire to a corner of the universe to
watch how it played out. This Creator stays involved, keeps on creating by
fashioning men and women toa bear the image and something of the love and
will and courage and creativity of the Creator. What Genesis says is that
God is engaged in an ongoing process of creation, still at it, still
creating.

What a message that was to a depressed people languishing in exile!
They had work to do, a responsibility to join God in the ongoing process of
creating the world. They couldn't give up and die there in Babylonian
exile. They had a reason for living. God cared about them, loved then,
had plans for them.

God loves you. God has plans for you. God is still very much
involved in creating the world. What a message that stiil is!

No life is witheut purpose and meaning and significance. That is
Good News. That is Gospel.

That message gave hope and conviction and courage to Israel - and it
can be Gospel for you. Regardless of what is happening, or not happening
in your life. Regardless of the disappointments or failures; regardless of
the fact that it feels like you're going nowhere and your life doesn't jean
a thing to anyone. The Good News is that God created you, intends you,
joves you and has high hopes for you.

That is a powerful word. There is no physician, nurse, psychiatrist
or minister who has not personally witnessed the life giving power of a
sense of purpose, or work to do. We have seen sick people overcome illness
and live because there was work to do... It is a powerful word for ajJl of
us. Part of it is that God continues to create, continues to fashion the
creation to reflect God's will. And so, particularly at this time, it is
our special responsibility to remember that the job is not complete yet.

This God of the creation - this God whose image is in us all, black
and white, red and yellow and brown - this God will not rest until? all
people live in peace. To worship this God is to renew the hepe for peace
and our commitment to it. And it is also to acknowledge our participation in
systems that often do nat make for peace although they may work for our
comfort: ad well-being.

Al

As we celebrate the redemption of the world, it is to know and lament
the fact that our city is divided racially, now known by all as the most
thoroughly segregated city in the land.

It is to know and lament that a growing part of the family is
homeless and hungry. After years of sustained economic growth, we
have many more people living in the corners and crevices of this church, on
the benches and in the parks and alleys of our neighborhood than ever
before. i

it is to know and lament that what our nation produced last week at
the cost of billions of dollars, is not better health care, or education or
housing - but a new bomber.

Religion begins star-gazing. Our faith begins with the idea that
there is a creator God in whose mind the universe was conceived, a God who
created the human race to bear the divine image and to participate in the
continuing process of creation. Religion begins with:

~the Psalmist, pondering the moon and stars
-the naval officer in the middie of the Pacific
~Stephen Hawking, from his wheel chair,
probing the mysteries of time
-or you and me, looking up into a night sky,
being overwhelmed by the countless stars, in the vast darkness...

That's the first idea.

The second is that on a dark night in Bethlehem of Judea a baby was
born who was God's only Son, and whose star was a sign of God's endless
love for the world and for men and women.

My hope is that, as we begin this lovely season of Advent, we might
keep those two ideas together.

Black Poet James Weldon Johnson managed to capture the awe of
creation and the intrinsic personal love of the Creator -

"Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.

“Then God sat down-

On the side of @e hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;

With his head in his hands,

God thoupht and thought,

Tal] he thought: T'}] make a man:

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“Up from the bed of the river
Ged scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who Lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far
corner of the night, i

“Who rounded the earth in the middle of
his hand;
This vreat God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.”
That's what the Fourth Gospel means...
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.’
The Word is that...
The great God of creation loves us —
The great God of creation is stil] creating -

The preat God of creation — has made us and has plans for us.

The Word is that the great God of creation has come among us - in a
birth we will celebrate, and for which we prepare in the weeks ahead. —

"The Word was made flesh."
"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in ali the earth."

Aten.