Garrett Vickrey" 10:45 AM Worship" Woodland Baptist Church" 11.22.15 San Antonio, TX" “As It Was in the Beginning” Genesis 2:4-25 This is the last of the Great 8 Few bible stories have been stories. The 8 stories you voted interpreted and used and abused were the most important in the more than this chapter in Genesis. bible. It may seem strange to end It’s been used as a science book, with the beginning— to end this a manual on relationships between series with a creation story. But, men and women, a psychological theologically ending with beginning treatise on the origins of our actually makes a lot of sense. It is minds. It’s been used to define in scripture that we learn again and Women as assistant humans on again that what looks like an account of Eve being created at ending isn’t the end of the story, the end of creation. Ironically, in but a chance to experience God Genesis 1 Humans are created again as creator. At age 75 nearing last yet we think that there place at the end of a good life Abraham the end of creation story is a sign received a promise for a new of blessing at the top of creation’s beginning. At the edge of the sea pecking order. Wake Forest with the Egyptians in hot pursuit it professor Phyllis Trible points out looked like the Israelites story was that the creation of woman in over until the sea began to Genesis 2 is a second creation separate exposing the land story which is necessary to the beneath. In Babylon they sat by completion of creation. Woman is the river and remembered life in the crowning event in the narrative Jerusalem assuming they would and the fulfillment of humanity. never see it again, that the story of There are many ways of looking at God’s people was coming to an Genesis 2; it seems there have end; but, there was more to the been endless interpretations. story after exile. And of course, it was assumed that Jesus’ story It may seem that Genesis 2 is a ended in a tomb. But, in the next foundational and decisive text for chapter we find that same tomb the entire Bible and that it empty. And we know God is underlays everything going creating something new again. forward. Perhaps, but maybe not like we assume. This story lays the !1 groundwork for gospel forth and the cosmos responds. proclamation. Because even here Everything is orderly. But, this in the beginning there is good story is different. Genesis 2 is news. God created us for God’s more like a story told around the delight, and we not only reflect his campfire, less like a temple liturgy. image but his breath (spirit) is all Reading and researching these mixed up in who we are. This story stories won’t cool the debate is good news. So how can we lean between proponents of literal on the spirit in hopes that it will creationism and theistic evolution. breath life back into this old story There are some mysteries we again and enlighten us with a word aren’t meant to know. Some of grace for today? wisdom is too much for us. We are meant to live in God’s world, not a It’s interesting that this world of our own design. And God foundational story is not clearly makes it very clear elsewhere in referenced anywhere else in the the bible that there are somethings Old Testament. And even in the we just have to let go of and come New Testament it is somewhat re- to terms with mystery. interpreted by Paul in Romans, but even that interpretation has more Why does God place those trees in to do with other Jewish writings of the garden? The tree of life and the day (specifically IV Ezra) and the tree of the knowledge of Good not directly this story from and Evil— why? Isn’t it interesting Genesis.1 Why am I telling you all that this is always the first question this? Paul isn’t really concerned we have… in the midst of the with the origin of humanity or sin or grace of the garden, in the midst of the created world, but mostly the graciousness of a God who concerned with telling the good created the cosmos and created a news. We should follow his lead sacred place for humanity… we when we read this story. are left wondering why are there dangerous animals in this sacred Chapter two tells a second story of place, and why are there trees creation. Genesis 1 and the first created by God that we are not few verses of Genesis 2 tell supposed to eat? Why the another version of the creation of temptation? All God has done in Heaven and Earth. It’s the liturgical this story is almost lost because of version. Like a litany God calls this one imposition. Don’t eat from !2 the tree of the knowledge of good characterized have dominated the and evil. That’s it. God gives box office. That trend really took purpose through vocation — God off with the Spiderman movies took the human and settled him in starring Toby Maguire. In 1963 the garden of Eden to farm it and comic book writer Stan Lee to take care of it. God gives created this new character who permission and great freedom to was a break from traditional the human to eat of all the trees in superheroes of the time. the garden and name all the creatures God creates. The human Peter Parker was a timid, geeky becomes co-creator giving name teenager with romantic to all that God creates. But, what deficiencies and a constant we remember is the imposition of a concern about money. He gains boundary. Don’t do this one thing. super powers which he Why God? Why can’t we just do immediately uses to become a whatever we want and have no television celebrity that goes by the responsibility whatsoever? name Spiderman. After his first performance before the cameras, Because we are co-creators made he refuses to stop a robber from in God’s image. We belong to this stealing the television station’s world; we are bound to it and to studio box-office receipts. God. And so our responsibility lies Spiderman’s world abruptly in trusting in God as God gives collapses a few days later when a graciously purpose and freedom to burglar murders his uncle, Ben us. There’s a lot of power in that. Parker, leaving Peter’s Aunt May— And it takes a leap of faith on our now his only surviving guardian—a part to use our power and widow. The grief-stricken giftedness wisely. Spiderman tracks down Uncle Ben’s killer, only to make the How to deal with power; how to horrible discovery that the deal with our giftedness has murderer is the very same robber always been a concern for us. he had allowed to escape from the These concerns sometimes come television studio. Spiderman’s out in books and movies. They origin story closes with sombre come out in the heroes we idolize. words that set the series’ moral For the last decade, movies based tone: And a lean, silent figure on Marvel comic book slowly fades into the gathering !3 darkness, aware at last that in this need that spirit, that breath to bring world, with great power there must meaning to what could just be dirt. also come—great responsibility! In the mix of dirt and spirit something beautiful emerges. It’s Rabbi David Stern of Temple God bringing life. But, not just any Emanu-El in Dallas once said, life. Life with purpose, freedom, "The whole Hebrew Bible is one and boundary. A healthy mix of long story about the just use of these three form identity. We power, From Adam and Eve struggle and try to shirk our onward, there is the idea that we boundaries, but we know they’re are endowed with unique power by there. Why not eat from the tree of being created in God's image and the knowledge of good and evil? that the power automatically Why did God put that tree there? entails responsibility." It’s a symbol of our boundaries, inevitable with mortal life. It’s the We are co-creators of a still- pathos of decisions we make as creating God; made in his image. we make a life, that ultimately deny We are given great power and other ways. responsibility. But, that grace is given to us. It’s not ours to own. Henri Nouwen describes life as a It’s ours to use to fulfill our calling large cone that becomes narrower in this world as co-creators caring the deeper you go. There are for life and holding it as sacred. many doors in that cone that give you chances to leave the journey. God is still breathing life into But you have been closing these formless and void situations; the doors one after the other, making mist of God’s Spirit fills the earth yourself go deeper… into the ready to bring forth life. Still mixing center… Every time you close dirt and spirit to make something another door— be it the door of new. If we see Genesis 2 as immediate satisfaction, the door of foundational for the good news (for distracting entertainment, the door the gospel) then we can see this of busyness, the door of guilt and as the prototype for what God will worry, or the door of self-rejection do in Jesus.