Creation season (1): stories of ‘beginnings’

‘Tree of Life Mandala’ by Caterina Martinico
http://caterina-artfullmusings.blogspot.com/

You can LISTEN to this week's readings and reflections here.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

1In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the 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.

³Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” ²⁷So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸God 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.”

²⁹God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

⁴These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Genesis 2:4b-25

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵ when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; ⁶ but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— ⁷ then the Lord God formed an earth-creature [adam] from the dust of the ground [adamah], and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the earth-creature became a living being. ⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the earth-creature whom he had formed. ⁹ Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹ The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹² and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³ The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God took the earth-creature and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the earth-creature, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the earth-creature should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” ¹⁹ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the earth-creature to see what he would call them; and whatever the earth-creature called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The earth-creature gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the earth-creature there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the earth-creature, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²² And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the earth-creature he made into a woman and brought her to the earth-creature. ²³ Then the earth-creature said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman [ishshah],
    for out of Man [ish] this one was taken.”

²⁴ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ And the earth-creature and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

A ‘cutting’ of tree wisdom (Genny Tunbridge)

In the beginning, in an evolutionary sense, was the algae - among the simplest life forms on earth: not plants, but ancestors of all plants including the largest trees. Next in the story come simple plants like today’s mosses and liverworts, limited in size, moisture dependent, reproducing by spores. Then emerged plants with vascular tissue, able to conduct water and nutrients, and thus grow taller. These early plants did not have roots or leaves, relying on symbiotic fungi to obtain minerals and water. As soil established, so vascular plants developed root systems: they included ferns, clubmosses and horsetails, which are still around – though today’s relatives are much smaller than the often tree-sized prehistoric kinds.

About 350 million years ago more advanced, seed-bearing plants began to develop. “Seeds enable plants to reproduce with greater certainty: they contain not just genetic information but emergency rations and a self-assembly starter kit for the plant to get growing faster.”[1] First came gymnosperms (naked-seeded plants like conifers and ginkgoes). Conifers were better adapted as the climate changed, becoming drier, and so came to dominate. Flowering plants (or angiosperms = encased seeds i.e. fruits) developed much later.  Their evolution was aided by the emergence of bees who helped to pollinate the flowers. Magnolias and figs trees are among the most ancient varieties still existing. Angiosperms expanded greatly in diversity and range, and soon these broad-leaved trees like oaks became predominant. Relative youngsters like beech, ash, birch, hazel, all emerged in the last 2 million years or so, adapting to new challenges and conditions.

Introduction to the theme (Al Barrett)

For the next four weeks, we’re going to be focusing our attention on the created world. I say ‘focusing’, but we’re talking about everything that exists, the whole universe, from the biggest spiral galaxy to the tiniest particle of matter. So less ‘focusing’, perhaps, and more about looking beyond: beyond the limited dimension of life that is focused on human beings and our interactions and concerns, to a bigger reality that is not just about us.

There is also, however, lots of continuity with what we’ve explored already. In our first few weeks on ‘growing’, we were reminded that our spirituality as Christians needs to be ‘rooted’ in our connection with the earth beneath our feet as much as in our connections with other human beings and with God. And we suggested that our mission as Christians (i.e. joining in with God’s mission, God’s ‘sending’, in the world) should begin with ‘discovering where God is sustaining and renewing the life of the earth’ and ‘joining with others in striving to safeguard the integrity of creation’. Over the last two weeks, as we’ve begun to think about the ‘big story’ of the Bible as the story of God’s journey with God’s people, we’ve named the places where we encounter God as ‘holy ground’. And as we enter into this Creation Season, we remember that all ground is holy, because every place is potentially a place of encounter with God.

This week, we’re staying with stories of beginnings – the two stories of beginnings we find at the beginning of the first book of the bible, the book of Genesis. The word ‘Genesis’ itself is a Greek word for ‘beginning’. And although these two different stories are about the beginnings of everything, and tell us something (not everything, but something) important about the world we live in, they are also the ‘beginnings stories’ for a particular people, the people of Israel, and so they also tell us something important about how this particular people understood their God, and their relationship with their God.

As the eco-theologian Ruth Valerio reminds us, in her recent book Saying Yes to Life,[2] these creation stories were actually some of the later texts of the Hebrew Bible (our ‘Old Testament’) to be written down, probably during the time when the Israelites were in captivity, in exile, in Babylon (around the time that prophets such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel were speaking). The people of Israel found themselves as ‘strangers in a strange land, surrounded by peoples, customs and religions very different from their own. Babylon was a land of domination, where kings ruled absolutely and the rest of the population were their subjects’. And the Babylonians’ creation story, called Enuma Elish, tells a violent tale of murder, double-crossing and conquest among the gods. It begins: ‘In the beginning, before the heavens and earth existed, lived a god and a goddess…’. And it ends like this:

‘Marduk sliced Tiamat’s dead body in two and formed the heavens from one half of her and the earth from the other. He created the Euphrates and Tigris rivers to flow from her eyes and from her breasts he created the mountains. Then, from the blood of the defeated and slain Kingu, he created humankind, to serve the gods and set the gods free from having to do any work. And thus the world and its inhabitants were created.’

The Israelites’ creation stories, in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, begin in just the same way as the creation story of their Babylonian captors, but what unfolds is radically different. As Ruth Valerio puts it, ‘its message is one of hope, peace and confidence: a good God who reigns supreme has created a very good world, with people created to work with him in taking care of it and one another, not as his slaves but as his friends’.

As we read these very familiar stories once again, how might we hear them afresh? What might they be telling us about the world, and our role within it, that might challenge the prevailing culture of consumption that surrounds us? What resonances might we hear in these stories, with the breath-taking complexity we catch glimpses of in wildlife documentaries, with the warnings we hear from environmental scientists, with the challenges to live differently presented to us by our younger generations?

What might it mean for us, today, that human beings – all human beings, not just some deemed ‘special’, or some more than others – are created in the image of the creator God, endowed with equal dignity and worth? What might it mean for us, today, to remember our identity as ‘earth-creatures’, sharing the same raw material as everything else in the created world, interdependent with all our brothers and sisters, human and non-human, animate and inanimate – even ‘mother earth’ herself? What might it mean for us, today, to understand our first and foremost vocation to be, as Pope Francis puts it, to work together with all living creatures to care for the home we share?

Reflection (Gloria Smith)

Have you ever heard an event told to you by two people who actually watched it happen? Yes, the important bits are similar, but the way in how it is told is very much dependent upon lots of things such as the perspective of the person retelling it or the audience for whom it is intended. This inevitably means small incidental details are different and the interpretation of the whole event can have a very different feel to it. It’s recognisable as the same event yet somehow different.

Today we heard two versions of how the Jewish people understood the creation and like every story, especially those passed on verbally there are differences but the question is – Are those differences important and what do we notice are the key points to take away from them?

The first story is organised in a seven ‘day’ period of time and begins with God bringing light into the world, then the creation of the moon and stars, the earth, then creatures of the sea, land and air and culminates in the creation of humankind. It seems it is done by an awesome, powerful yet remote God who looks at the creation and sees it as ‘good’. God then seems to pass on that same kind of power to humankind to subdue and have dominion over everything on earth. I wonder is this why humankind interprets this as the right to use, abuse and destroy God’s creation? I wonder was that meant to rule as God would rule with love and compassion, not as has been interpreted by humankind over the centuries by some cultures including our own?

Then the second story has a different feel to it. This time God on the very first day creates this earth-creature known as Adam and then places him in the Garden of Eden to ‘till it and keep it’. God creates all the plants and in doing so provides food for the man. It seems as if God worries that the man may be lonely and decides that he needs a partner and creates all the different creatures without finding a suitable partner until finally woman is created. More than that God works with humankind to name all the creatures and this sounds so much more like a partnership in which God values Adam and is happy for him to make decisions. Within this version God appears to care for what has been created and it also feels a more personal relationship. He puts Adam in a place where he can find food and shelter and then instructs him to look after it. God provides all that is needed but does that mean humankind can do what it looks? I don’t think so. I believe God wants us to look after the earth and in identifying the creatures as possible partners for Adam he indicates that all creatures on earth are equal to humankind and therefore should be treated as such. We are not on this planet on our own and without these ‘partner’ creatures, humankind could not survive. So in this version God does not talk of subjugation and domination but of partnerships and equality.

It is interesting what people remember about the creation stories. I think that there has been in the past a way of looking at the creation stories and cherry-picking what is to be promoted through the Bible and what is overlooked or even worse deliberately ignored. For example, in both versions man and woman are created equally and yet for generations, interpreters of the Bible did not promote this idea and consequently for many centuries women were considered less equal than men. I do not believe God made any of creation any more special than anything or anyone else and that includes humankind with different people of colour and no colour, gender, culture and religion.

So I have often wondered why are both versions included in the bible, especially as they are different both in content and tone. Does this mean that one version is right and therefore the other must be wrong? I think it is more that the first version is one that is primarily about the order in which the world was created, like the prologue at the beginning of a story, play etc. Or maybe even what is known as ‘the big picture’. It kind of sets the scene, almost like giving the ‘facts’. The second is more about the finer details like exactly where this ‘event’ took place, the naming of the creatures and the developing relationship between God and humankind.

In seeing both versions, one following on from the other, does it help to notice the important parts of the narratives for you? Which parts stand out that have not been given the prominence they should have, and which parts have been over-emphasised and used to justify destruction and inequality?

Reflection (Allannah Brennan)

Although I have been involved in churches for most of my life, I had reached middle age before I began to wonder how the early books of the Old Testament had been written.  The New Testament, of course, was easy – letters from Paul and others and the Gospel writers. I suppose as a child I saw the Old Testament as the dictated word of God and somehow had never really moved on from that until I started to do some study.  I wonder now how many others have never really thought about it and possibly see the early Bible books as they did when they first heard them as children.

The two readings for today is the same story told twice and were the result of people trying to make sense of and express, what they understood of God’s relationship with themselves and the created world in which they lived. 

Oddly the second reading from Genesis chapter 2 was written  400 – 500 years before the account in Genesis 1 so nearly a thousand years before Jesus.  What probably happened is that the Jewish hierarchy at some time later wanted to make perhaps a clearer or more structured account of the relationship between God and the children of Israel – and this is how the later account came to be written. 

I love the way when reading through the Bible I can find so many things that relate to my daily life or events in the news, so the current pandemic is like one of the plagues that people endured in Egypt when Moses was around. I like too to think about those early people – some 3000 years ago now, trying to make sense of and understand their relationship with God and the earth – rather like many are doing today as they wrestle with climate change.  For us there is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom already around and all this helps us with our understanding.

Living things change and change continually – we were thinking about trees recently and if you follow a tree through the seasons you will see how it changes. Our faith is a living faith and it is ok for our interpretation of it to change too although embracing change in what we believe can sometimes be disturbing and difficult. So few people today, but there are some, believe that the world was made as described in today’s readings with every plant and animal being created all at the same time. 

I look at my own journey of faith and find that what I believe now about a lot of things is quite different from when I was a young adult.  For example, I used to believe in an almighty, dreadful God who was to be feared, who might strike me dead at any moment or lift up and throw a mountain. But overtime I have come to see God as Christ like – a vulnerable baby, growing to manhood with all of the ups and downs of human life, and eventually hanging on a cross to die.  And yes, thankfully rose again.

I wonder what our natural world teaches us about God.  Well God has made good provision for us and each year the earth can grow enough food for all to be adequately fed.  God made this provision before we came along – it was not until all was in place to keep us fed and clothed that humans were created. God recognised the need for community too as humans were not to be alone.  So we see God as a provider for all our needs.   But all of this was not to be a holiday paradise for us to lounge about in – the people had to look after it and to care for it, to work at it.

I love my garden but it is always a work in progress – never is everything just right.  I used to say I would like a sabbatical to get it completely straight – and look I have just had one – but there are still areas of neglect and it probably isn’t much better than other years at this time.  Of course, the “I’m leaving that bit for wildlife” is quite a handy phrase when I have a visitor and we are standing by a particularly overgrown bit.  But I do love it and I love being in it and there is so much to wonder at and to wonder about the God who created it.

One thing I have learnt about gardening is that you can’t rest on your laurels and you need to keep working at it.  So sometimes I attack a flower bed, pull out the weeds, deadhead and cut back some of the vegetation, maybe plant a few new plants and turn over some of the soil.  I survey the finished article with satisfaction but three days later I inspect it to find slugs have eaten the new plants, there are new weeds and spent flowers and Sylvester (my cat) has rolled around on the soil and been doing others things in it too.

So for gardening – I have learnt one fix isn’t for all time and I have to keep working at it.  And it is true too for our planet – we need to keep learning and doing new things to care for and preserve the wonderful natural world that God has provided for us – once is not enough we have to keep at it if it is to be flourishing for future generations. It’s also true for my relationship with God – if it is living which I hope it is, it will change, I will understand it differently and if I keep at it, it will give me hope, peace and confidence through all of what lies ahead in life. 

5^th Gospel (Wendy Kerr)

When I saw the picture of the tree of life on the front of this week’s booklet it made me think of ‘Roots and Branches’. That is the name my friend Rose gave to an idea we shared. In 1999 I went on a course organised by The Rock Group of Churches. People from Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and free churches in Alum Rock got together to learn about our changing neighbourhood. The course was called, ‘Understanding Islam’ and at the end I wanted to explore practical ways of building bridges between our parallel communities. I was given the contact details of a Muslim lady called Rosemin Ahmed who worked at Nansen Primary School. I wrote her a very formal letter inviting her to meet me. We shared concerns about perceptions based on misunderstanding, ‘After all’, said Rose, ‘We are the roots and branches from the tree of life created by God’.

Since then we have been working to create common experiences that strangers can share. At first, we were a women’s group and met in the community rooms at Nansen School. Our first big project was to raise £5,000 to help rebuild a school in Pakistan that has been ruined in an earthquake. After numerous fund-raising events including coffee mornings, chai afternoons, cake and samosa sales, we raised £30,000 and, in partnership with the Read Foundation, Rose and I were invited to Pakistan to open Roots and Branches Community School in 2012.

When the National Curriculum began to include visits to different places of worship many parents were apprehensive, so we started a programme that continues today, taking adults to different places of worship. Our first outing took mothers from Nansen School to Emmanuel Free Church of England. As they walked that half mile some of the women were terrified that they might be seen going to a Christian Church, others worried that the visit might taint them in some way. But these brave women came out of the church full of smiles, cups of tea, cake and warm welcome. Since then we have taken groups of men and women, young and old, to Muslim Masjids, Buddhist Temples, Sikh Gurdwaras, Hindu Mandirs, Jewish Synagogues and Christian churches.

At the beginning we organised day trips for ladies and saw women from different communities enjoying shopping at Merry Hill, visits to Bourton-on-the Water, Ludlow and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. We toured Tamworth, Warwick and Kenilworth Castles. One very rainy day we decided to brave the weather and venture from the tea-room to the rose garden at Warwick, two very startled Somalian friends were greatly impressed to hear that Rose had her own garden in the castle!

The day trips for ladies evolved into family trips to the seaside, our regular morning meetings moved to Emmanuel Church and then to St. John’s Convent. Prior to ‘Lockdown’ we had weekly coffee mornings for men and women at St. John’s House and have interested passers by in Ward End Park recently with our very mixed group of friends enjoying al-fresco coffee.

So, 20 years from it beginning our ‘Roots and Branches’ have spread, like ripples from a stone thrown in a pond, showing anyone who cares to look that all people are the roots and branches of God’s tree.

A prayer for this Creation season:

Each leaf, each petal, each grain, each person,
sings your praises, Creator God.
Each creature on the earth,
all the mountains and great seas show your glory, Spirit of love.
And yet the hand of greed has patented and plundered your splendour,
has taken and not shared your gift,
has lived as owner of the earth, not guest.
And so the ice is cracked, the rivers dry,
the valleys flooded and the snowcaps melt.
Loving God, show us how to step gently, how to live simply,
how to walk lightly with respect and love for all that you have made.
Amen.

(Linda Jones, in God’s Good Earth: Praise and Prayer for Creation)

Questions for reflection / discussion

As I read / listened to the readings and reflections for this week…

·         what did I notice, or what particularly stood out for me?

 

·         what did they make me wonder, or what questions am I pondering?

 

·         what have they helped me realise?

 

·         is there anything I want to do or change in the light of this week's topic?

 

On this week’s theme…

·         What does each of the two creation stories tell us about God? about the world? about us human beings?

·         How does each story make you feel? What resonates for you, in each of the two stories? And what feels more difficult?

·         What might it mean for us, today, to understand our first and foremost vocation to be, as Pope Francis puts it, to work together with all living creatures to care for the home we share?

Any other reflections…

 

Activities / conversation-starters with young (and not-so-young!) people

• Watch the Godly Play version of the story of creation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBUF51c1T04. Have a go at making and telling your own version. You could use craft materials, things from your recycling box, or natural resources from your garden.
• In the other version of the creation story, God creates humans from the earth. Spend some time outside, and see what you can create from the earth and natural materials you find.
• This week we are thinking about stories of beginnings. Can you think of other stories about beginnings, either in the Bible, or from books/films/TV? What do you like about them? What similarities or differences do you notice?
• Think about a time in your life when you have begun something new, or something new which you are beginning soon. How did/do you feel about new beginnings?
• As we start to think about creation, think about what aspects of creation you are particularly drawn to, or which help you to feel close to God? Do you have a favourite animal, plant, or landscape? How does it make you feel? You might want to find or create an image and spend some time with it, thanking God for creation.

 

 

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[1] The Wisdom of Trees, Max Adams (2014), p 43.

[2] Ruth Valerio, Saying Yes to Life (London: SPCK, 2020), pp. xiii-xvii