Lectionary: Genesis 1.1-2.3, and Romans
8.18-25, and Matthew 6.25-34
I love the opening chapter of the Bible. It is, I believe,
foundational for everything that follows. And while I believe that the universe
came into being because God willed it so, I don’t think that is what this text
is primarily concerned with. I want to suggest that it is primarily concerned
with what it means to be human and how to live in the world. Moreover, though
this is an account passed down in storytelling from generation to generation
for centuries, I share the view of many biblical scholars that it was written
down much later, after Jerusalem was destroyed and her population had been
carried off into exile in Babylon, deeply traumatised and trying to find their
bearings, to make sense of their world, which had become a dark and formless
void. And I think that we can relate to that, as asylum seekers who have fled
their country and community of birth, or international postgraduates far from
home, or those who have been bereaved by the death of a dear one, and all of us
as a Minster community through the protracted vacancy, or void.
This ancient text is a gift. It is a gift that
draws us in, to a world that is, or has become, formless and disorienting, and
which is loved by God, who watches over this world, this life, in love. God
pays close attention and invites us to do the same. Taking far more time than
we have in the sermon slot of a Sunday service. For timeless days, God focuses
attention on one thing at a time, until God can declare it good. The first thing
God attends to, and invites us to pay attention to, is light and darkness.
Light and darkness. Our days and nights. At an
approximate latitude of 54.9° N and longitude of 1.4° W, we are currently getting
two minutes more light morning by morning and two minutes more light evening by
evening. Today, sunrise was at 07:35 and sunset will be at 17:05. Tomorrow, the
sun will rise at 07:33 and set at 17:07. On Tuesday, 07:31 and 17:09.
Incremental changes. Easy to miss, not least if the sky is overcast. Not least
because we don’t want to know, want to make every morning and evening the same
by means of artificial light from a bulb turned on or off with the press of a
switch. Yet God calls us to pay attention. We all know that here on the east
coast we get some amazing sunrises and sunsets, but we can take them for
granted, or try to capture them in a photo to share on Facebook. The sun is
literally rising before our eyes, and our eyes are looking at a smartphone
screen. But there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in standing in the cold of the passing night and watching the sun
come up, watching the sky being transformed through a palette of colours. Likewise,
there is something inherently good for us—heart and soul and mind and strength—in
standing still and watching the stars trace across the night sky, the dance of
the planets. Shifting night by night, as well as through the night. Detail,
detail, until the goodness of it all settles within us enough for us to say,
with God, this is good.
There is not time for me to continue through the story.
It is for me and for you to enter, anew, each day until the Day of the Lord,
when Jesus comes to us to take us to be with him in his Father’s house. But
trust me that there is healing and wholeness to be found in such practices as
make us fully human, in union with God. May this be your testimony. May it be
mine.
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