A Space to Live

This morning, I began a series of sermons based on the first three chapters of the book of Genesis. Today's sermon focused on Genesis 1:1-13, the first three days of creation. It was also communion Sunday; so I considered God's first creative actions as preparing a place for us to live in peace amidst the chaos of the primeval universe. When we come to the table, we come to the peace that God intended for the entire world. What do you think?

I am convinced that we don’t know who we are if we don’t know where we came from.

Did you get that? Let me say it again. We don’t know who we are if we don’t know where we came from.

Human beings need a context, a bigger picture that can help us to understand how we got to where we are right now. Why else would people spend countless hours (and countless dollars) researching their family history? Finding out where we came from is a search that is crucial to establishing our identity! Were our ancestors immigrants? If they were, what country did they come from? Why did they leave? Were they persecuted? Did they seek religious freedom; or was some long-ago ancestor escaping the long arms of the law? It’s human nature, after all, to want to place ourselves somewhere; and questions like these are basic if we want to understand who we are and where we belong in the world.

We can say the same thing about ourselves as Christians. We don’t know who we are as Christians if we don’t know where we came from. That’s why, during the months of July and August, I’ll be going all the way back to the very beginning – to the first 3 chapters of the book of Genesis – and exploring where we came from with respect to our faith. We’ll be thinking about questions like, “Why are we here?” “Who does God intend for us to be?” “Are we the people that God intended?” If that answer is ‘No,’ then, “What went wrong?” And as we look at where we came from, the past will shed some light on our identity as people of God right now.

So let’s go all the way back to the beginning – the VERY beginning – before there was even a universe. Genesis tells us that in the beginning there were two things: God, and something else. That “something else” is usually translated as a “formless void,” a “watery abyss.” Maybe the closest that we can come to describing it is to say that it was chaos. It wasn’t exactly nothing, but it wasn’t really something either. In it there was no up nor down, no here nor there, no present nor future. It was and it wasn’t, all at the same time. Only God could comprehend it; and God decided that it something needed to change.

And so, as the first act of creation, God created light. Light is a profound symbol in the biblical text. Light isn’t just the ability to see with our eyes; it stands for all kinds of things – knowledge, wisdom, and relationship. With light comes the potential to discern good and bad, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. That kind of light was the very first thing that God created. And then, God separated this light of discernment from the darkness of chaos, and created time. Now creation had the beginnings of a structure – past, present, and future – and the first day occurred.

But the watery chaos still surrounded everything; and so, God created a space in middle of that chaos. Genesis tells us that God created a raquia – a firmament – a dome – a ceiling – and pushed back the waters of chaos to make a quiet space in between. Oh, the chaotic waters are still up there. (After all, said the ancient writers, the sky is blue; so there must be water up there behind that ceiling.) Some of the chaotic waters are still down here, too. But in the middle, where we live, things are peaceful, and time is going quietly by.

That was a good start, but it still wasn’t enough for God. The chaotic waters down here were still causing a ruckus. So God gathered those waters together and said to them, “Now, you stay here in the oceans. This is your place. The dry land will be a peaceful place. None of your chaos is allowed there!” The book of Job (38:8-11) describes the event like a mother taking charge of a rebellious toddler:

"God shut up the sea behind doors,
diapered it in clouds and dressed it in darkness.
Then he fixed limits for it, and set a gate in place.
He said, ‘You may come this far, but no farther.
You have to stop here.’"

God did all of that so that living things would have a space to be. Life, after all, can’t exist in the middle of chaos. Life needs structure: up and down, here and there, present and future, good and bad, right and wrong. And so, God’s first acts of creation carved out that space for the good of all life – oak trees and daffodils, pelicans and bluebirds, giraffes and hedgehogs – and, eventually, you and me. God made a place where all of us could live in peace.

Now, today we know a lot more about the universe than the authors of the book of Genesis did. Telescopes and spacecraft have shown us that there isn’t any ceiling above the sky that is holding the waters of chaos back. But don’t think that chaos is gone. Oh, my, no – chaos is still all around us. When a spot shows up on an X-ray and our doctor orders more testing, we see the shadow of chaos. When our checking account is empty and a collection agency phones, we can hear the whisper of chaos. When we hear reports of riots in Syria and roadside bombs in Afghanistan and suicide bombers in Israel, we can feel chaos breathing down our neck.

But chaos is not in charge! That’s the message of the authors of Genesis in their account of the very first days of creation. Chaos is not in charge. God is in charge; and God has gifted us with a space to live that is intended to be a place of peace and plenty. God carved out a place in the middle of chaos so that we would have a space to live.

Now, that space doesn’t feel very peaceful sometimes; and God’s plenty frequently seems far away. When we feel like that, God invites us here – to the table, where Jesus Christ waits for us. Here at the table is the space where we live as Christians.

The night that we remember at this table was the scene of a battle with the powers of chaos. Oh, we can call it Satan or the devil or Evil if we like – but it was chaos that put Jesus on a cross and snuffed out his life. Jesus embraced that chaos, went right through it, and came out the other side triumphant on Easter morning. And when he did, he gave us a space to live that not only offers us peace that passes all understanding in this life, but also eternal life in the kingdom of God.

So, this morning, come – come to the table. Come to the table where we live together in peace, and where even the chaos of death has been overcome. Come to the table where we are nurtured and valued and loved. Come to the table that Christ has set – his space, where we are invited to live with him forever.