October 12, 2008

Taking my lead from our service with the children, I began to preach on light. But then I thought, no, let's do the Book. We have given away Bibles this morning. Why? Well, you have to crack the cover to discover.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...and it was good...Then God said, ?Let us make the human being in our image, after our likeness'...so God created the human being in the image of God, male and female God created them, and God blessed them...and God saw everything that God had made, and behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1)

Well, what a wonderful beginning. But it does not last. We do not know how long we linger in Eden, but we do know within the lifetime of the first male and first female created by God in God's image, we fail and fall from Eden.

The biblical story of Genesis, which means "beginning," continues, with stories you have heard and know. Listen now to some selected readings from the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her (dumb) husband and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." (Genesis 3)

Next follows one of the great exchanges between God and humanity, the very first exchange, I might add, in which we get the birth of the blame game:

"And God said (speaking to Adam), ?Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

The man answered, ?The woman you put here with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate it.'

Then the Lord God said to the woman, ?What is it you have done?'

The woman replied, ?The serpent tricked me, and I ate the fruit.'

Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ?You will be punished for this...'" (Genesis 3) (and the serpent had enough class to take responsibility and keep his mouth shut).

"And when Cain and Abel were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother, Abel, and killed him."

And here we get the second great exchange between God and humanity.

Then the Lord said to Cain, ?Where is Abel, your brother?' Cain said, ?I don't know; am I my brother's keeper?'

And the Lord said, ?What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you shall be cursed...you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.'" (Genesis 4)

Two chapters later:

"The Lord saw that the wickedness of the human was great in the earth, and that every thought and inclination of the human heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that the human had been made on the earth, and the Lord's heart grieved. So the Lord said, ?I will blot out the human whom I have created from the face of the ground, for I am sorry that I have made them.'

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." (Genesis 6) Whew! As preached on three weeks ago.

A less familiar passage, concluding the Noah narrative following the flood:

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ?Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.' So Noah became the first tiller of the soil. Noah, the first farmer. Get this. Noah planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay naked in his tent. His sons saw the nakedness of their father, and ... their faces were turned away in shame." (Genesis 9)

And finally, Genesis 11:

"And people said, ?Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the Lord saw this as only the beginning of what these humans would do. So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth."

Highlights, or lowlights, from Genesis, chapters 1-11, in what is considered the prologue to the Bible. So what? A theological question which always begs asking. So what?

So what regarding these stories told by an ancient biblical people about their history, their times, their sins, their interpretations, and their understanding of God. So what does this tell us? "It is the incredible fact of the Bible," as Davie Napier wrote, who was the President of Pacific School of Religion while I was in seminary there and an Old Testament scholar, "precisely because the Holy Spirit forever broods over it, that the Bible will not permit our reading of it in cool detachment, but presses on us the question, ?What in these stories is for us today? In the midst of our very immediate and present human condition are these stories applicable, informative of ourselves today, or are they quaint literature whose message has seen its day?'"

If you ever heard Dr. Davie Napier preach, who was also the Dean of Chapel at Stanford while I was there, you would know his answer to this question. Not that I went to church all that much then.

It is the fact and phenomenon of the biblical Word, this is word with a capital "W," that its message yesterday for the ancient Hebrews, and its message for us today, is so often and so forcefully the very same.

There is something awfully universal and amazingly everlasting that is captured in this book. We are, therefore, urged to read it carefully and listen closely, for through the Bible "God is still speaking."

Let us look again at the prologue to the Bible. Realize these stories from Genesis chapters 1-11 are not about the Hebrew people specifically. Their story does not begin until the call of Abraham which you heard read this morning in Genesis 12.

No, the prologue is about every people, or all people. We have long confessed these Genesis stories are our stories as well, about creation and the consequential fall, about the first family, Cain and Abel, and the Flood, and drunken Noah, and the prideful citizens of Babel.

The familiar and classical problems described in the stories of Genesis still plague the families of the earth today, be it in our immediate family, or our church family, or our community, nation or world. These stories are timeless. Which is why we call them Sacred Scripture. We are still living with the same brokenness described in the fall and folly of these first stories. In other words, we are still doing the same dumb stuff!

We all know the Garden of Eden, or at least we know we do not know the Garden of Eden and that we are not there. We know, and participate in, the disobedience of Eden, be we apple picker or apple sucker.

We know about the loss of innocence as we reach to get more. We know what it is to be tempted with momentary pleasure or power, or short cuts to having it all, and the wounding our "winning" causes the created order.

We know what it is to "Fall," and to even be responsible for the Fall, though like Adam to Eve and Eve to the serpent, we will deny it and blame others. We know!

Alas, we know the Cain and Abel tragedy. We know it, but do not understand it. Yet we must confess, it is no great distance from the Cain and Abel conflict to abused babies (read any stories of this lately?), battered spouses, bullying, and teenage suicides.

We do not understand, but admittedly we participate in breaking the bonds of brotherhood, in some upfront and declared ways, as in war, and in other more subtle and seductive systems, as in racism and sexism.

Cain lives in us. Abel's blood is still fresh upon the ground.

We know through the scientific advancements of the last century of the precarious and tenuous nature of human existence. We know of the force and fear of the Flood, which might come this time around in the form of nuclear annihilation or global warming, if not through natural disasters themselves, tsunamis, hurricanes and the like.

Certainly tens of thousands of refugees flood the world, homeless and awash from natural and human-made disasters. No, the Flood story is not a distant, dead narrative. We live with the anxiety it may be our future, and for far too many, it already is.

We know, thankfully we do, what it is to be saved from the flood waters of life, thank God hurricane Ike was downgraded, now we pray deliverance from our economic meltdown, only to sink again like poor Noah into the mud, breaking all those begging prayers, "If only God you will spare me this one time, I will... (do this or be that)."

The tower of Babel? Are you kidding? We are still building it! We call out to one another, "Come, let us play God. Let us make great our own names, and establish for ourselves our own kingdoms in which to reign and revel."

Ignoring all else, and everyone else, we build our own towers, our monuments to ourselves, our own retreat centers of security while forgetting God and walling out the world.

The Babel piece ends with a broken humanity, unable to communicate to one another and understand one another. How are we doing, six thousand years later?

The ancient biblical people looked at their world, including the prevalent human conditions of their day. With courage and an incomparable honesty, they told stories which described their condition: Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, the Flood, drunken Noah after the Flood, the tower of Babel. Lord have mercy, what has changed?

The rest of the book. As I have said, these first few telling chapters of Genesis, 1-11, are only the prologue to the Bible. The rest of the book, Old Testament and New, is testimony to God's saving grace.

In the prologue we hear about humanity, human actions and human reactions. But this is not why the biblical people told and retold these narratives for a thousand years, and eventually wrote them down and considered them sacred.

The Old Testament is not for the purpose of telling the story of human folly and failure, though it does so candidly and correctly. The Bible is foremost and forever the story of God. It is the Hebrew people telling the story of God in their communal life. It is their account of God's saving relationship to them as a people.

And them as a people, becomes us a people, through Jesus Christ, seeking to save all of God's children. Which is the rest of story, or the New Testament as we call it.

The Bible is the story of the God who created the world and saw that it was good, including ourselves in God's likeness, and who continues to create in renewing and redeeming ways in spite of the fallen humanity so accurately described in the prologue.

It is the story of the Creator God who comes into our time and space and human predicament to bless and heal not you alone, nor me alone, not any of us alone, nor any one alone, but all of us together who make up God's children of the world.

If we can own the prologue, if we can confess these introductory stories to be our story, then we can own the rest of the story as well. Which is why we give the Book to our children. We want the "good news' to be the conclusion of their story, so they might like Abraham, "be a blessing to all the families of the earth."

The kids tend to get it. Take Danny Dutton, in that cute e-mail that circulated a few years back. Danny is a blessing. As an eight year old he writes an essay on why he believes in God:

"One of God's main jobs is making people. God makes people to put in place of the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things here on earth. God does not make grownups. Just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way God doesn't have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. God can just leave that up to mothers and fathers. I think it works out pretty good.

God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on...God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV on account of this. As God hears everything, not only prayers, there must be a terrible lot of noise going on in God's ears.

Jesus is God's son. Jesus used to do all the hard work, like walking on water and doing miracles and trying to teach people about God who didn't want to learn. They finally got tired of his preaching and crucified him. But he was good and kind like his Father, and he told his Father that the people didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them, so God said, "O.K."

...You should always go to Sunday School because it makes God happy, and if there is anybody you want to make happy, it's God. Don't skip Sunday School to do something you think will be more fun - like going to the beach (Danny writes from Chula Vista, south of San Diego). That is wrong.

If you don't believe in God...you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you like to camp, but God can. It's good to know God is around when you are scared of the dark or when you can't swim very good and you get thrown in the deep water by big kids. But you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and God can take me back anytime God pleases. So while I am here I should try and please God.

And that's why I believe in God."

May our children read and enjoy the Good Book, and may they come to believe in God also. It is our job to teach them. Thank you for awarding them Bibles this morning.

AMEN