Sermon by Pastor Joel
Genesis 1:1—2:4a
Psalm 148
Acts 17:22a, 24-28
John 1:1-5
This summer, a friend in Nova Scotia observed that living near the ocean meant you understood the large consequences of small climate changes better than many people. I thought that was a generalization – I know there are many of you sitting here today who are painfully aware of the human toll on Creation and working actively to mitigate those large consequences.
But it’s also true that the ocean constantly seems to be warning us of the path we are on, and all that we will lose the longer we wait to change direction. In my hometown, on every clear night, the sun sets in an array of orange and reds and purples, and on every clear morning, it rises from the edge of the sea, with the same kaleidoscope of colours – just as Genesis describes. But that sea continues to warm, changing the life that lives beneath it. Even the slightest higher tide does more and more damage to the shore both for humans and for nature. Around the world, every human who lives by or works on the sea, knows the small changes have very large consequences – especially for the most vulnerable people.
Wendell Berry, the famous Christian environmentalist, once said, "It is impossible to care for each other more or differently than we care for the earth.” Mr. Berry believed that God had intended humans to be benevolent stewards of the earth – not the selfish, superior tyrants that our species became.
He died, at the age of 92, on August 31st, 2026 – so he missed the official announcement that the world’s warming will now exceed the 1.5 celsius limit because of the burning of oil, gas and coal – the same limit agreed upon in the 2015 Paris accord. And yet, we are left with Mr. Berry’s enduring challenge: “The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy task, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope."
How can the Creation story in Genesis have anything to offer us in this modern dilemma? It was written down so long ago, before we understood more about evolution and geology, before the climate science of today. It’s a pretty story – these seven metaphorical days of God’s work – but we are living in ugly, chaotic times.
As it happens, the story in Genesis aligns with what science tell us today in a few places. The universe had a beginning – on this both scripture and science agree, a big bang one way or another. The earth was complete chaos, Genesis says, and on this science also agrees, envisioning a world of molten rock and asteroid strikes, unable to sustain life. But life did come to be, science says, not all at once – but in stages, just as Genesis describes, although not in days as we understand them today. (But then, what is a day to God?) What Genesis calls a dome in the sky, we would call the atmosphere. And humans arrived at the end, we know from science – just as Genesis puts humans as the final accomplishment of Creation. But where things go astray is on the order – how was there light, we might wonder, on the first day, but the sun was only created on the 4th? How did God create plants before that same sun they needed to live? We can point to scientific holes in Genesis all day – but to what end. We know the Creation story was put down on paper by ancient humans who did not have the benefit of the Hubble Space Telescope or trips around the moon.
In fact, when you read Genesis, you can see the mistake that weaves through it; it is written from the perspective of someone looking out at the sky from earth, searching to understand God and the meaning of life; and not from the universe looking back.
And yet, hidden in this pretty story is so much depth. Every step of the way, as God created life, we hear these words: “And God saw that it was good.” It was good and worthy when it was just sky, and when it was only plants and trees. It was good before we came, when it was young and lush and teaming with new life. The earth, Genesis says, does not need humanity to be good. Nature does not need us – although we need nature.
We hear of the creation of humans on the same day as land animals – perhaps Genesis is more in step with evolution than first appearances suggest. Humanity is not set apart from the earth, but deeply embedded within nature. The humans of Genesis require sustenance from the same earth to survive as all the other living creatures in the Creation story. Just as each day progresses to the next, and we are reminded that life on this planet is interconnected. What happens to one, happens to all of us.
And so, we are placed within a good and interconnected world, thriving with all we need to survive – and then God says, in Genesis, go and subdue the world, and have dominion over the animals. And so many of us got big heads and decided that meant we could do whatever we wanted to – not just over the plants and animals, which become ours to consume, but also any other human we considered beneath us.
But of course that makes no sense at all; one does not create something only to encourage its destruction; we misunderstood the gift and the charge; we were to have dominion with, not over—we were to be stewards not dictators of a good and self-sustaining world.
And then we have the seventh day, and the lesson modern society has forgotten. On the seventh day, God paused, and rested and took in all that had been created. The earth was enough. And that day of rest – now lost to us – is a reminder that there must be a place to stop, to say we have enough, we have done enough, and just allow the world to be a place of beauty. To keep producing, to keep creating more and more, to keep consuming, would throw balance into chaos – as we know all too well today.
And so, in this Creation Story, we learn the lessons society has forgotten. The world is good and worthy, before and without humans. Everything is connected; our care for the world is linked to our care for each other. As Wendell Berry said; the harm we do to the planet, we do to ourselves. And we were never set above it, but placed within it, charged to be a force for good, in a world that was already good. We know how that has gone.
Perhaps, we must find our resolve here, in this unscientific fairy tale about the creation of the world. If the world is connected, than our actions and choices can also make a change for the better. If the world was good before we did our damage, it may be good again, with care. We were charged to be stewards – stewards we can yet be. That is the hope in the Creation story.
As the seventh day came to a close, it was not an ending. Nor a new beginning. But a choice. Pause, on this seventh day, to survey all that we have destroyed, and see the work ahead of us. And then take in all that has been created, all the resilience and strength of the world, and find hope. And when the sun rises on the eighth day, may we choose wisely and humbly to repair the gift we have been given. Amen.