February 3, 2013, "The Creation Story: What Does It Mean?"

Genesis 1 and John 1 (selections from both)

In the beginning … when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth had no form, and there was only darkness …

And God went to work … creating … with the Spirit hovering over the waters … and by the power of God’s spoken word … things happened … light emerged … water and land … plants and trees, critters and creatures of all sorts and shapes … and, at the last, human beings … in God’s own image … male and female … bidden by God to care for God’s creation … and it’s all good, supremely good, and it ends at the beginning of the Genesis 2, with a Sabbath Day … a day of rest for God and for humanity … because creating is hard work; caring is hard work … rest is essential.

As the proverb puts it, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Genesis 1 is powerful and beautiful … glorious and profound … gracious and kind.

Genesis 1 is poetry … it’s music and song, theology and reflection … and we’re pretty sure we know when it was written … sometime during the Exile in Babylon … 

A time when all was lost, and nothing made sense … 

It was all gone.

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept.

The glorious history of Israel was all gone.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel failed 150 years earlier under the domination of Assyria.

The Southern Kingdom, Judah, held on for dear life to make the best of it … but now Judah was defeated and taken captive by powerful Babylonian armies.

Prayers for deliverance failed … the walls of Jerusalem breached; the city of David destroyed … the best and brightest hauled off in chains to Babylon.

It was all gone now … the whole story was gone.

1500 years of kings and queens and marching armies and tales of conquest and victory, the ark of the LORD and the crossing of the Jordan … tumbling walls and enemies defeated … Saul, David and Solomon … palaces built, a glorious temple raised on Mt. Zion … all to the glory of God, or so it seemed, and now it’s dust … everything gone … the palace in ruins; the temple thrown town …. Jerusalem a pile of rubble … now what?

That’s the big question for the people in Babylon: “Now what?” … where do we go from here? … what do we tell our children? … what do we tell ourselves? … is there any hope for us? … do we yet have a future? … and what have we learned from all of this? … oh, if only we could start anew, things might be different? Could they be different?

A writer … a poet … a preacher … a theologian … began to muse … and began to write … 

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

Here is something we can tell our children, the bigger story, the back story … there’s more to life than our own personal story … there’s a whole lot more to life than Israel and Judah, and our kings and queens and all of our marching armies and pomp and circumstance - those who live by the sword die by the sword … we’ve been there and done that … we have lived by the sword, and we have died by the sword but there’s more to the story …

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

Genesis 1 is full of hope … God is creator still … 

Is life without form? … without purpose? … God gives form to the formless … and purpose to that which has no purpose. 

Is there only darkness? So dark we cannot see our hand in front of our face? … we cannot see tomorrow? … so dark, that all we can do is hide away and cry?

God creates light where there was once only darkness … the Spirit hovers over chaos and darkness … God speaks and life emerges … there is light.

There is yet hope for us!

Always hope … hope springs eternal, because God is full of hope, and we’re created in the image of God, and hope is powerful in all of us, God be praised!

What’s missing from Genesis 1?

There is no mention here of Israel or Judah … there are no national borders in Genesis 1, or lands to be conquered … neither enemy nor foe … neither kings nor queens, nor marching armies and gleaming steel … 

It is one world, a world without boundaries … God’s world … all of it created by the mighty Word of God … Let it be, says God, and it is … everything suffused with the light of God, full of creative energy … and supremely good!

The writer of Genesis 1 … the poet, the muse, the preacher, the teacher, a teller of tall tale tales in Babylon … we have to start all over again … from the beginning … we got it all wrong … we fell in love with ourselves … we thought we were better than others; others could never be equal to us, because we were God’s people, we were special … we believed in the power of the sword, and we gave ourselves over to violence …

We can start all over again … In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth … 

All of its creatures, great and small … and the strangest creature of all, you and me … created in God’s image … to care for God’s creation … to put our creative energies to work, shape the world, put our very own stamp upon it … help the world be fruitful and grow all the more glorious.

The poet, the writer, the muse, the preacher and the teacher … there is yet hope for us … our prophets were right: they told us to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks …

They told us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.

They reminded us that no matter what, no matter where, God is our hope and our consolation … 

⁷      Though the fig tree does not blossom,

      and no fruit is on the vines;

      though the produce of the olive fails,

      and the fields yield no food;

      though the flock is cut off from the fold,

      and there is no herd in the stalls,

¹⁸      yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

      I will exult in the God of my salvation.

¹⁹      GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

      he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

      and makes me tread upon the heights. [Habakkuk 3]

500 years later, John puts pen to parchment and writes his gospel … In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word of God was incarnate … came to live with us, and we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth.

All things were created by him, through him … and though there be darkness in many places, the light shines bright and clear in that darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome the light.

And his name is Jesus … 

To believe in Jesus is to believe in life … to follow him is to spread life abroad where there is no life … to bring light where there is darkness … to bring peace where there is war … and welcome where there is rejection … 

To believe in Jesus is to refuse the boundaries and borders that require death and blood to defend … 

An aside here … something I read in the LA Times (January 13, 2013) this week ...regarding the immigration issues facing our nation, and most of the nations of the world … human beings are always on the move … check any of our genealogies, and we’ll find how much our families moved, all over the place, across borders, legally and illegally … to flee war, or poverty or starvation. Anyway, a 70-year old gentleman is interviewed, and he “wants gun towers along the border and guards with orders to shoot.” He says: "The point is some would have to lose their lives, but when they realized that they can't cross without being shot, they would stop."

I’m not surprised that someone should feel like this, but it’s the next piece that truly disturbs me - it says of him, “he sings in his church choir.”

And I have to ask, What the hell kind of church choir does he sing in, and what kind of church does he worship in, and what has he heard from the pulpit? … while he sings about Jesus, he talks about shooting people along our borders.

Could he stand before Jesus on the cross and say that?

To Jesus, dying at the hands of a powerful empire that killed all the time to defend its borders … could he say that Jesus?

I’m not surprised that some should think this way … but Christians can’t think this way … not with Genesis 1 and not with John 1.

The poet, the muse, the teacher, the preacher, calls us to transcend the boundaries that divide, the borders that kill … a world defined by God’s creation and God’s love. 

To believe in Jesus is to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth … to love what he loves and do what he loves.

To believe in Jesus is to see all humanity as the family of God, sisters and our brothers are we all … red and yellow, black and white … they are precious in his sight … Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Turn to the beginning, when all things seems lost and hopeless.

Turn to the beginning, when hatred and fear take root in our hearts.

Turn to the beginning, when death seems so strong.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth … in the beginning was the Word.

There is yet hope for us and for our world; turn to the beginning.

Amen and Amen!

"Theistic Evolution"

This is a LONG message - so I divided the liturgy up into three parts, each part with it's own character. Afterwards, I met with the congregation for a Confab with the Pastor.


Genesis 1; Hebrews 11.3; Colossians 1.15-20

I am forever grateful to my college Bible professor, the Rev. Dr. John Bratt, who introduced me to the term “theistic evolution” ... 

Theistic means God … and we know God by faith.

Evolution is the gift of science, and we know science by observation.

What does it mean when we say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and the earth.”

Two things:

First of all, God the Father is the root and source of all things, all things visible and invisible, what we see with the eyes of faith, and what we see with our natural eyes through a microscope and a telescope … in all things, God, and God in all things.

Second, heaven and earth are two peas in a pod - distinct and unique, forever connected … both are reliable, trustworthy, honest, because they’ve been created by a reliable, trustworthy and honest God.

Let’s consider for a few moments the creation story of Genesis 1 … 

God said, Let there be light. 

God IS the beginning, the source, the foundation … God IS the Big Bang, the author of the material world - from the smallest microbe to the largest star.

And after the light, everything else … 

God gives the earth generative powers - soil and water are able to bring forth their own life forms … God gives permission to the earth to be fertile, creative, generative.

Let the land produce … 

Let the waters teems with life … 

Let the land produce living creatures according to their kind …

God is the author of evolution … by God’s design, the earth brings forth new life-forms.

Scientists call it evolution.

The power of the earth to bring forth life … year after year, century after century … millions and billions of years … older than we can image, more profound than we’ll ever know … the power of life to generate life and even more life.

The fossil record tells a wonderful story … creative and inventive - change and growth … life on the move … jumbled and wild, glorious and good, powerful and beautiful, strange and mysterious … look at Grand Canyon, watch a lunar eclipse, see a child born, watch a loved one die.

Through a telescope: a universe expanding at the speed of light … billions of solar systems and galaxies … stars exploding and stars collapsing, dark holes and quarks.

Evolution - everything on the move … a story found in the sediments of the ocean, in the rocks of the highest mountains … in every leaf, in every bird, in every human being … evolution is the process by which life unfolds, and life generates even more life ... and God made it that way!

The Hebrew Poets give voice to this story … 

The glories of creation …  

And please remember, when Genesis 1 was written, Israel was in exile, in Babylon - Jerusalem in ruins, the temple a pile of rubble - it would seem that the gods of Babylon had won … and it wouldn’t be long before the children living in Babylon would make the shift - “Why bother with Yahweh; Yahweh lost. Babylonian gods won.”

The Hebrew Poets, theologians they were, preachers and teachers, crafted a story to capture the faith and their hope.

There is no God but God, the Creator heaven and earth.

The moon and the hippo are not gods.

Stars and birds are not gods.

Nor is the sun, the moon, nor anything else.

There is no God but God.

Please notice, the Hebrew Poets do not attack Babylon.

No ranting or raving.

But their faith is firm.

The hope is real.

The love is strong.

That’s what Genesis 1 is all about - faith, hope and love!

The creation stories are a confession of faith.

THEY ARE NOT SCIENCE!

If I want to know HOW the earth and the universe came into being, I read a science book … if I want to read WHY the earth and the universe came into being, I read the Bible.

When the Bible is read well with the eyes of faith, when the earth and the universe are seen honestly and openly with the eyes of science, everything begins to dance, as God intended … 

Both the Bible and God’s creation are trustworthy, because God is trustworthy, and God is the creator of both, creator of heaven and earth, the Bible and Science.

Every day, I believe in God.

And every day, I believe in science.

Thank God for science.

The cars we drive, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the medicine that heals us - all of this, from science. 

Thank God for scientists … surgeons cut out a tumor with lasers … 

Engineers build a rocket to lift tons of hardware into earth orbit …

Physicists probe the mysteries of the universe and smash atoms … 

Biologists search our jungles for medicine …

Geologists look for oil …

That some Christians would be distrustful of science, and make bizarre claims for a 6000-year old earth, a literal 7-day creation, flies in the face of reality and makes no sense for those who follow Jesus, who is the Truth.

At a Pepperdine Conference this spring on science and faith, two leading Christian scientists spoke to 600 people, most of whom were clergy.

Dr. Francis Collins, former head of the human genome project and now head of the National Science Foundation … and Dr. John Polkinghorne, British physicist and Anglican Priest.

Both pleaded with the clergy in the audience, “Go home, tell your people the truth. Creationism isn’t science, it’s pseudo-science. The world is billions of years old, not 6000; the seven days of Genesis are a poetic image, a metaphor of completion and beauty, not a literal description. Creationism is bad science at its worst. Creationism isn’t science at all. Creationism is claptrap and deception; it serves no godly purpose whatsoever. Please, go home, and help your congregations get straightened out on this one.”

When giants speak like this, I pay attention.

When men of faith, and men of science speak like this, I honor their words.

Why listen to some poor uneducated, misguided preacher, hungry for his own power rather than the glory of God?

Why listen to those who specialize in half-truths and lies?

Why waste our time on those who lead us only into further conflict and turmoil?

As for me and my house, I’ll pay attention to Dr. Francis Collins, and one no less than the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne.

These men are giants in faith and science.

And they speak the truth.

The truth of God’s love, and the truth of God’s creation.

“Theistic Evolution” my Bible Professor said.

And I will ever be grateful.

My Bible Professor gave to me the framework of understanding - an appreciation for the glories of the natural world as the scientist sees it, and the spiritual world as the eyes of faith see it, and in the simple words, Theistic Evolution, there is no conflict … only harmony between the glories of science the wonders of faith. Amen!

Movement #2 - Fundamentalism ...

I want to shift here to speak about fundamentalism … its condemnation of science and it’s misreading of Genesis.

Fundamentalism is afraid of science.

Because fundamentalism is a religion of fear [http://www.alternet.org/story/153974/are_conservatives_more_fearful_than_liberals?akid=8219.280506.7BzPBK&rd=1&t=9].

Research on the fundamentalist mind reveals fearfulness as a primary response to life - fear of strangers, fear of change, fear of god - for the fundamentalist, the world is full of enemies, dangers, and dark forces of Satan.

It’s hard to say whether fundamentalism MAKES people afraid, or whether fear creates fundamentalism … like the chicken and the egg question - what comes first!

But this much we know:

Fundamentalism is a religion of fear.

Be it Muslim, Jewish or Christian, is riddled with fear … where there is fear, faith and love struggle to survive, because faith is all about love … 

The Bible says: Their is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear.

Science shows us a large and ancient earth, a large and ancient universe … science tells us that we’re tiny, and we haven’t been around very long (even the poetry of Genesis reflects the late arrival of humankind) … after all, we were created last!

With a large universe, we feel small … nothing wrong with that … we are small … mighty, no doubt, but still small.

That’s a problem for fundamentalism.

Fundamentalists don’t like to feel small.

Which makes fundamentalists easy targets for those who preach power!

That’s why fundamentalism is drawn to the violent parts of the Bible - have you noticed that? 

Fundamentalists love images of war, conquest, victory, blood and guts, Armageddon, left behind stores, rapture and war, tanks and bombs!

Fundamentalism, furthermore, is a sad religion.

Fundamentalists long for a world when someone had all the answers, folks knew their place, god was on his throne, all was right with the world … a world that never existed, as fundamentalists imagine.

And that’s the problem.

A world imagined that never existed is no help whatsoever to any of us.

The backward glance cripples and stymies progress.

Remember Lot’s wife?

She looked backward to what she was leaving … and she turned into a pillar of salt, forever stuck in time and place, unable to move ahead.

Fundamentalists are very much like Lot’s wife - looking backward … they try to reclaim the past in order to save the future.

Fundamentalists spend a lot of time grieving about what they’ve lost … and like Lot’s wife, are stuck in time and place.

I am not a fundamentalist.

I’ve never been a fundamentalist.

I am a Calvinist - a Calvinist Christian.

And that means Presbyterian … mainstream Presbyterian.

Mainstream Presbyterians have always had a deep respect for science, BECAUSE we believe in the creator God who made heaven and earth.

God is Truthful and honest.

And so is the world God created.

When a scientist looks at the fossil record, when a chemist probes the life of a cancer cell, when a biologist studies ants in the Amazon - they’re dealing with a reliable earth - mysterious and wondrous, for sure - complex and detailed beyond all imagination … but a world reliable and trustworthy and honest.

The fossil record is not a lie, as some fundamentalists have said.

The fossil record is not the Devil’s doing, as some fundamentalists have said.

The world God created is truthful, reliable, honest and trustworthy … available to us for study!

Calvinist Christians are not afraid of science.

We trust God.

We trust the earth God created.

Calvinism is a robust faith.

We welcome change and new ideas … we’re explorers and those who ask questions … 

We think, because we love the LORD with our minds. 

We’re welcome questions, because our salvation is secure in Jesus Christ.

We let God’s love be bigger than we are.

We keep on growing, going and evolving.

What’s at stake here?

Truth is at stake!

Jesus said, I the way, the truth and the life.

Truth is in the middle of that phrase.

Truth is the fulcrum on which the way and the life are balanced.

Without truth, the way becomes clouded and muddled.

Without truth, life becomes wrangling and strife.

The truth sets us free, says Jesus.

Christ has set us free for freedom, says Paul the Apostle.

And freedom is what’s missing from fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism doesn’t like freedom.

Whether it be Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Christian fundamentalism - there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between any of them, they don’t like freedom - it’s all about control and conformity, rules and laws: fundamentalism makes everyone think alike, behave the same way, believe the same things, sing the same songs, dress alike and never, ever, ask questions or raise doubts.

But questions and doubts are the handmaidens of truth.

Only those who dare to ask question can truly learn.

Those who are willing to challenge the status quo find a way to a better day.

Remember, Christ set us free, but it took his crucifixion and death to make it so … freedom of thought and life is never easy to win!

There was a time when Christians believed and taught that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth.

There was a time when Christians called Jews Christ-killers and believed that it was all right for marauding soldiers to kill Jews now and then.

There was a time when European Christians believed and taught that people of color were less than human - that people of color could be chained and sold as slaves, because they were the condemned race of Ham, Genesis 9.

There was a time when Christian men believed and taught that women were a man’s property, that a women had no place in the world other than to give birth and stand by a stove - women couldn’t vote, couldn’t preach, couldn’t go to school and couldn’t have a public life.

All of these ideas were defended by Bible quotes.

Popes and Preachers proclaimed these ideas as God’s eternal truth, and woe to the one who would disobey any of them.

We have to clear - Christians haven’t always been on the forefront of thought and change.

We’ve been like Lot’s wife, dragging our feet, looking backward, when we should have been looking ahead.

Moses out front.

Joshua crossing the river.

Elijah ahead of the chariot.

Jesus going on ahead of us.

Thank God for those who truly read the Bible.

Thank God for those who ask big questions.

Thank God for for those who help us all find a better day.

Let’s take a quick trip back to Victorian England.

The mid 1800s. 

Darwin’s Origen of the Species, 1859.

Two years before the American Civil War.

Opposition exploded against Darwin.

And we might well ask why?

Victorian England, a world of nobility and high-church clergy.

The nobility and the clergy feared the idea of evolution in nature, because they feared, even more, social evolution.

The nobility and the clergy lived in luxury.

They believed they were entitled:

“It is god’s will for us to rule, to live a life of privilege and leisure, while God condemns others to lives of cruel labor.”

An interesting side-note here: Darwin and his family, for generations, had been engaged in the struggle to end Britain’s slave trade.

When Darwin looked at the world, Darwin saw a changing world, and evolving world.

Plants and animals, and all of humanity, a common life.

For Darwin, we’re all in this together - red and yellow, black and white - we’re all sisters and brothers in the great family of God.

Darwin was a man of faith.

He believed in God.

But also a scientist who wanted to the know the truth of the world.

When Darwin saw the patterns of evolution, Darwin saw hope … hope for the world … hope for a better social condition.

Darwin believed that things could change … change for the better.

And that’s what we need, change for the better.

Something better than the strife and conflict of fundamentalism.

Something better than dragging our heels and clinging to the past.

Something better than fear and violence.

Something better than a fear of learning and a fear of change!

We need something much better.

And we have it.

We have it all in Jesus Christ our LORD.

His love and his truth.

The truth that sets us free! Amen!

Movement #3

What kind of a world does God hold before us?

But a world of love and freedom.

Freedom of conscience and freedom of expression.

Freedom of choice.

Freedom for scientists to study the world without fear … freedom for teachers to teach the best that science offers, and freedom for students to learn.

Freedom to make mistakes, and freedom to be dumb!

Freedom to grow and freedom experiment.

Freedom to venture far away into the fields of the LORD.

Freedom to be a Prodigal Son, or a tempestuous Peter.

Freedom explore and enjoy the world God created.

I want to live in God’s world.

A world of glorious freedom and beauty.

A world of forgiveness and welcome.

A world so large, there’s room for all of us.

Room for love and room for hope.

A world filled with mystery and delight and wonder.

A world big enough to keep us in our place.

A world kind enough so we can all feel at home!

We worship a God who encourages us to take chances, run risks, think deeply … dance with all of our might, and love one another profoundly.

We worship a God with whom science and faith are never at odds, because God is the source of both.

Because of my faith in God and what the Bible says, I accept what science says about the age of the earth and the universe … it makes sense, and it’s reasonable … because God makes sense, and God is reasonable, and the Bible is trustworthy and reliable … 

Because of my faith in God and what the Bible says,, I accept Darwin’s premise - that life evolves, and continues to evolve, over millions and billions of years. I thrill in this big world, and I rejoice in God’s wonder and mystery and love … because it’s all created by a loving God … it’s really neat what science sees and finds … age up age, eon upon eon … millions and billions of years - what a wonderful story; what a wonderful God.

Because of my faith in God and what the Bible says, there is no conflict between faith and science.

We can rightly say.

And rightly believe.

What my Bible Professor taught me so many years ago - the wonder and the glory, Theistic Evolution … in all things, God, and God in all things!

Glory be to God.

One God, one world, constantly on the move.

One God, one humanity, bound together in common cause.

Christ at the center, holding it all together.

Moving it along to the great gettin’ up mornin’, when all things are brought together, things in heaven and things on earth.

With a great love that casts out all fear.

With a pure and loving truth that sets us free.

That’s the world God holds before.

Amen and Amen!

October 16, 2010 - "To Whom?"

Psalm 116

Starting today, and for the next two weeks, it’s Stewardship Season … a time to review the whole business of giving … with a special focus on our money.

Who doesn’t think a lot about money?

We all think about it.

And we think about it a lot.

How much we have, or how much we don’t.

Every day, a lot of time is spent dealing with money.

Making it.

Spending it.

Saving it.

Investing it.

Paying bills with it

Wondering if we’ll have enough.

Money is truly a big deal.

And it’s a big deal for the church, too.

We have a building to keep up.

A staff to pay.

We buy music for our choir.

Curriculum for our Sunday School.

Paper and pencils for the office.

Soap and paper towels.

Money’s a big deal.

And we need to be thoughtful about it.

Three questions guide us for the next few weeks:

To whom do we give?

How much do we give?

Why do we give?

This morning, To whom do we give?

Someone might say, Well, pastor, that’s easy enough to answer. We give to God!

True enough.

We give to God.

The God who created the heavens and the earth … and breaths the breath of life into each of us every day of our life.

Genesis 1 - the whole universe - the big picture - the sun, moon and stars - every creature, great and small, including the creepy-crawly things.

And Genesis 2 - God and a handful of dirt, and a puff of God’s breath, and the dirt becomes a human being … 

The God of many journeys … who walks with us and talks with us and guides us through the day.

It’s helpful now and then to take stock of such things.

To count our blessings, and name them one-by-one.

To remember the LORD our God who gives us life.

This God of many of journeys.

God big enough to create the heavens and the earth.

Small enough to fit into Bethlehem’s cradle.

Strong enough to die for the sins of the world.

Gentle enough to live within our heart.

The Psalmist celebrates deliverance.

The Psalmist writes an honest story.

No fairy tale here … there’s heartache and trouble … tears, stumbling, grief, and betrayal … life is no bed of roses for the Psalmist.

We don’t know the details.

We don’t know the story.

We don’t know when, what and where.

But something bad happened.

And the Psalmist cries out for help.

Did help come immediately?

We don’t know.

How long did it take?

Days, months, years?

But deliverance came at the right time.

And now the Psalmist writes with gratitude.

The LORD hears my requests for mercy.

In the end, things turn out all right.

The dark night of sorrow passed.

The sun rises.

The clouds have departed.

A new day dawns for the Psalmist.

Because of God’s goodness.

God’s mercy and love.

The underpinning of our life.

The source and the destiny.

The Alpha and the Omega.

The beginning and the end.

And everything in between.

When we sit down to consider our Pledge Card for next year.

When we pray about what we might be able to give.

When we look ahead to the future, it is right and good to remember how the LORD’S hand has been upon us … leading and guiding us, through thick and thin, sick and sin … in the middle of the night, and in the light of day … 

The God of gracious presence:

I am with you always, to the end of the age.

I will never leave you or forsake you.

Where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there.

And when everything is done, you’ll be with me forever!

Stewardship begins with praise and thanksgiving.

With confidence in the LORD, because the LORD is good, and the LORD’S sees us through to the end … the One who gives us Jesus Christ, gives us all that’s necessary for the needs of the day … our daily bread - for body and soul, in this life, and in the life to come.

To whom do we give?

We give to the LORD our God, ever-faithful to us, and loving us forever. Amen and Amen!

February 15, 2009 - "Evolution?"

Genesis 1:1-8, 26-31; Hebrews 11:1-3

Happy Evolution Week!
Did you throw any parties?
Fill some balloons and invite guests over?
Well, not exactly, but this is Evolution Weekend, a movement put together by scientists and clergy in an effort to build good bridges between faith and science, the faith we hold – this is God’s world – the scientific evidence of evolution and an earth of great age.

By the way, Donna claims I’m living proof of evolution … in a backward sort of way.
She often says to me, “Tom, you’re making a monkey out of yourself.”

On a more practical level, I had two wisdom teeth excised when I was in college.
“Two” you say? “What happened to the other two?”

The dentist said I was an evolutionary product – some time in the distant future, as our jaws grow smaller, we won’t have wisdom teeth – and why are they called wisdom teeth anyway? And why do we extract them, if they’re wisdom teeth?
Ha! That may explain a few things.

So what’s up with evolution?
On the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, why are we still wrangling about it?
School boards argue whether or not to include “creation science,” “intelligent design” alongside the “theory of evolution.”

In 1925, the State of Tennessee passed the Butler Act which made it unlawful for public school teachers, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.
The law did not forbid an evolutionary approach to plants and animals, but only to human origin.

And by the way, one has to ask the question, why has this been an issue predominantly driven by fundamentalism, and primarily southern fundamentalism?
Hold that question for moment – because location is vital: where something happens is just as important, maybe even more important, than what happens.

After the passage of the Butler Act, the American Civil Liberties Union financed a test case, where a Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes intentionally violated the Act.
Scopes was charged on May 5, 1925 with teaching evolution from a textbook chapter developed upon the ideas set out in Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species.
The trial pitted two preeminent legal minds: three-time presidential candidate, Congressman and former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and trial attorney Clarence Darrow for the defense.
The famous trial was made infamous by the fictionalized accounts given in the 1955 play Inherit the Wind, the 1960 Hollywood motion picture and the 1965, 1988 and 1999 television films of the same name.
Scopes was found guilty and fined $100.
It was not until 1967 that Tennessee repealed the Butler Act, and in 1968, the US Supreme Court ruled that such bans contravene the Establishment Clause because their primary purpose is religious.

When I was a student at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, my Bible professor, Dr. John Bratt, introduced to us an intriguing term that I’ve used ever since: theistic evolution.

Theistic – meaning of God.
Evolution – the process, observed by scientists from the fossil record and other such studies, by which our world has come to be over a period of billions of years.
Theistic evolution – behind the myriad of life-forms, behind the billions of years, in geography and genomes, in gnats and bats, in you and me, the hand of God.

Genesis 2 says poetically that God took a handful of dirt and fashioned a form, and then blew into it the breath of life, and it became a living being.
That’s poetry with a point: We are from the earth … 
This body of mine: my flesh and bone, my blood and brain – from the earth.
Human DNA varies less than 10% from chimpanzees …

We’re all in this together.
Every creature, great and small.

For centuries, the church taught that you and I were utterly unique on the face of this earth, distinct and separate from all other forms of life.
We just arrived here by divine fiat – once we were not; and then we were - just like that, and that’s how God did it.
Ultimately this notion of distinctiveness grew insidious, with the classification of the races - that the white race was distinct unto itself, superior in all regards, and people of color a species less than human.
You can see where this is all going.
The claim of white racial supremacy was at the heart and soul of the British slave trade – buttressed by the teachings of seminary professors and pastors.

Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary writes:
This is where all the trouble arises. The idea that human life is continuous with other creatures and indeed with the whole planet is a profoundly destabilizing idea for religious and political practices of dominance and control.
This whole struggle, she writes, is more about politics than it is about abstract issues like religious faith and secularism. In the 200 years since Charles Darwin's birth, this has changed very little.
Darwin knew well … how controversial his ideas … would be. In fact, his ideas might be thought to be more than controversial, they could be regarded as treason. People in Darwin's time could go to prison for heresy because it was seditious, undermining the divine origin of the monarchy.
[http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/susan_brooks_thistlethwaite/2009/02/a_christian_progressive_happy.html]

In the world of kings and queens, bishops and priests, Victorian wealth and upper-class dominance, it was comforting to know that such was all firmly fixed by God himself – that God created the heavens and the earth – and God created the kings and queens, and bishops and priests, and wealth and dominance and racial privilege.

Evolution suggested an entirely different kind of world – a world wherein all species, all life, all human beings, were related.
That life was changing – a frightening concept to kings and queens fighting the revolutionary ideas of change coming from the American and French Revolutions.

In a recent biography on Darwin, we learn how deeply he and his family despised the slave trade … and worked tirelessly to end it.
And how sugar cane growers in the West Indies and American cotton planters supported slavery with the claim that slaves were not human beings.
Darwin’s conclusions – that all life forms are connected was a blow at the heart of the slave trade … and a blow to the arrogance of the white races.

To suggest commonality among all life forms casts a different light on the human venture and our relationship to elephants and dolphins, ants and beetles.
Far too often, humankind has done enormous violence to the natural world, as if we could do no wrong, and who cares anyway, because nature is only a brute force to be tamed and manipulated for our comfort, and the animals that inhabit the world are themselves only dumb brutes, without cognition or emotion – they exist only for food and for sport.

Darwin himself was a dedicated shooter – as were all the upper class in Victorian England … the hunt was a festive occasion, but ultimately, Darwin gave up the hunt – upon finding a dying bird left behind, life suddenly struck him full force.
Never a vegetarian, and never suggesting such, Darwin, nonetheless, began to see life as sacred – all life, whatever it is – and all from the hand of God.

Though Darwin has been vilified and denounced by many, he’s not a monster – but a sensitive man with a fine mind, and when he set out on his shipboard adventure on The Beagle, he wasn’t the first to see the marvels of the world, and the possibility of evolution – others were propounding the theory as well, but it was Darwin’s book, The Origin of the Species that clarified it and brought it to the forefront.

From the moment, I heard my Bible professor use the term theistic evolution, I have seen the two forever linked as partners – faith and science – as Francis Bacon put it: the Works of God and the Word of God!

But it’s by faith that we believe.
Not fact, but faith!

The writer to the Hebrews says:
… by faith, we believe … … a conviction of things not seen.
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

The material world neither proves nor disproves the existence of God.
A thundering waterfall, or the whir of a hummingbird’s wing, amazing though they be, cannot prove that God made any of it!

Psalm 19 says:
    The heavens are telling the glory of God;
      and the firmament  proclaims his handiwork.
      Day to day pours forth speech,
      and night to night declares knowledge.
      There is no speech, nor are there words;
      their voice is not heard.

The natural world is silent witness to the glory of God.
It’s faith that hears, it’s faith that sees.

That’s the nature of faith – faith wells up from within – it’s not a self-generated process, nor a process produced by proof, but a gift from God.
Faith arises from the work of the Holy Spirit.
Faith is a gift from God.

And why is it a gift?

So that people of faith cannot boast – faith is not our doing, but a gift from God, to be lived and shared in this world of ours.

Paul writes [Ephesians 2]:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

Nor should a person of faith ever scold someone who has a different take on things … who sees and lives by some other creed … or, for that matter, even a Richard Dawkins, a self-avowed atheist … who steadfastly declares that the universe is a self-generating system without purpose or moral value – that God is a fiction, and a rather useless one at that, if not pernicious, what with all the evil and suffering perpetrated in God’s name.

Until such time as God would move upon his heart, Richard Dawkins will continue to see the world as he sees it … and that’s a gift to the world of faith.
God sees to it that faith never fully triumphs in this world, because a triumphant faith would kill faith … faith needs doubt, faith needs to be challenged … faith needs to be prodded and poked … questioned and queried!
Thank God for Richard Dawkins and others who trumpet the horn of atheism.
They are not the enemy.
Our own pride and fear are the enemies.
The pride of our faith, and the fear that we may not have all the answers.
Like Pogo said many years ago, We have met the enemy, and he is us.

To be a person of faith – it’s a gift from God, and like any gift, to be shared humbly and gratefully.

Our task is small.
To be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
These are modest metaphors – a small oil lamp on the shore of Galiee’s sea can be seen in the night for miles – it doesn’t take much light at all.
And for salt, only a little … too much, and the soup is spoiled – just right, a hidden presence, and the soup is good for body and soul.

Our task is small:
Not world domination.
No mighty army going out to conquer the heathen world.
But a gentle presence.
A reforming presence that calls into question human pretension and religious foolishness!

To live as best we can by our faith:
To believe and to live:
The world is fashioned by the hand of God.
Life is a divine gift.
Life has purpose and destiny.
Good and evil have an ultimate reference point in the heart of God.
Love is better than hatred.
Welcome is better than rejection.
Forgiveness is better than grudge-holding.

Thank God for Darwin and millions of thinkers and scientists who love this world and seek to understand it.
Thank God for thoughtful women and men who continue to challenge Christians and put us to the test.
Thank God for Christians who are bridge builders –
And thank God for my professor, Dr. John Bratt, who gave me the term, theistic evolution.

And thank God for God – He’s got the world in his hands!

Amen and Amen!