A sermon shared with the congregation of
First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, June 11, 2017, also a follow up on the last post.
Genesis 1:1-2:3, 3:22-24
Psalm 8
A
friend of mine wondered in a bible study last week, “I feel like God is still
testing us.” That question is wrapped up in two deeper questions, what is sin,
and what does it mean to say that Christianity inaugurated a “New Creation.”?
The Apostle Paul expressed the
torment of knowing what is the right thing to do, but ever led to chose to do
what is wrong. It is a question we all
struggle to understand and is perhaps what my friend really means.
The answer to that question is
wrapped up in the nature of our creation, the physical creation that Genesis paints
and the New Creation that the Good News heralds. Remarkably, the revised
common lectionary texts for this Sunday (June 11) are the creation stories in Genesis 1:1-2:3
and Psalm 8. (The lectionary also includes 2 Corinthians 13:5-14
probably because this is Trinity Sunday. Preaching the meaning of Trinity
is a questionable academic exercise because regardless of the effort scholars
exert to explain the Trinity logically or rationally, they put people to sleep
because they are trying to explain something logic and reason cannot explain. Why
can’t we just accept it on belief that God is (IAM); Jesus happened; Pentecost
(Holy Spirit) came upon us and get on with the important stuff - living the
gospel?)
Apropos my friend’s worry, there are several creation stories in the OT I call the “old
creation”, and the “New
Creation” heralded by Jesus in the NT. They all deal with the nature of
sin, death and life.
The three verses in chapter 3 of
Genesis dovetail nicely to the earlier creation story to Psalm 8 to characterize but
not explain creation and death(sin). With the message of Pentecost of last week
we find a new perspective on my friend’s worry about God testing us.
The second creation story is Genesis 2:4 – 24 that is
probably most familiar, but the first captures the enigma of God of great power
who exists infinitely outside of this created reality, and God as a loving
parent holding and looking upon his creation saying, “It is all good.”
Neither account explains the
perversity of human nature to challenge God. (You may say you don’t, but every
time you run into a human limitation, whether it is conquering your cancer or
throwing a better curve ball, and work as hard as you can to surmount it, you
are validating that reality.)
The real questions are, “Why do we
we sin?” “Why do we seek to reach beyond our physical and moral limits defined
and given to us by the Lord?” “ Why does the Law exist as an unattainable thing
that seems to convict us with the consequence of death?”
The Fall story in Genesis 3:1-19 that I didn’t
read, captures only part of the answer. When creation is finished in Genesis It
leaves us with these mysterious verses about knowledge of good and evil and
eternal life found at 3:22-24.
Why is knowledge of good and evil, qualities that are part of our human fabric,
so dangerous for us? What is wrong for us to ask, “What is good and evil?” and
seek the fruit of life?”
Our questions, and Genesis
3:22-24 anticipate one more creation story, Psalm 8. Within it we find no 7 days, no Satan or serpent just a
monologue by an unknown writer who marvels at the magnificence of the created
universe, and our presence and power within it. It is a monologue that desperately
seeks a dialogue with God. BUT, right in the middle the psalmist slips a double
question crying out for an answer, “4What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them? (Why) have you made them a little lower than
God, yet crowned them with glory and honor?
Why? - there is that question of knowledge again…Why?
In
the world of Palestine and Rome, we might voice these two questions as, ‘Why
have you created this magnificent universe and given us the power to rule its
fate, not given us the wisdom to choose good to defeat evil?” Or “Why have you
forsaken us?” For the entire time of
created reality until Pentecost, those two theological questions haunted humanity.
If we let them, they haunt us now as my friend shows.
I call the time between the
appearance of Jesus in the world and the gift of the Holy Spirit the “Jesus
Event” because it evoked a radical permanent change in our relationship with
our creator. Pentecost sealed the message of a New Creation, the gospel changed
everything between God and humanity. But what changed?
The Apostle Paul said the Jesus Event
was a Divine, cosmic earthquake. God turned from testing us to creating a new
world of grace for us. The actual fabric of existence changed. Jesus pushed
aside this old world with a new fabric of existence that is expanding,
enlarging and squeezing the old world away, though it fights tooth and nail to
hang on. Early in his ministry Paul believed Christ’s return was imminent. He said time is so short that the Corinthians should
live as if everything of the old world did not matter because the old world is
passing away. Don’t marry, don’t have children, just pray and perfect one’s
holiness. This “in-between time” demands that we “live in the right way in
undivided attention to the Lord who commanded” us to love others as I(God) love
you.
As Paul continued his ministry he,
like many preachers since, came to terms with the fact that his expectation of
the time of completion of this new world by Jesus was in error. But one fact remains.
Regardless of when this new creation is fully perfected the Jesus Event changed
our reality with God forever. Paul got one thing particularly right, the
promise of God is forever dependable. The end of the age shall come in due time
(recall Jesus said it is not for us to know when) but it will come, and we are
taken under the wing of Amazing Grace.
What we do in that “in-between
time” still remains of high importance. That cosmic earthquake changing the
nature of humanity’s relationship to God and gave us the power to choose what
is good over evil, trusting in god’s grace when we fail.
Let’s go back to Psalm 8. For all
of time between the beginning of creation and the Jesus Event. In that time our
relationship with the Lord was rooted in a covenant by God to be our God,
and an expectation that we will be Holy exhibited by our obedience to his Law
under the shadow of judgment, that is we shall recognize and choose good over
evil.
Yet at the very beginning God understood that we want to
become like gods, not only knowing good and evil; but to eat from the tree of
life and to live forever as God does.
We can know good from evil, we
have the Law, yet we are consigned to sin and suffer the judgment of sin
because we are less than God. Only God knows why. In a Divine enigma, that very
Law is a test we cannot pass, it sentences us to death. That is the age of
testing that belongs to the old world where the inequality of humanity to God,
the struggle to be our own gods, is the source of rebellion and sin.
Then in an irony only possible by our
Divine creator, God turned the tables through Jesus to complete the creation
story told in Genesis and Psalm 8. God changed the very fabric of existence by the
incarnation of God as a human defeated completely human sin and death. The man
Jesus knew good from evil and only did good.
In doing this, God through Jesus
extended the hand of divine equality to us, not so we can revel and celebrate
in it but accept it with humility. The all-powerful Creator opened his arms forgiving
sin and sharing Divine immortality. This is the ultimate act of humility. As
Paul wrote in Philippians, “Rather
than draw on His power, He humbled himself, even to death on a cross.” The
double irony is that a righteous person can gain this Divine gift only with the
same humility God in Jesus had. Revisiting
Psalm 8, this is the other undeserved gift.
I know I have chosen a subject that
is hard to follow. Let’s to try to reduce it to the key points. In an act of
power greater than all the power of the universe, God created everything. He looked at reality and said it was good. For God’s reason, we are created a little
less than God. That is the source of sin, our struggle with God. We will always
ask, “WHY?” Why did God want us not to be able to choose good from evil convict
us for it? Why can’t we follow his commands obediently? Why do we struggle with
God wanting the tree of life? We resort to
every act of worldly satisfaction of selfish human desire we can find, drugs, power,
sex, money, vanity and so on, hoping to cover over that gap between God and
humanity. We shop ‘till we drop, or drink to a drunken or drug-induced stupor
but it doesn’t work…pause… God knows it doesn’t work, but though fully
justified to judge us for that sin of rebellion, instead he abolished judgment
and testing and gave us faith and grace in the Jesus Event. God appeared as
human, lived among us only doing good and always resisting evil, defeated sin
and therefore death. Leaving us with the divine gift of the Holy Spirit that
offers us the chance to know good from evil and be forgiven when we choose
wrongly. We aren’t in Kansas anymore.
We have been given this gift of home
and eternal life and forgiveness dependent only having the absolute humility to
receive it with the absolute humility of Jesus.
That is true irony, to find
equality with God through the humility Jesus had resist the power to live and
die on the cross. Paul’s advice is priceless, “live in the right way in
undivided devotion to the Lord while you wait.”… “Live in the right way in undivided attention
to the Lord.” To me that sounds very much like the command John tells us Jesus
gave us in 13:34-35, again in my poor words, “Love the good life that Jesus lived.
Love others the way God loves you because everyone will know God loves you; and
that there is a home.”
With that blessing, God has made
us the porch light shining the way home to others.
Can I get an amen for that?
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