Intertwined Destinies

Preached at Swarthmore Presbyterian Church

July 11, 2021

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Let me begin by saying how wonderful it is to be with you all again in this sanctuary, whether you are here in person or online.

This morning, we continue our summer series, “Praising God our Maker: A Series on Creation texts.” A few weeks ago, Rev. Joyce preached on the first creation text in our scriptures, from Genesis 1- 2:4b. It’s a poetic creation narrative, where God calls the whole cosmos into creation. Through the speech of God, the chaos is ordered, there is day and night, land and sea. Creator God speaks forth vegetation, fruit, and trees of every kind. From the habitat of water come the great sea monsters, and from the habitat of the sky come the birds.1 From the habitat of the earth come forth living creatures, and when God speaks into existence humankind, humankind is made in the image of God, to have “dominion” over the birds that came from the air, over the cattle that come of the earth, and over all living things of the earth.2

And God saw that it was good, for God loves God’s creation. It’s a beautiful telling of creation that we are so familiar with, that we may easily lose the powerful proclamation. As Walter Brueggeman says, “We are so familiar with these texts that we have reduced them to cliches. But we should not miss the bold intellectual effort that is offered here, nor the believing passion which informs that intellectual effort. Israel is thinking a new thought. In the use of their faithful imagination, Israel’s theologians have articulated a new world in which to live. The shapers of the text are believers. They are concerned with theological reality.”3

There are many aspects to the theological reality that Genesis 1 proclaims: one of sovereignty, one of God creating creation, bringing forth life from its habitat, and one of calling creation good, to name a few. Yet, why have two creation narratives?

For in our second creation narrative, we move away from the poetry of the creation of the cosmos, to now, us, the creation of human beings. And I’ll emphasize what Brueggeman lifts up: let us not miss the bold intellectual effort and the believing passion behind it. What is the theological reality being lifted up in Genesis 2?

This time, when we enter the second account of creation, argued by scholars as the older account, we encounter the LORD God who made the heavens and the earth. This differs from the first narrative, as the usage of the word LORD, Adonai, speaks to this creation narrative attributed to the Yahwist tradition, wherein authors regularly use the divine name, “I will be who I will be.” The stage is set, we are about to hear a creation narrative from a God who desires to be intimate, close to us, for let us remember when the divine name is revealed. It’s when Moses has this intimate and personal encounter with God at the burning bush scene, and to Moses’ “who should I say sent me?” the God of our ancestors says, “I Am Who I Am.”

In this second account, there are no separate habitats named or animals and plants that arise from these separate habitats. Instead, it begins with the absence of life: no plants of the field, no herbs of the field, no rain that has come down to water it, and no one to till the ground.4 In naming the absence of life, hear the words of the authors who are setting up the narrative for a new theological thought.

The features listed as showcasing the absence of life reflect the ancient Israel agrarian economy. As Theodore Hiebert explains “the story’s introduction (Vv. 4b-6), which describes the absence of life before creation by singling out key features of the audience’s world that did not exist: pasture plants (for the Israelite’s flocks of sheep and goats; NRSV: ‘plant of the field’); field crops (of grain and barley, the staples of the Israelite diet; NRSV: ‘herb of the field”); rain to water these plants; and a farmer to cultivate them… Thus, when the Yahwist first mentions humanity in this introduction, he thinks of humans not in isolation, or even in relationship to God, but in their intimate relationship to their unique natural environment.”5

For the LORD God forms humanity from the dust of the ground, in the Hebrew, ‘adam is formed from the ‘adamah. It’s beautiful wordplay, between the human and the substance used, as Carol Myers points out, “the creation of ‘adam from ‘adamah signals the integral connection between the first human’s bodily substance and the cultivated ground that provides subsistence.”6 It’s from the same ‘adamah,’ the same habitat, that in verse 19, God forms every animal of the field and every bird of the air. Instead of each creature being brought forth from its habitat, we hear the Yawhist authors proclaiming a theological reality: all of creation is intertwined, coming from the same dust of the ground, a destiny for humanity to live in God’s world with all of God’s creatures and created things.

A destiny. For aren’t all creation accounts typically grounded by the question, where did we come from? Or maybe more importantly, who are we, what is our meaning?

When we look at Genesis 1, I have heard this question answered by pointing to Genesis 1:26, where humanity does not arise from the separate habitats of earth, waters, and sky, but instead humans are created separately, made in the image of God, to have dominion over the earth. I have also read and heard of more faithful interpretations of Genesis 1:26, where dominion is closely tied to being loving stewards. It’s important interpretation work, yet the bold intellectual effort inGenesis 2 makes our intertwined destinies even more clear. We are formed from the same ‘adamah, all living things, from the same substance, from the same earth, created by our God.

For after Adonai brings life to the garden, makes all the trees to grow, pleasant to the sight and good for food, brings forth water that sustains the garden, a gift from God to the garden, is when we hear what our purpose is: to till and to keep it.

We are given a vocation, a calling, an expectation, to participate and to share in God’s work of caring for creation. Brueggeman points out, “the word pair, ‘till and keep,’ may suggest a gardener or a shepherd.”7 Indeed, our God who serves as a gardener and brings life into creation tasks us to be gardeners as well, shepherds of creation.

Let me pause there. If I was sitting in your seat, or watching from home, I would imagine that the next preacher move would be to talk about the environment. Maybe bring up statistics of how creations groans and moans, with climate crisis on the horizon, or better said, here already today. That we, as humanity, have not done a good job of being gardeners, shepherds, of God’s creation. Maybe you’re one of the youth who has been tasked to watch sermons for the confirmation process, and you know too well about the climate crisis, as you participate in movements like the Sunrise Movement. And I could speak about the need for a change of our habits, the need to advocate for the change of the habits of corporations.

I’ll come back to this, as I believe it is imperative to know that God is calling us to turn around, to repent, to hear the call to be gardeners and shepherds of this world, for our text today would say that our destiny is intertwined with all of creation that came from the same dust, the same ‘adamah.’ That we are to till and care for creation as God does. Yet, let me lift one piece of the creation narrative I left out.

Let’s all pause together this morning. A short pause.

Put your hand over your chest. Do you feel it? (a long pause)

Have we reduced this story to a cliche, or is this a bold intellectual effort, a painting of a theological reality?

For what you feel is the breath of life that sustains us. And where does this breath come from? From Adonai who breathed into being humanity, who breathed into us the breath that makes us living beings.8 It reminds me of John 20 when Jesus shows up to the disciples for the first time after his death, where he says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.”9

The breath of life is in us. It sets this creation narrative apart. For truly, this creation narrative has a believing passion — the LORD, our God, is the one who made the earth and theheavens. It’s a bold intellectual effort, that God our shepherd and gardener has created all living things from the same earth, the same dust.

But maybe, more importantly, it’s a theological reality that is not for the fainthearted. We are tasked to till and to keep this earth, to be gardeners and shepherds, not just because we want to avoid climate disaster, but because our destiny is intertwined with all of creation that came from the same dust. It’s a bold vision from our Yahwist authors because we know that this hard work we are tasked to do is done with the breath of the living God within us, through the power of the Holy Spirit. May it be so. Amen.

1 The language of habitat comes from Dr. Jaqueline Lapsley, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/creation-and-fall/commentary-on-genesis-24b-7-15-17-31–8

2 Genesis 1:26.

3 Walter Brueggeman, Interpretation: Genesis, pg. 14–15.

4 Verses 4b-6.

5 Theodore Hiebert, The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary, pg. 73.

6 Carol Myers, Rediscovering Eve, pg. 71.

7 Brueggemann, pg. 46.

8 Verse 7.

9 John 20:21–22, NRSV.