Where are you from?

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:3

Preached 06/14/2014

So, apparently, I do some pretty strange things.  For instance, I use the word pop instead of soda.  I cannot pronounce the letter “o” the way I hear many of you do it.  I have no answer to the “where did you go to high school” question, and I don’t know the magic coded information you’re getting when others do answer it.  And without google maps, I have no idea where any of the little outlying suburbs are, let alone how to get to them, and I give a lot of blank stares when people ask me what direction something is.  So, because of my strange behavior, I get this question a lot: Where are you from?  

I’ve been asked that question enough that by now I have a pretty standard answer.  I tell the person who asked that I grew up in Iowa, and then moved here a few years ago for school.  I fell in love with the town, and was blessed with a call to this church that allowed my family and me to stay in St. Louis.  And so far, my quick little story of where I’m from has satisfied people curious about the origins of my strange behavior.  Blame Iowa, I suppose.

We all have our own answers to the question.  Where we grew up, the moves we may have taken, and how we ended up in the place we are today.  And it’s not just St. Louisans  who are curious about where people are from.  It’s a universal question, and it goes far beyond St. Louis, and far beyond curious individuals.  Every culture has asked this question- “Where do we come from?” and every culture comes up with its own answer.  What we heard spoke this morning was one of two answers the ancient people of Israel came up with, and preserved in their sacred scripture. 

The ancient people of Israel had a definite need to come up with an answer to the question of origin.  They were surrounded by different cultures that offered them different origin stories from which to choose.  For example, one Babylonian origin story has several gods create humans, then immediately regret their decision.  Human beings are too loud, the story goes, and disturbing to the gods.  So from then on the gods sought to destroy the humans they had created.  As you’ve perhaps noticed, origin stories serve a purpose- they explain something that is otherwise inexplicable, like for example why I say pop and am always lost.  And this Babylonian story explains for its believers why bad things like war, famine, and disease happen.

The gods are angry.  They want to destroy us.  And in response to this origin story and its angry gods, believers responded by attempting to appease those angry destructive gods through worship and sacrifice.  It worked for them.  But not for the ancient people of Israel.  They needed a different story of their origins to tell and share.  Why?  To explain their own strange behavior. 

For example, as you probably know, the ancient people of Israel were monotheistic- they worshiped one God.  This was very strange in their culture, which was unapologetically and thoroughly polytheistic.  As you probably noticed, the Babylonian story is unapologetically polytheistic also.  I skipped the names of the gods mostly because I couldn’t pronounce most of them, but there are a lot of gods working, fighting, and plotting in the story.  The Babylonian story explained the sacrifices and worship style of the ancient Babylonians.  The ancient Israelite story did the same thing- showed why they worshiped one God, and why they worshiped not necessarily out of fear for their lives, but out of awe and reverence.

The ancient Israelites also needed to explain their strange worldview.   While the Babylonian story explains a focus on death and destruction, annoyance and regret, that was not the focus of the ancient people of Israel.  Did you notice the refrain you repeated? “And God saw that it was good.”  God created, and didn’t regret.  God created, and instead of finding darkness a hindrance, mosquitoes annoying, or human beings too loud, God calls them good.  God is happy with God’s creation.  God even goes so far as to bless human beings and animals.  This ancient Israelite story tells us not why there is bad, but why there is good.

Those ancient people of Israel looked around them, and saw amazing things.  They marveled at the sky, the sun, the moon, the earth, water, animals, plants, and people.  They needed a story of their origin that explained marvels and their marveling at them, not problems.  I could go on and on about the aspects of ancient Israel’s culture and religion that are explained and contained in this story, but I won’t because I think you get the point.  These stories we tell about where we come from serve a purpose.  And what I’m interested in is what purpose this story of our origins continues to serve today.

We are not the people of ancient Israel.  Our culture is completely different from theirs.  Our religion is very different from theirs, both in content and how we express it.  And yet, we use the same creation story because for us, too, it continues to answer questions.  In a world that is more than ready to assign us identities based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or economic status, this story continues to be a place where we find the ultimate explanation of our true identity.  We are God’s.  We were created by God and we were called good.  And this place in which we find ourselves, this earth, air, and water filled with all kinds of plants and animals- they too were created by God and called good.

And yes, this creation story gives us a reason for some behavior that may seem strange to others.  Because God created the world and called it good, this story of our origins helps explain why we take care of the earth- for example, why we have that recycling bin in the parking lot, and why our gardeners take such tender care of the plants they grow and plant on our property.  Because God created everything, we have a reason to give back to God- and this helps explain why we give away 10% or more of our income to the church, or why we volunteered our time at the Feed my People food drive.  Because God created all people and called them all equally good, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or social status we also have explanations for why we do work with certain people others may reject, or why we have certain stances on social issues.

And this explanatory function where we came from is all well and good.  In fact, it’s important to see the ways this story still speaks to us and of us today, and continues to tie us to God at our origins.  But we can go even farther than that.  Because an origin story can go further.  And instead of stopping at the why, it can move us into the what.   It can give us a mission, and a sense of purpose.  I am not going to attempt to draw a single mission and sense of purpose out of this scripture reading.  But we can look at one together, knowing there are many more possibilities contained in this story of origin.

Today is Trinity Sunday.  And I’ve been avoiding mentioning that because Trinity Sunday is hard.  It’s the only Sunday in the liturgical calendar dedicated to a doctrine, and the traditional route of dealing with Trinity Sunday is to attempt to explain the Trinity in a 15 minute sermon, which is completely impossible.  As I believe there really is no way to fully capture the Trinity and all our best tries only wind us up in heretical territory, here’s what I will say.  This story of our origin was our lectionary text.  And it doesn’t really mention the Trinity at all, does it?  Yes God is there and we have an inkling of the Holy Spirit and some plurality to God in the “let us create human kind in our image” verse, but if you didn’t already know about Jesus you would never guess he was on the scene here.  Our scripture doesn’t attempt to describe the whole of the Trinity.  And it certainly doesn’t seek to explain it.  What it does do is describe what God is led to do, how God is led to act, because of God’s mysterious nature.

So in looking at how we are called to act, keeping in mind the Trinitarian God we believe is in this scripture passage, here’s an idea I have: because of the Spirit’s movement, we are called to go out into the creation that God called so good and be bearers of the good news of God’s love, especially as it has been revealed to us in Jesus, for the sake of the whole beloved world.  We aren’t called to ponder the Trinity, and definitely not to figure it out.  We aren’t called to sit around thinking, we’re called to imitate this mysterious and Triune God who went out, and did good.

If you notice, in our origin story God didn’t just do one thing and stop.  So we, as a group of different people, are probably called to a lot of different things, and this imitation of God will look differently for each of us.  But here’s the most vital part- just get out, and do good.  You are innately good, and you bear the imprint of the Divine within you.  The Divine who made all that is good, who got out there and did something, even though no one was making God do anything.  And yes, some of God’s work looked strange- we’ve all seen platypus, right?  But it was good.

So here’s my charge for all of us.  Get out there.    Imitate our mysterious God whom we don’t fully understand, but who we know created us with the imprint of the Divine doing good.  And do good.  No matter how strange it may look to those around you.  May we be so filled with God’s Spirit and do such wonderfully and holy strange work that we all get asked that old question “Where are you from?” Amen.