The Divine Crash

Today’s teaching is another from Camp Highland. You can listen to the audio at the bottom or on iTunes. Enjoy!!

Barook atta Adhonay Eloheynoo melek ha-olam shehakol nihyeh bidhvaro.

Talk about Moses writing Genesis.

- 1500 BC

 

talk about verse 1

- Not about In the beginning about saying this how it is but

- It is better “When God began to create” because it was this is what I know to be true and it was more of telling a story than anything else.

It is like a grandfather drifting off to tell a story of when he was young. Telling a story of what happened to him because he was there. It was taught as if it happened to them.

Maybe if we did the same thing and thought as if it was our story it would make all the difference.

Talk about Moses asking God how

This verse 1 says that God is over all of it. That Elohim is on top of it and has been since he created it.

But there is an oddity of it. Elohim is plural (circle plural part) but not plural at the same time.

In the first verse of the opening of the Hebrew Bible, in a time when Moses is trying to lead thousands of people through the wilderness after leaving a lifetime of slavery he is trying to remind them that God is over all, That God created them and will not leave them alone and that God is in this wilderness with them and God is in all things with them.

We also see Moses putting the literary smack down on every other god in existence.

Depending on your region you worshipped other gods

- Baal

- Enki

- Tiamat

- Ninkasi the sumerian Goddess of Beer

- Borne of the flowing water,

Tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag,

 

Ninkasi, having founded your town by the sacred lake,

She finished it’s walls for you,

 

Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud,

Your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.

 

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who handles the dough [and] with a big shovel,

Mixing in a pit, the bappir with [date] – honey,

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven,

Puts in order the piles of hulled grains,

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who waters the malt set on the ground,

The noble dogs keep away even the potentates,

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,

The waves rise, the waves fall.

 

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who spreads the cooked mash on large reed mats,

Coolness overcomes,

 

You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort,

Brewing [it] with honey [and] wine

(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

Ninkasi, (…)(You the sweet wort to the vessel)

 

 

Ninkasi, the filtering vat, which makes a pleasant sound,

You place appropriately on a large collector vat.

 

 

Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,

It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.

Imagine Their camp meetings?

This becomes important for Abraham.

Story of Abraham leaving father

- this is the first occassion in the Bible of Oh Snap!

Maybe sometimes, maybe we are like the father, maybe we serve multiple Gods?

- Maybe we serve the god’s we are taught by our parents?

- School? Grades? Friends? Boyfriend/Girlfriend? Video Games? Money? Music?

- Job? Spouse? Kids? Retirement fund? Stuff?

- Maybe God is the one who created all of those things to show you how he works and wants you to use them responsibly and worship him, not them?

So then, if Elohim is over all and created all then all of the things we so often think are worthy of our worship. become less worthy of worship. They fall far short. My Ipod never created the heavens. My wife never put the mountains in place. My bank account didn’t put 6 million leaves on each oak tree. But God did, and that God is the God who is over all and in all.

 

that God created all things and created them with the ability to keep creating more things, and better things.

- Trees to created more, new, and better organized trees

- Dogs to create more, new and better organized dogs.

- Cats to um…no not cats. God didn’t create cats. They serve no purpose. They were not created by God. That is why their ears look like horns and they have pointy tales. Who else has a pointy tale?

God rules over everything.

God created us to rule over or have dominion over all things

Kabash – Rule

A more literal meaning of Kabash is to Co-create.

Our job is to help creation be better, more organized.

This is why some of you love to build things, because you are connecting with the very reason you were created.

Those of you who are crazy organized are connected with why you were created.

Those of you who love to create art, music, dance, drama, building, you are connecting to God who in Genesis created you to do those things.

Words like make, organize, order, build, manage, they all come from right here in Genesis and you know when you have found that thing that connects you with God because it is that thing that when you do it you loose all track of time.

When you do these things you make the world a better place, not just for you but for your neighbors and for the whole world.

- Give examples of muslim neighbor, Atheist, and pollution, and starving in Africa, and for chickens and goats

When we don’t do these we deny what God has called us to do and that is called sin.

Sin is saying we know better than God.

Sin is saying we can do our plan without God

That sort of plan leads to corruption, violence, destruction, disorder, chaos, addictions, all the things opposite of the good that God created.

You can choose to do either one, no one will stop you. but one makes the world better and the other makes the world worse because of your actions.

- Shalom

Every action you choose, regardless of your ability either brings us closer to Shalom or further from Shalom.

 

Genesis 1 puts Tohu Avohu. Formless and Void. Nothingness. Emptiness. When it is read there is an accent mark that means slow down. We know that.

- We understand Tohu Avohu. When we come home and find out when we left for camp that morning was the last time we would see our parents together.

- When we spend hours working on that school project only to barely pass.

- When we get the courage to talk to that one that makes our heart flutter and they shoot us down

- When the world as we know it falls apart and we find ourself feeling alone, broken, in the midst of chaos and that God couldn’t be further away. That is Tohu Avohu.

- When we make that same, pathetic, stupid, avoidable, rediculous, mistake. Again…..again….and again. That is Tohu Avohu.

- Some of us have been at Tohu Avohu, some of us are there now, some of us see it coming.

But in the midst of that Chaos, on the waters of that formless void where there is nothing God’s spirit is moving.

God’s breath is Ruech. It means breath, wind, or spirit. God’s Spirit was over the face of that formless void.

In other words in the midst of the emptiness of the world God’s spirit was there and was about to do something.

For the Jews who just left slavery and are wandering around the wilderness this is a great comfort because they felt chaos and alone and understood Tohu Avohu.

Moses is telling them Hold on just a little longer, wait just one more day, God’s spirit is over the face of this and is about to do something brand new and make this chaos into something brand new that we have never seen before.

God is about to make darkness into light.

Genesis 1 is not a scientific study of how the world was made. It is actually what is called a Chiastic Poem.

Chiastic Poems have their main point in the middle.

- Vs. 5 night into day

Jews believed that night came first than moved into light.

This is probably the best news of the evening. That darkness moves into light.

This may be the best thing you have ever heard because darkness moves into light. Because tomorrow is a new day. Because if you can make it through the night then light comes in the morning.

So maybe this, that was written 1500 years before Jesus still applies because God’s spirit is still on the surface of our chaos and is about to make something brand new out of our chaos.

Because if we admit it to ourselves we are in chaos. We are in a mess of things.

Genesis 3, the one thing God told us not to do and we did it.

If God had said “Do not eat this sardine” it would have been easy. Instead he said “Do not eat this very delicious looking fruit.” and to top it off Satan has to come and tell us just how tasty that apple is.

So it had become night, but God loves us to much to let it stay night.

When we hurt, God loves us to much to let it stay that way.

When our back’s ache because of our heavy load, God loves us to much to let it stay that way

When our heart has been broken again and again by the same person, God loves us to much to let us stay that way.

When we are to exhausted to keep going, God loves us to much to let us stay that way

When we have given up all hope of ever overcoming, God loves us to much to let us stay that way.

Instead of leaving us in our darkness and shame God, in genesis takes an animal and kills it and makes clothes to cover our shame.  by killing an animal that didnt do anything wrong god is saying that our sins cost us something and they cost the life of another  later God puts on flesh and steps down into the earth He created and dies for us as the perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

God wants desperately to move us into the light just like the rest of creation and so he does.

In seminary I learned about the Hypostatic Union. It is a big word and essentially it means  Jesus is always fully God and fully human and that can never be seperated. Yet God can’t die and yet Jesus died on the cross. If we think about this too long our brains will start to cramp.

If this essential tennet of Christianity falls apart at the cross. What else falls apart at the cross?

All our sin? All our guilt? all our darkness?

The only thing left in the light of the cross is the Jesus who is Elohim holding out his hand saying: “I made you, I love you, and you are valuable to me. Let me cover you with my blood and bring you from darkness to light.”

And so at the cross Jesus moves us from the darkness into the light of his love and the broken can stand not under judgement but with the love of God who brought us into the light.

And so now may today be your new day, may you know that the God who made you is on your side and is bringing light into your darkness. May you feel the warmth of God’s light shining on you and in you and through you.

Sermon Audio

 

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