In the introduction to The Book of Belonging, the authors describe their project as “inspired by stories from the Bible.” And so as we read these imaginative stories, throughout this fall, in sermons I will also be referencing the more literal translation of the text from the New Revised Standard Updated Edition. That way we’ll get to do some comparing and contrasting, and consider how the two versions converse with each other. So along those lines, if you’ve heard the creation story from Genesis before, what did you notice in this telling that felt fresh or illuminating?

There’s a refrain in the Creation story of Genesis “and God saw that it was good”. I noticed, in the “Very Good Song” version of this story that delight is central. God hovers over her nest like mother bird or sings the earth into being with a love song. God is like an artist examining their masterpiece and a parent marveling at a newborn baby. It’s this posture of loving delight (God’s and ours) that makes earth a creation, that gives the world meaning.

Modern science has given us amazing new perspectives on the universe. Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest and scholar of world religions who studied earth’s history and evolution, said: “We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The Old Story—the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it—is not functioning properly, and we have not learned the New Story.”

The Old Story has been extracted from Genesis. It is one of human exceptionalism. We are the point of it all, the pinnacle of creation. God has established rigid binaries and hierarchies and we’re at the top. To be made in God’s image means that it’s our role to wield coercive power. The call for humans “to subdue and have dominion” over the earth sanctions us to treat the earth, our fellow creatures, and humans of lesser status as objects to be exploited. We’ve also used science to prop up the Old Story. For example, Newtonian physics attempted to reduce the earth’s complex and interconnected living systems to a sterile machine. And Darwin’s theory of evolution assumed that competition was nature’s only way of relating (when in fact we now realize that plants and animals also engage in cooperative behaviors). All in all, the Old Story has reinforced our culture of greed, extraction, and colonization. So Thomas Berry sought to re-imagine both spirituality and science, integrating them into one new story with fresh meaning. He called it simply, “The Universe Story”.

There’s a beautiful, ritualized telling of the universe story called “the cosmic walk” that captures a sense of its mystery and awe. Candles are set out in a spiral 137 feet long. Every ten feet in the spiral represents a billion years. The beginning of our universe, the big bang, is at the center, 13.7 billion years ago. Participants walk the spiral, placing candles on stars that mark important events: 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system formed. 4 billion years ago, the first cells of life emerged in earth’s oceans. Lots of action happens in the very last foot of the spiral. 460 million years ago, plants and animals moved onto land. Mammals came on the scene 210 million years ago. And finally, a mere 100,000 years ago, modern humans emerged. Another way to conceptualize the place of humans in it all is to envision the unfolding of the universe taking place in one cosmic day. It’s not until 11:59:56 PM that we appear—just four seconds before midnight.

This New Universe Story helps me to re-imagine our human identity in relation to the rest of creation. Yes, we are (for now) the pinnacle of evolution, the height of its complexity and brilliance. And we are, at the same time, incredibly new to this earth, young and inexperienced compared to siblings of other species. All beings have their own wisdoms, and perhaps we will find someday that the smallest and simplest ones, the ones that have been around earth for the longest, are in fact the most wise. We’ve learned lately about the human microbiome, about how we share our own bodies with trillions of microorganisms, so many that it begins to raise the question of whether we can truly be called separate from each other. The truth is, we depend on the wisdom of those beings who evolved before us. They are an integral part of the process that led to our creation; in a very real way, they have given us life.

The Old Story isn’t the only biblically rooted story we can tell. Our special status in creation doesn’t have to be a license for exploitation and extraction. The call to subdue the rest of creation, within its historical context, is about survival, since it arises out of a time when humans were incredibly vulnerable to predators, to starvation, illnesses, and natural disasters. If the Creator is self-giving love continually taking delight the world, then being “made in God’s image” need not lead to hubris. We can hold our place in creation with humility, with respect for the responsibility entrusted to us, with wonder and curiosity, and with a commitment to always serve the good of the whole.

In other creation stories in the ancient Near East, the gods bring order to the world through a battle with chaos monsters. In the Hebrew Bible, there’s no such bloodshed. Instead, God breathes over the chaos and speaks the world into existence. And Biblical scholar Karla Suomala suggests that perhaps the boundaries between opposite forces—day and night, land and sea, male and female—need not be rigidly, violently enforced either. She finds this possibility particularly in the Hebrew word “rakia”. “God made the rakia and separated the waters that were under the rakia from the waters that were above the rakia.” “Rakia” is typically translated “dome” but its meaning is ambiguous given that it appears very infrequently in the Bible. So, it could be that rather than a dome, that makes an impenetrable barrier, it could be something more like a semi-permeable bubble.

Suomala remarks: “Does an image of creation in which chaos is only on the “outside” serve us well? Does it reflect our lived experience as human beings? Does it reflect God’s intent for us as God’s creation? I wonder what might happen if we were to begin to think of life and chaos in a more symbiotic relationship, part of the same fabric of creation. What if the rakia creates a porous space in the midst of chaos in which humans live in relationship with what they cannot control, what is uncontrollable, as opposed to constantly fighting against it? What might happen if we use our God-breathed energies and talents in new, less combative ways? Such a model allows for less isolation and deeper connection for all life (human, plant, animal) with what in fact surrounds and envelops us.”

Throughout this fall, as we focus on Hebrew Bible stories, let’s keep in mind that these stories are the scriptures that formed Jesus and grounded his life and teachings. His ministry was rooted in a vision of God’s hopes for the world which he called the Kingdom of God. The story that animated Jesus and his followers was not one of earth’s abandonment, but its renewal. In partnership with God, the community Jesus formed sought to channel the power of loving delight to restore the wholeness of creation And if creation is a source of delight then it can’t simply be a heap of raw materials or a random assortment of chemical reactions. Held in the delight of our Creator, the earth is a community of belonging in which we are siblings bound together in an intricate dance of giving and receiving, competing and collaborating, and evolving together toward a chaotic yet life-sustaining harmony. Amen.