Day 1: Genesis 1-3

Day 1: Genesis 1-3

Glorious God, thank You for this wonderful gift of knowledge that You have so greatly given to us. Guide me as I read today so that I may hear what You long for me to hear. Allow each passage, each page to grant me new peace and hope in Your many ways. AMEN

Sandbox of Creation

The epic opening of Genesis provides an amazing framework for the telling of the Biblical narrative. God, this thing that requires, or has, no explanation or definition, speaks and creation occurs. The power and majesty rejoices in every “generation” of creation (Genesis 2:4). I have to admit that this is the first time I noticed that although the narrative begins speaking in terms of day and night, it ends with generations. I guess that adds a new level of complexity for the literal reading of the 6 days of creation.

Moreover, I am enthralled by the two paralleling accounts of God’s creation: the first by word, the second by touch. If I am honest with myself, I find comfort in a God that would play in the dust and breathe life into my being. Don’t get me wrong, a God powerful enough to speak creation into being is amazing, but I enjoy the intimacy of the second creation epic. I imagine God like a young child playing in a sandbox. You know what I am talking about, the excitement of the child, the dust flying and everything created is good. As a child I used to love playing in the dirt; building forts for my G.I. Joes, creating race tracks for my Hot Wheels, or even drawing pictures. The joy, at times, was exhausting.

Now imagine God, an excited being, playing in the dirt, never getting tired, never finishing the creation that was started. God created man, which can have several meanings, then noticed that this man was alone and needed a partner. Like a small child playing with toys in the sand, Barbie befriends He-Man and Transformers partner with Star Wars figurines. And so God creates the animals of the earth and a partner to be named woman.

Okay, I will level with you, as a gay man the whole man/woman thing is a little off-putting. We have all heard the chants about “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” so how do we make sense of it? I go back to the word partner, a simple word with no gender, no requirements. Just a word that provides a solution to loneliness. Although sometimes a word that is difficult to understand, it is a word that calls us to relationship with creation and with each other. A word of true hope and promise that we are not in it alone.

Sin and Fall

During this last semester in seminary at Perkins School of Theology, I took a class dealing with Moral Theology. During the first few class sessions the professor spent time talking about the Christian Stance, the beliefs that “all” Christians have. One of these is that “all” Christians believe in the sin and fall of man. Luckily, we can get this heavy conversation started today as we read Genesis 3.

In this chapter we have a man and woman, yet to be named and naked as a jay bird, hanging out in the garden God created. The very same garden that contained God’s creation, you know, the stuff that God said was good just a few lines pervious. Up to this point there is nothing bad, just a tree that we are told to be deadly (which we won’t even go into my theology on death).

All of a sudden, a serpent, who at this point had not been “cursed” to crawl on its belly, comes to the woman and persuades her to partake from the forbidden tree.

First, let’s think about this garden created by God. I can only imagine how beautiful it must have been. Imagine some of the greatest gardens you have ever been to. What do you find there? A horrid, ugly shrub? A nasty tangle of weeds? No, in a beautiful garden we usually find the most beautiful of foliage. If God wanted the man and woman to leave the plant alone, wouldn’t God had provided with thorns or made it ugly? Instead, God points out the tree and leaves it open to all to see and touch.

The man and woman eat the fruit, gain knowledge and become aware of the world in which they lived, including the whole being naked thing. God appears looking for the man and woman who have by this point hidden themselves embarrassed of what they have seen. God, working through the experience, sends the man and woman out of the garden and into the world. Then there is that whole line about “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil,” but we will save the “us” conversation for another day.

So God, the creator of everything, an everything that is good, works through this “sin,” as I believe God works through all “sin,” to further creation. You know, that creation that is good. Interesting quandary: if all is good, then how can any be bad?