Welcome
Call to Worship
We stop today, Lord, to
praise your glory.
Looking down we see the
earth and stones on which the world is built,
and we thank you.
Looking down we see the
lakes and streams and sea that give the world life,
and we thank you.
Looking around we don’t
see the air, but we know it’s there, with its wind and light,
and we thank you
Looking around we see
the trees and flowers that make the world green,
and we thank you.
Looking around we see
the creatures great and small that walk with us through life,
and we thank you.
Looking up we see the
sun and moon and stars and clouds that watch over us,
and we thank you.
We stop today, Lord, to
praise the glory of creation.
and we thank you. Amen.
Introduction
Today is the 266th day of the year, so
it is 92 days till Christmas. It is
Civilization Sunday and Pentecost 18, and Creation 4 Mountain Sunday. It is the international day of Sign
Languages. And it is my father’s
birthday.
…..As you know I’m a natural scientist, and Margaret
and I chose this Sunday for me because Creation means a lot to me -- so we are
going to talk today about creation – the whole thing. We’ll be hearing the big story of the big
wide world in several different versions.
We’ll sing about it, too. And
we’ll have times of silence, to think about it.
….So let’s start at the very beginning.
Reading Genesis 1: The Beginning
In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now
the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And
God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
God
saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
God
called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was
evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And
God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from
water.”
So
God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above
it. And it was so.
God
called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second
day.
And
God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry
ground appear.” And it was so.
God
called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God
saw that it was good.
Then
God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on
the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”
And it was so.
The
land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and
trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that
it was good.
And
there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
And
God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from
the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and
years, and let them be lights in the vault of the
sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.
God
made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light
to govern the night. He also made the stars.
God
set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,
to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from
darkness. And God saw that it was good.
And
there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
And
God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above
the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing
with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their
kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was
good.
God
blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water
in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”
And
there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
And
God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the
livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each
according to its kind.” And it was so.
God
made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to
their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to
their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then
God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may
rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and
all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So
God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God
blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the
earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and
over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Then
God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth
and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
And
to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the
creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in
it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God
saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
And
there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Hymn All
Creatures of Our God and King. WOV 3,
verses 1-4 and 7.
Time of Silence
Prayer
We give thanks, Lord, for the whole great big
world, and all that is in it. We give
thanks for the land and sea and sky, birds and fish and mammals, for the sun
and moon and stars.
The world is enormous and glorious and so much
bigger than we are. We live here, and
move here, and everything we do is part of that big world. We know that we are part of it, and that we each
have our small role to play in being part of it.
And we also know we don’t always work in
harmony with creation. We can be selfish
and lazy, ignorant and tired. We can
fail to do our best for the world, even when we know what we should be
doing. We can make choices that are bad,
even when we know what we are doing. We
can turn on each other, blame other people, cause more problems than we solve.
Forgive us.
Help us to be better. Help us to realize that just
because our part in creation is small, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t
matter. Help us to be what you created
us to be.
Amen.
The Peace and Community Time
Chat Time
Hymn All
Things Bright and Beautiful, WOV 70(ii)
Reading 2: Psalm 104 read responsively
All: Praise the Lord, my soul.
Women: Lord my God, you are very great; you
are clothed with splendor and majesty.
Men: The Lord wraps himself in light as with a
garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his
upper chambers on their waters.
Women: He makes the clouds his chariot and
rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames
of fire his servants.
Men: He set the earth on its foundations; it can
never be moved.
Leasder: You covered it with the watery
depths as with a garment; waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke
the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed
over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned
for them.
All: You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
Leader: He makes springs pour water into
the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts
of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
All: The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper
chambers; the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
Pulpit side: He makes grass grow for the cattle, and
plants for people to cultivate— bringing forth food from the earth: wine that
gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains
their hearts.
Piano side: The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests; the
stork has its home in the junipers. The
high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
Men: He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the
sun knows when to go down. You bring
darkness, it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions
roar for their prey and seek their food from God.
Women: The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens. Then people go out to their work, to
their labor until evening.
All: How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom
you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Leader: There is the sea, vast and
spacious, with creatures beyond number— things both large and small. There the
ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
All: All creatures look to you to give them
their food at the proper time. When you
give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied
with good things.
Leader: When you hide your face, they are
terrified; when you take away their breath, die and return to the dust. When
you send your Spirit, are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
All: May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works — he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
Leader: I will sing to the Lord all my
life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I
rejoice in the Lord. But may
sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more.
All: Praise
the Lord, my soul. Praise the Lord.
Time of Silence
Reading Job 38: 1-18 – The Lord Speaks
Then the Lord spoke
to Job out of the storm. He said:
“Who
is this that obscures my plans with
words without knowledge?
Brace
yourself like a man; I will
question you, and you shall answer me.
Where
were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On
what were its footings set, or who
laid its cornerstone— while the morning stars sang
together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Who
shut up the sea behind doors when it
burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its
garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when
I fixed limits for it and set
its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you
may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves
halt’?
Have
you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that
it might take the earth by the edges and shake
the wicked out of it?
The
earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.
The
wicked are denied their light, and their
upraised arm is broken.
Have
you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have
the gates of death been shown to you? Have you
seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have
you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell
me, if you know all this.”
Time of Silence
Reflection
In today’s readings we heard a pretty simple
description of the Universe. There’s
light and dark, sun and moon, land and sea, plants and animals. And for most of us, most of the time, that’s
a perfectly reasonable recipe for the world.
We get up, we look out the window and choose what to wear, we go out
there and do stuff, and then it gets dark and we go to bed. Timeless, simple.
Science, however, tells us that the universe is
very complicated in ways we cannot see. There
are, on average, 1500 bacteria in every square cm of our hands – all invisibly
doing their bacteria thing. There are, apparently, about 100 million stars in
our galaxy, all spinning around in the night sky, but we can only see a few
thousand of them. The Big Bang theory
tells us that the universe exploded into being 13.8 billion years ago, and is
still expanding. Our own planet spent
its first 2 billion years alone, without life, and then only very slowly began
to develop a thin skin of green-based life.
The nerve cells in your fingertips fire 5 to 50 times per second,
without you noticing or doing anything.
And so on. The universe is
unimaginably big, ridiculously small, dauntingly long-lived, and full of tiny
moments.
Somehow, in one place at one time in this
universe, a combination of random chance and natural selection produced, on one
small planet, a great biodiversity of life.
Or, the world was created in seven days by God. Or both.
I don’t have any problem with holding two
different ideas in my mind at once. Any
of you who are parents will know that you can feel terrified, furious, happy to
see him, hopelessly loving, and like you want to kill him -- all at once. The human brain is very good at holding
different notions at the same time.
So we can begin to understand the great
complexity of a 4.5 billion year old planet where a combination of random
chance and selective pressure from the physical world has resulted in a bipedal
primate with strong social ties and a talent for communication. And
we can believe that the creator God made the world in his infinitely complex
image, and populated it with a creature who could explore and be curious about
it.
The hallmarks of the human mind are the
capacity for sentience and self-knowledge; curiosity and wonder; innovation and
invention. (And perhaps a regrettable
tendency to do things that are clearly not of benefit to people and the world.) So the idea that we have to choose between
two simple options – do you believe in evolution or in God? – is frankly a pile
of horse poop. It’s one of a number of
false dichotomies that oversimplify God’s complex intricate world.
So for example, we are told we have to be
female or male, and that there are particular ways to be female and male (which
is one of the reasons I don’t like the Wife of Great Worth reading much) – when
many people feel like they are both, or neither, or somewhere in between. We are asked if we are For or Against
abortion – as if a single-word answer could possibly address the difficult,
many-faceted and delicate relationship between a woman’s life and that of her
potential child. We are presented with
such black and white (sometimes literally) choices -- us vs them, good vs evil,
black vs white -- by advertisements, by politicians, by the media, by each
other. These constructs do very little
good.
In fact, they fail utterly to capture the range
of possibilities and diversity in the great glittering Universe of dark and
light, sun and moon, waves and mountains.
The beauty of a planet encrusted by a sphere of life, leaves and flowers
and seeds, worms and sparrows and snails and elephants. And the remarkable creature who walks through
it all, able to think and wonder and solve problems – and create them. The whole astonishingly superb universe, made
in God’s image and thus infinitely complex and full of dimensions we have not
yet begun to explore.
I’m a scientist that believes in God. I’m a Christian who works in science. I live in a world of enquiry and
evidence. I live in a world of beauty
and complexity that takes my breath away and inspires me to worship. As a human animal, I have no problem thinking
about creation in different ways at different times.
Creation is the simple ordinary place where we
do our daily living, with the sun in the day and the moon at night. The place where we live and move and have our
being.
Creation is the complicated, multi-layered huge
and ancient universe that science is unfolding and exploring, both too big and
too small to experience directly, too old and too new to know.
Creation is the reflection of the
multi-dimensional and glorious beauty of its creator. It speaks to us of his and her infinite
love.
We don’t have to choose how we experience
creation. We can choose: all of the
above.
Hymn
The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of the Lord, WOV 625
Prayers
of Thanksgiving and Intercession
Sung Lord’s Prayer
Hymn Morning
Has Broken, WOV 91
Benediction -- Abby
As we go out into the big wide world, be with
us Lord
As we go out into this glorious springtime, be
with us Jesus Christ
As we go out into this shining day, be with us
Holy Spirit.
Amen
Sung Amen
