To Serve Man: What is Creation all about?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² 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. ³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ~ Genesis 1:1-3

²⁶ 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.” ²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image,in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸ 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.” ~ Genesis 1:26-28

⁶ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. ⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” ~ Genesis 3:6-10

My kids were retro t.v. watchers, they get it from there mother. The more vintage, black and white, over-the-top acted the better. We own, for example, the entire series of the original Twilight Zone. In one of those episodes, aliens come to earth seeking to be our friends and to end global woes: war, famine, disease, poverty, etc. While many world leaders remain skeptical they are put at ease when cryptographers initially break through the alien’s language, noting that there premier book is titled, To Serve Man. Soon, humans are volunteering for trips to the aliens' home planet, which is said to be a paradise.  In the meantime, with the Cold War ended, the code-breaking staff has no real work to do, and continue to work on translating the book. At the end of the episode, the main character is boarding the aliens’ spaceship. As he mounts the stairs one of the cryptographers runs into the scene in great agitation and cries: “Mr. Chambers, don't get on that ship! The rest of the book To Serve Man, it's... it's a cookbook!” 

As we begin our series on the Pentateuch, I want to recognize that for many of us, these five books can feel all-together strange – written in a strange language from a a far-away place and time that for all practical purposes can feel very alien. But Jesus read these books and referenced them often to speak of God, himself, and love of others. A repeated phrase spoken by Jesus to his opponents was, “Have you not read . . . ?” And yet many of us feel a bit nervous – How do we read these books? Are these books “to serve man?,” so to speak, “to help people?”. Are they truly “to assist us” or are they there “to make of us a meal”? And I want to help you understand that it’s the former and not the latter. So that’s why my sermons will join the conversation to help point us toward their purpose. This is not a cookbook nor a scientific treatise about how things were created but a theological explanation about who God is, who we are (as human beings and our relationship to creation), why we were created, and what the problem is.

       1. Who is God?: the quiet, generous, and delighted One.

Most people are surprised to learn that Genesis was not the first book of the Bible written (it was most likely assembled during the Babylonian captivity). It was also not the first or only creation story in the ancient Near East. The oldest

written creation story was the Enuma Elish. It was the literary and cultural backdrop for the Genesis story and critical to know about it because it was the story that Genesis sought to overthrow. It told of a polytheistic world in which parent gods gave birth to children resulting in a conflict between the two (the parent gods determine to kill the younger ones because they are too loud). The parent gods were led by the mother god Tiamat while the children were led by Marduk. After a vicious battle, Marduk slays Tiamat cutting her into two with arrows to create the earth and the moon. The major background of creation in the Babylonian world was that creation came through conflict.

When we read Genesis, with the Enuma Elish in mind, one is struck by the quiet and orderliness of God’s creation activity. There is no cosmic battle, no chaotic fight, no monster god, no gods at all, save one. And this God peacefully speaks creation into existence. Moreover, God does so with an effervescent delight of an artist who revels in creation’s beauty – repeatedly admiring its goodness.

So God doesn’t create out of any chaos, or violence, nor any need but simply out of delight. Why would that matter? We can trust this God because he isn’t lonely, bored, or abusive but the source of our lives, even giving us his breath. We can trust this God because he has no need to be manipulated or appeased. We are told what God’s aim in creation is; and it is an aim directed entirely towards the benefit of ourselves and the rest of creation. It is in no way a selfish purpose. The world and everything in it, according to Genesis, exists because God’s peaceful, creative delight and unconditional

generosity. The theology of God and God’s creation was best summed up by a Jesuit priest who on people’s birthday would give them a card in which he would write: “God created us -- because he thought we’d enjoy it.” It was not for delight that human beings were created in the Enuma Elish, however. After Marduk slays Tiamat, it tells us, human beings were then made out of the blood, guts, and spit from other gods to “serve the gods” so that the “gods might be at ease.” So, if God doesn’t need us – is delighted out of freely creating – then what are human beings and why were we made and who are we?

          2.  We are embodied, equal, image-bearing keepers.

We are embodied beings. One element of the creation of human beings is that all parts of us are created by God as very good. And that we are created as embodied, spiritual beings which has a number of important implications. We read, for example, in chapter 2:7, “⁷ Then the Lord God formed a human [ha-adam] from the dust of the ground [ha-adamah] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (nephesh).” The Hebrew is playing on some words. A comparable expression might be “the human was formed from the humus.” It speaks to the interconnectedness of all human beings and all creation – we come from the same stuff. There is no better or worse clay, no platinum version over against basic mud. And we all have life because of God’s breath. What’s so interesting, however, in the Hebrew is that the word translated as “living being” in the NIV is the Hebrew word for soul. So your soul is not some separate part of yourself, some better version or truer aspect of who you are. Rather, it is body and breath, God’s breath, that make a soul, a living being. Your body then is spiritual, can connect with God, and we should reverence our own and the body of others. Jesus’ own teaching in Matt. 25 will make the powerful assertion that when we honor the bodies of others, we honor him. And when we dishonor the bodies of others, it is him we wound. And so the Genesis story tells us that we are all the same, all “image-bearers” of God. Once again, this is an astounding claim in the ancient world. In the ancient world, only kings bore the image of the gods. But in Genesis, all of us do, and we do so as embodied beings.

So we are equal beings but this equality is also quite extraordinary – not simply being a part of what it means to be human but also in our social relationships between the genders. And here again, we must be careful to pay particular attention to the words of the Bible itself. As we heard Helen read in Genesis 1: 27-28, notice that there is no differentiation between male and female, no separate, gendered tasks or roles. Both are made in the image of God and both are given the same job description, the same tasks. Furthermore, as the story repeats and the adam is created first with Eve out of the rib, some have tried to suggest that this shows a hierarchy but there are two important caveats. First, it’s hard to argue that being created from a part of the man entails subordination for the woman unless you want to argue that the man’s being created from the ground makes him subordinate to the earth. Secondly, these same people have argued that designating the woman as “helper” in Genesis 2:18 means she is subordinate to the man. However, this also doesn’t seem correct because this word “helper” is most often used in the Old Testament to describe God.

We bear God’s image because we were meant to be keepers. One of the clear points of the beginning story is that human beings are given “dominion” over creation by God. And in our current context it’s easy to hear that in very negative ways. But Genesis 2:15 helps clarify that dominion or power-sharing looks like. The adam, we are told, is placed in the garden to “till and keep it.” It’s true that some have understood such a mandate to mean that we can do whatever suits us best with the world God has made. But that word “keep [shamar]” doesn’t reflect that at all. In fact, the word is often translated as “guard,” “take care of”, or “look after.” In Numbers 6:24, Aaron offers what will become one of the most quoted blessings in scripture: “The Lord bless you and keep you; ²⁵ the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; ²⁶ the Lord turn his face toward you and

give you peace.”’ The word “keep” in that verse is shamar. So our relationship to creation is to mirror God’s relationship with us – that’s what it means to bear God’s image. It’s a responsibility to safe-guard creation as God’s co-regents. We bear God’s image when we care for creation as God cares for us.

          3.    The problem is a great divorce.

Four relationships of mutual trust are broken with the entrance of sin: 

• our relationship to God (“Where are you? . . .  I was afraid” 3:9-10), 

• our relationship to others (The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it. ~ 3:12), 

• other relationship to ourselves (“I was naked and hid myself.” ~ 3:10), and 

• our relationship to all creation (cursed is the ground because of you . . . thorns and thistles it shall bring for you” ~ 3:17-18). Everyone in the story is alienated from everyone else. Sin appears as power that once us alienated and alone.

One last remark. It’s easy to read the Genesis story as if it is God who curses us. The language certainly suggests it but I believe this is a mistake (e.g. in the same way that reading other portions literally would, God walking, God not knowing what’s happening in Sodom, etc.). First, the text is not in the literary style of a curse and does not use the typical formula of biblical curses. Second, the word “curse” appears in a passive participle form, which can also be read as a description of the natural consequences because of actions (“Because you had done this you are cursed”). Finally, if God was truly the author of the curse then it challenges the whole logic of redemption. If redemption is the vanquishing of a curse that God imposes then why do we need a redemption story at all, why can’t God simply lift it?

Creation is the beginning of a larger story. A story with twist and turns, surprises, and horrors. And these ancient, beginning stories offer a tale which names reality (we see the broken relationships) and offers us God’s intent. And that intent was not servitude, or violence, nor subordination but delight, equality and relationship - love. So if God intended all that? How should we then live? If God created the world with a sense of delight – how should we see our world? If God created us with bodies and breath and calls that a soul – how

should we treat our bodies and the bodies of others? If God established a relationship of equality between the sexes, what should a Biblical relationship between the sexes look like? If God seeks to love us, work with us, care for us – all of which we encounter in the first few pages – then how then should we live.

If God cares for all that God has created – so will I. Let's worship together with - So Will I (click on the title to hear our response to the sermon)