WHAT ARE PEOPLE – Pete Bauer

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on October 19th, 2014.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Gen 2.

Genesis 2:4ff can be confusing because, after Genesis 1:1-2:3, it seems like God is done with creation–and yet, in 2:4, it seems as though the author is going back to a time before the plants were created on the land and telling the story differently.  One way around this is to say that Genesis two is giving us a close up view of what happened in Genesis 1:25ff–although this begs the question.  Frankly, a story teller would have told the story in order.

Another view, which I think is more helpful, is to understand Genesis one as a story about who God is (Creative, Investing, Appreciating), and then to look at Genesis two as a story about who people are.   This morning we are going to take a look at Genesis two that focuses on the symbolism of the story in order to understand what the Bible says about who people are and how they/we relate to God.

People are Both Flesh and Spirit.  (The Symbols of Dust and Breath)

We Are Tied to The Earth–Flesh:  “… the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground…”  There could not be a clearer way to say that we are made up of, and part of this earth.  In this sense, we have the characteristics of the earth in our nature:  competition, drives (survival, hunger, reproduction).   We cannot throw these things off by not paying attention to them or denying them.

Not only is this true, but also this dust or flesh is also, to some extent, “wild” in us–which is to say that it is not completely naturally under our control.   We cannot decide not to be hungry, or that we are no longer going to need sleep, or that we will no longer have a sex drive.  These things are part of the earth–the dust which God formed to be our physical bodies, with all of their tendencies, drives, desires, etc.

We Are God-Breathed:  “… and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”  But human beings are more than a pile of dust and a collection of neurons, drives, fluids, etc.  Genesis also tells us something about ourselves that rings true: we are spirit, or breath, and that breath of life that animates us is vitally connected to the divine–God.  Much that we take for granted comes from this divine connectedness:  the pursuit of meaning for our lives, the desire and ability to create, the desire to find satisfaction, peace and joy (all of which, we saw, are reflected in Genesis one).

Spiritual Implications:   As it turns out, this description of mankind rings very true.  We do have these drives and desires–and we do have this spiritual connection or aspect of our lives.  What does that mean for the way we were made to live?

~ Drives are Neither Evil Nor Absolute:  First, this view leads us to a balance where physical drives are neither all that there is so that we live only for the bloated satisfaction of the body, nor are they evil, so that we deny every possible pleasure.  Our dust is formed by God–and therefore it is good, our drives and desires have good origin, proper use as gifts given to us from God.  Food is a gift to be enjoyed, yet not abused.  Sex is a gift to be enjoyed, but not abused.  The church often gets this wrong and treats these things as though the Bible started at Genesis three (with the fall of man) so that everything that we enjoy is somehow wrong or evil.  The world outside of the church gets this wrong and lives as though a person were nothing more than a collection of drives to be used to their limits.

~ Without Connection to the Source of Our Spirit, We Are Alone:  Secondly, Genesis tells us that the source of the spirit within us is God.  There is a sense in which the vitality of the human spirit depends on return to and connection with its source–God.  Without that connection, human beings are deeply and profoundly lonely.  In consequence many people try to fill that loneliness by filling and overfilling themselves in response to their physical drives.  Human beings do this–animals don’t.  Why?  because human beings are longing for more.

People Are Cultivators.  (The Symbol of the Garden)

We Develop Our Lives:  “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

The first thing God does with the man he created is to give him a job–the Garden of Eden to care for and cultivate.  God does not put Adam in the garden just to sit.  Genesis is telling us something about the  basic nature of being human.  To be human is to cultivate.  This is something that we cannot help doing–developing.  We develop physically and care for and cultivate our bodies. We cultivate/develop the homes we live in, our habits and patterns of life, friendships, gardens, our knowledge and social skills, etc.

Our lives can be pictured like a garden/ The Garden.  We grow things in our lives.  We grow in our understanding, ability, knowledge-become more or less beautiful, orderly, productive.

We Were Made to Cultivate Body and Spirit:  The spiritual implications of cultivation–based on the previous understanding that we are both body/flesh and soul/spirit, become fairly clear.  We were made to cultivate not only our jobs, our minds, our friendships, etc., but also our spirits.

There are two ways of thinking about cultivating our spirit (1) actively, through spiritual practices of what are generally referred to as the “means of grace”–prayer, public and private worship, scripture meditation and study, etc., and (2) passively through appreciating the beauty of creation, listening for God’s direction, sitting quietly and receiving grace and favor from God.

People Are Free.  (The Symbol of the Tree of Knowledge)

People are Free to Choose:  “9 In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’”

God puts the tree of knowledge in the middle of the Garden of Eden–then tells the man not to eat of it or he’ll die.   This situation, set up by God, makes no sense from a literal reading of Genesis two.  If we are reading a literal account of Genesis, then we run into a serious problem with the nature of God.  The problem can be expressed this way – What kind of loving parent puts temptation in the middle of the room and then threatens their child, when they KNOW that the child will fail?   Or do we want to say that God did not know what would happen–was not wise enough to know?

A symbolic view of Genesis makes much more sense here–a picture of humanity made with the capacity of choice:  choice to love or not love God–choice to trust or not trust God–choice to obey or not obey God.  This freedom is further expressed at the end of the chapter where, “25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”  After the fall they cover up before God.

We were Made to Be Free and Responsible Before God:  God does not control us but gives us the capacity to make real choices.  We are free before God–naked in a true sense.  Our actions and choices to love God or not to love–trust or not trust–obey or not obey are ours.  We make them, we must own them before God.  There is no spiritual autopilot or cruise control where we can set up certain spiritual practices to appease God and then live  our lives without reference to him.  There is no separation between spiritual life and real life.  God has called us to see our choices as, not automatic, thoughtless, meaningless, but as responses to him and the freedom he has given us.

People Are Communal.  (The Symbol of the Woman)

People are Not Needless:  “18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone;  I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

This is the first time in either creation account (Gen.1 or 2) where God says that something is “not good,” and so this should grab our attention.   What is not good is for the man to be alone, by himself without help.  In response a drama unfolds in which God is seeking a helper for the man.  Here again, a literal reading is not helpful.  Did God really think that Adam might find true companionship with one of the animals?  Instead what we see is a comparison between the animals and the woman–who turns out to be far superior and identified as the same kind–bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

We Need Society and Help:  The point?  We need people.  We need relationship.  We need help.  Adam does not fully know who he is and where he belongs until he meets Eve.  In the story, once he meets her he knows who he is and where he belongs–not with the animals.  There is something very true in this.  We do not fully know ourselves apart from other people: our families, our friends, our community.

But also, we need help.  Adam is not left alone to cultivate the garden by himself.  He needs society as he does it–he needs other hands to help with the work.

We Were Made to Bless and be Blessed by Relationship:  The spiritual implications of this are that we need people and people need us.  We need people both physically and spiritually to help us as we cultivate our lives.  We were not made to do this alone.  We were not created to be in isolation.

WHAT DOES THE CREATION STORY TELL US?  – Pete Bauer

This sermon was preached at Peace Hill Christian Fellowship on October 12th, 2014.  To listen to the audio, just click on this link – Gen 1.

If we can put aside the Creation/Evolution debate when we look at Genesis one, we see three things which are being said about God.   (1) God is creative, (2) God is an investor in human potential, and (3) God appreciates and enjoys the creation.   These are foundational statements about God–the first things said about who he is.  They should form our basic or starting opinions and understandings about God.

At the same time, these foundational understandings of who God is have profound implications for who we are made to be as spiritual people.  We are vitally connected to the Creator as those who are his creation–not only physically, but spiritually.

God is Creative.

The First Thing About God:   The first and most foundational thing that the Bible ever says about who God is, is that he is creative–endlessly and brilliantly creative (Gen.1:1ff).  God is not creative because he is in some way lacking, he is creative because he loves to create.

What we see happening in Genesis, God’s method, is that He creates and then he fills.  So God creates light on the first day–but the light bearers he creates on the fourth day, fill and fulfill the purposes of the light God created.  God creates sky and sea on the second day–but the birds and fish that fill them he creates later, on the fifth day.  God creates dry land on the third day–but the animals on the sixth day.

The Spiritual Implications of God’s Creativity:  This way of creating is not just something God did way back when and then he went on to do something else.  Genesis is telling us something crucial about who God is–what he is like–what he does in our lives.

God, who created all that is (regardless of how he did that), also creates spiritual life in the soul.  Genesis, I think, intends for us to understand and make this connection.  God creates spiritual life or “awakening” and then develops that life–what the NT refers to as “zoe”–which is life, not only of body, but of spirit–wholeness of life.  God fills that life/that awakening with truth and mission and praise and hope and love.

~ God’s Creativity is Very Good:  It is clear from Genesis that God creates diversely, abundantly and beautifully.  Again and again, God proclaims the creation to be good–good in what it is (e.g. the physical world is beautiful, powerful, sustaining, full of resource and order).  Consequently, we should have an expectation that, what the New Testament describes as “The New Creation,” should follow along the same lines.  in other words, we should expect that God would be creating in us–moving us toward a spiritual beauty and power and order in our living and speaking and in the way we come to understand life.

~ God’s Creativity Points to a Larger View of Spirituality:  Without this basic understanding of the spiritual life, the expression of our faith becomes primarily negative–saying “No” to what is evil.  While this is an important part of spiritual living.  A definite turning away from what is toxic, evil, selfish, false is necessary and crucial, but it is only a part of what it means to be a spiritual person.

Obedience and life are also New Creation–a sensitivity to what God is doing in our hearts (attitudes and orientations) which affects all our lives.  Christian writers have described this as the unfolding of the person God made us to be.  So that part of what it means to know God is to be asking (through prayer and listening) what God is wanting to create in us.

God is Investing.

God Invests in Human Beings:  The second thing we see happening, beginning in Gen.1:26, is that God takes everything he made and gives it as a gift to human beings.  God gifts his own image–his likeness to human beings (male and female), and then he tells them to subdue and fill this new creation.  In other words, rather than keeping what he just made to himself and protecting it from outside influence, God gives this very good Creation to others to care for.

Spiritual Implications of God’s Investment:

~ The Image of Creativity:  There has been a lot of ink spilled about the meaning of “the image of God.”  However, in the context of Genesis one, that image is creative and good.  God creates diversely, beautifully, abundantly, and in an orderly way, that which is very good.

So it makes sense that God, having given the man and woman his image, would then command them to fill the earth: a reference to their physical procreating abilities to be sure, but obviously also much more than that.  The next time we see them (Genesis 2), they are in a garden, developing, cultivating, growing, creating, enjoying.

Spiritually, what is being said about human beings who are in the image of God is that they themselves are made to express God’s image and reflect his character by being creative in the many  ways God made them to be creative.  Our creative impulses and ventures, in themselves, bring glory to God.

This means that there is something profoundly spirituality about the creative ways in which we live and express our lives that are good (not necessarily religious).  Doing math, playing a sport, ordering a household, teaching a class, cutting hair, developing a property, raising children–when done in a way that seeks to express creativity, care, love, truth–brings honor to the Creative God whose image we are.  Creative life is, in itself, a spiritual pursuit in which we either imitate or reject the nature of God.

~ The Authority to Develop:  The image of God is also, obviously, about authority.  God commands the man and the woman to subdue the earth.  He gives them gifts and then says to them, in essence:  “You decide what to do–how to develop these gifts.  They are yours.”  God gives the humans authority over everything.  God wants them to develop and unfold the world.  It is the best possible gift, not a wearisome task, but the ultimate permission to do the very thing they want to do.

From a spiritual standpoint, this is shocking!  Under God, we have authority–the authority to take the gifts we have been given and to decide for ourselves how they are to be developed.  Obviously we would not want to develop them without reference to God and what is right.  And yet that gift is never recalled even after mankind falls.

God is Appreciative.

The Sacredness of Appreciation:  After God creates everything he rests (Gen.1:31-2:3).  He does not do this because he is tired or needs sleep.  Instead God stands back, looks creation over, sees that it is very good, and sets apart a day just to look back on it, enjoy it and think about it.  God sets this day apart as a day of appreciation–a time to stop working, to consider, to rejoice over his creative work.  This taking-in of what he has done is pure enjoyment.  It is his appreciation. It is his rest.

Spiritual Implications:

~ God is An Appreciator:  What is being said about God is that it is his basic/foundational character to appreciate the unfolding creativity of what he has made.  That creativity in action includes your life–that unfolding of the person you were created to be.  God loves that!  God has put his life-gift in you–entrusted you with it and delights in what your life is becoming. This is foundational to who God is and it does not change.  God made human beings is to delight in their creative, unfolding  lives.

~ The Rest of Appreciation:  Part of being those who know God and who bear his image is that we also live and develop most truly when we set apart sacred time to appreciate what God has done, and is doing, in us.  Without this sabbath, or sacred rest, life becomes a rat race.  In the absence of looking back at our lives in their creativity, and the recognition of what we have been entrusted with, life becomes flat and lacks real meaning.

In light of this it is clear why Jesus said to the Pharisees, whose view of Sabbath was enforced inactivity, that “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man.”  Jesus truly understood that, unless people have a time of sacred appreciation in which they can revel in the delight of God over their creative ventures, in which they can recognize this creative, entrusting, appreciating God, that they would never find rest and joy in life.