(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 11, 2017, Trinity Sunday)
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Talking to Plants…
Have you ever known someone who talks to plants? Not in a silly or make-believe way, but in earnest—in the same sincere way that some people talk to their pets. One of my friends in Sheffield, Katka, talks to plants. She asks them each morning how they rested. She speculates idly on the weather with them, and she commiserates as best she can when they are dry and thirsty or wilting and needful of sunlight. She shares with them her joys and her sorrows, telling them, for instance, about a wonderful book she has just finished or a cooking misfortune that she is still grieving.
When I first witnessed Katka speaking seriously to her plants, I must admit that I questioned her mind. Her conversation seemed rather silly and one-sided to me. But as I became more accustomed to it, my feeling changed. I began to hear in her odd dialogue the echo of something ancient and sacred. To talk to the plants as though they could listen, as though they could respond, as though they grew by love—was this not how everything began?
…Is Sort of How It All Began
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” In other words, God does not create something out of nothing. God begins with some material: the nameless, anonymous elements of the dark deep and the windswept waters.
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’” That’s curious. It’s not a snap of the fingers or a wave of the magic wand. It’s not even a blunt command. It’s a call, an invitation, a request. “Let there be light.” And then, if you can believe it, there is a response. “And there was light.”
That was the first day. The third day is my favorite. If I thought that my friend Katka was crazy, the third day made me reconsider. If she’s crazy, she’s just as crazy as God; she’s no more foolish than the Creator:
“Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation…’…. And the earth brought forth vegetation…. And God saw that it was good” (1:11-12).
Cause versus Call
In the past, I used to think of God as an architect or a master chef, a solitary expert who invented things and imperiously put them in their place. God was the Cause. Creation was a construction project.
But that’s not how the book of Genesis tells the story. According to Genesis, God looks less like a builder and more like my friend Katka, whispering lovingly to her plants. God is not so much a Cause as a Call. God does not impose, but rather invites. If God were simply an architect or a chef, someone who worked from scratch, then there would be little need to say anything. It’s almost too easy to miss, but the very fact that God speaks signals that creation is not simply a divine construction project. Creation is a dialogue, a call and a response.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German nun of the thirteenth century, once prayed: “I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.” It is a beautiful and accurate image for the mystery of creation. Life is a dance with God. God makes the first move—an invitation—and creation responds. God takes the first step, and creation follows with a step of its own.
Mechanics versus Meaning
Our modern world obsesses over creation as a matter of mechanics. How did it happen? What was its cause? It reads Genesis the same way it would a science textbook, looking for facts and figures and proofs.
The Bible, on the other hand, holds creation reverently in its fingertips, like a mystery, like a gift. It cares little for the mechanics but much for the meaning. What is the truth of creation? Where is its beauty? Is it good or bad?
If we read the creation story as the Bible tells it, as a tale immemorial steeped in mystery and meaning, its message becomes pretty obvious. Any English teacher worth her salt will tell you to pay attention to the words and images that are repeated in a story. These often point to its theme, its subject, its message. The repetition in the creation story is unmistakable.
There is a call. There is a response. It is good.
There is a call. There is a response. It is good.
What is the meaning of creation? It’s not that God created this before that, or that before this. It’s not that God created the earth five thousand years ago or five billion years ago. It’s not that humans evolved from apes or dinosaurs never existed. It’s that God—a little bit like my friend Katka who talks to plants—began talking to things. God called, cajoled, invited. “Let there be! Let there be!” And things responded. They grew, they bore fruit, they moved this way and that in a beautiful dance. Such was God’s delight at this dance of life, that at the end of every day, God ended the dialogue with a word of blessing: “It is good.”
The Trinity: Call, Response, and Conversation
Today is Trinity Sunday, a day when we celebrate the mystery of God in the three persons of God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. Many a theologian has lost his job—a few even their lives—trying to explain the trinity. I trust that you will not be so harsh an audience!
In today’s scripture, God is clearly the Call. God is an invitation, a summons, a request—“May I have this dance?” If God is the Call, then Jesus is the Response. Jesus takes God up on God’s invitation: “Thy will be done.” Or, “Yes, let’s dance!” Theologians call Jesus the “incarnation” of God, which is just a big fancy word to say that Jesus is the body of God, which is itself a creative way to say that Jesus is the existence to God’s insistence. God insists. Jesus exists. God calls. Jesus responds. And the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the conversation: it is a listening posture; it is the trust and vulnerability that empower conversation.
Joining the Dance
All of creation is a dance of the trinity, a dance into which we are always invited. We see this clearly in Genesis 1. Creation grows from a holy call and response, a “Let there be…and there was,” one step met by another step. Over the course of history, we have made a series of stumbles and missteps—the church calls this sin. The good news, though, is that God continues to call, and Jesus continues to respond, and the dance is being restored. The church calls this salvation.
And faith—faith is simply another word for responding with Jesus, for taking God’s hand and dancing. The blessing that God pronounces over creation—“It is good, very good”—is a call for our response. Faith is about countersigning God’s “It is good” with our own “Yes, it is good.” Faith is about taking God’s offered hand and dancing even as the world stumbles. We see this most clearly in Jesus, who proclaims life in the face of death, blessing in the face of brokenness.
We see the dance also in Katka, who takes God’s hand and affirms “It is good” as she blesses her plants. We see the dance among teachers who bless children, doctors and nurses who bless the sick, volunteers who bless the imprisoned, communities who bless strangers. We see the dance of faith wherever the Call of God is met with the Response of Christ. We see it wherever God’s blessing, “It is good,” echoes in us as it echoed in Christ: not only in word but in body and blood.
Prayer
Holy Dance,
In whom all creation finds life:
Sweep us off our feet
Into your rhythm of goodness;
Inspire us to trust
That your blessing
Is deeper than pain and brokenness,
So that we may respond like Christ
And accept your invitation to dance.
Amen.
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