Monday 4 December 2017

Life Is (Not) Good (Genesis 1-2)


(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on December 3, 2017, Advent I)



Something’s Missing

If today you stepped foot inside any store, or flipped on the television, or tuned in to any radio station, you’d think Christmas was already here.  But it’s not here in the church.  Not yet.

In the church, it is Advent.  Advent is the season of “not yet.”  Advent is a little bit like an appetizer, where you have just enough food to realize that you’re hungry.  It’s a little bit like a first date, where you spend just enough time with someone to realize that you’d like more.  It’s a little bit like a kick in the womb, where you feel just enough to know that there is much more to come.  In other words, in Advent, we know just enough to know that is something is missing.  We know that there is something more.  And we want it.  We watch for it.  We wonder about it.  We wait for it.

The Story of Us All

I’m excited that this year we will have an Advent pageant!  I’m even more excited that one of our very own, David K., has written it.  It premieres on the third Sunday of Advent—two Sundays from now.  (So make sure to book your seat soon!)

You’ve probably already seen a Christmas pageant or two in your life—with shepherds and angels and wise men and a star and of course Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus.  But this pageant will be a little bit different.  This is Advent, remember.  This is the season of “not yet.” 

Before the big event, before the shepherds and angels and wise men arrive on the scene, there is a lot of watching and wondering and waiting.  The gospels of Matthew and Luke start their story with the parents of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Together Mary and Joseph must journey through a personal season of Advent, a time of “not yet.”  First they watch as angels appear and give them an incredible message; next they wonder at the news, perplexed and pondering the impossible; then they wait for the birth of the child as all parents must.

But our Advent pageant will take us back even further than Mary and Joseph.  Because according to the gospel of John, the story begins a lot earlier.  “In the beginning was the Word,” John says.  “All things came into being through him” (John 1:1, 3).  For John, the story of Advent is not simply the story of Mary and Joseph.  Advent is the story of the universe.  It is the story of us all.

First Things First: Life Is Good

Let’s go back to the beginning ourselves.

From the book of Genesis, chapter 1:

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.

Then God created the light, and saw that it was good.  And God created plants, and saw that it was good.  And God created the sun and the moon and the stars, and saw that it was good.  And God created animals, and saw that it was good.  Then God created humankind in God’s image, and saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.[1]

The very first words of our Bible are gospel.  Creation is good news.  All that God has created is good, very good.

The funny thing is, today, you are more likely to hear this part of the gospel outside the church than in it.  “Life is good”?  That’s now the slogan of outdoor enthusiasts and festival-going families and flip-flop-wearing folks on their vacation.  You’ve seen the shirts, right?  Of course, the cynical side of me wonders if these shirts, which have become the face of American optimism, are not celebrating comfort and convenience more than they are life itself.  I wonder if the people proclaiming “life is good” are not the same people who can afford to be optimistic, who can afford to go on vacations or take leisurely hikes—who can, in short, afford to live the good life.

Even if that’s the case, I think we people of faith can take a page from the world.  Or rather, we can reclaim this page, a page that belongs at the beginning of our story.  And perhaps we can rediscover what this page really means. 

Is “life is good” really just a slogan of the well-off?  Or does it reach further than the fortunate?  I cannot help but remember the way that a certain homeless and persecuted Judean celebrated and affirmed life.  I remember how when he spoke of God, he did not dream of an escape to a celestial otherworld: he spoke about life here.  He spoke of the serenity of the birds, the grace of wild flowers, the sun that rises on us all, and the rain that falls on us; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts.  You can almost hear the echo of creation in this man’s life.  It is good.  It is good.  Indeed, it is very good.

Let us never forget: this is the first word in our gospel.  Life is good.

The One Thing That Is Not Good

And yet, that is not the complete tale of creation either.

For after God has created everything and has seen that everything is good, there comes an unexpected complication.  According to the next chapter of Genesis, when the Lord God saw that the human was alone, the Lord God said, “It is not good.” 

In other words, there is only one thing in all of creation that is not good, according to Genesis.  And it is not so much a thing as it is an absence.  What is not good is being alone.  Separated.  Disconnected.  The church has developed a heavy and complicated doctrine that it calls sin.  But I wonder if sin isn’t simply another way of talking about the only thing in creation that is not good: being alone.

Being alone is more than loneliness.  It is the illusion that we must make it on our own.  Being alone is expressed in a number of ways: greed, distrust, despair, fear, violence.  These are attitudes and behaviors that seek the goodness of life not in creation around us but in the elevation of ourselves through possessions or prominence or power.  So the first humans took the forbidden fruit, thinking it would give them something they did not possess.  So Cain killed Abel, thinking this would restore his pride.  So the world became increasingly violent, thinking that power over others could secure the good life for themselves.

What Hope Do We Have?

But what does any of this have to do with Advent?  Why does the gospel of John take us all the way back to creation?

Maybe it’s because the story of creation is the story of all of us.  Deep down, we know that life is good.  The warms rays of the sun are good.  The gentle kiss of the rain is good.  The pine trees and the holly bushes are good. The scampering squirrels and jumping juncos are good.  The mountains and rivers and oceans are good. 

But we also know that life is not good.  Which is to say, we are sometimes alone.  Death has deprived us of loved ones.  Disease tugs at some bodies and pulls them further and further from the world.  Conflict cuts off friend from friend and divides families against themselves.  It’s bad.  It’s not good.

What hope do we have?

Our hope this Advent season goes back all the way to creation.  Our hope is in the God who sees and knows when life is not good. And God’s response is telling. 

Here’s how Genesis puts it: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner’” (2:18).

When God saw that life was not good, God did not make everything around the human somehow better—more foolproof, more flawless, more gratifying.  God gave the human a companion, so that the human would not face life alone.  And that, I believe, is the appetizer of Advent, the first date, the kick in the womb.  From the creation story, we know just enough to know that there is more to come.  We know that whenever we are alone in the world, God does not stand idly by.  Nor does God respond with an instantaneous fix.  God gives us a simple gift: each other.

An Even Wilder Hope

Whisper it for now, because God only knows what will happen…but the prophet Isaiah has dared to proclaim an even wilder hope.  First he tells us what we already expect: that God will give us a companion.  But listen to the name Isaiah gives this companion: Emmanuel (7:14; 8:8).  God with us.”  Could it be?  That God would not simply give us a companion, but would somehow become our companion?  And I don’t mean just two thousand years ago, in the story of Mary and Joseph.  I mean now.  Could this be true in our lives?  Emmanuel, “God with us”? 

We watch, and we wonder, and we wait.

Prayer

O God our Hope,
We know deep down
That life is good.
But we also feel alone—
And that is not good.
This Advent,
We watch and wonder and wait
For your response.
Please do not leave us alone.
Amen.




[1] Abridged and paraphrased.

No comments:

Post a Comment