[Given our first hymn, the Collect of the Day and the readings from 2 Corinthians and the Gospel of Matthew,] Many of you have probably know that today is “Trinity Sunday”. As I said three years ago (on Zoom!)—today is “that Sunday when we celebrate our allegiance to our historic and common faith”. And, three years ago (as I’m sure many of you will remember), I quoted from the ancient “Creed of Saint Athanasius” (BCP, 864) :
There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
And, three years ago, I commented that “incomprehensible” is a pretty good description of the doctrine of the Trinity.
“Incomprehensible” is another—longer—word, in my mind, for “mysterious”. We Christians have a complicated relationship with the “mysterious”. We claim that the Trinity is a mystery. The Virgin Birth is a mystery. The Incarnation is a mystery. How Christ is present (or not) in the bread and wine is a mystery. And, yesterday, at the ordination of three new deacons, I was reminded by that day’s Collect that the church itself is a “wonderful and sacred mystery” (BCP, 280, 515, 528, 540) This morning, I’m not going to address any of those mysteries—especially the Trinity; I’ve tried before . . . [however successfully, I’ll learn on Judgment Day]. Instead, today, I’m going to look at other mysteries—made clear in the lessons from Genesis and the Psalms we heard this morning. And those mysteries are “Creation” in general, and, specifically, of humanity’s place within that creation.
All peoples from the beginning of recorded history have wondered, “How did we get here?”. And we’ve used every means at our disposal—from stories to mathematical formulae—to explain the mystery. Clearly, our current scientific explorations—including the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes and exploration satellites—are quests for answers to that question. And what many of us are seeing is that every new answer begets another question. As Frederick Buechner—the late Presbyterian writer/theologian—noted about the mystery of “one’s own self”: “The more you try to fathom it, the more fathomless it is revealed to be” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, HarperSanFrancisco 1993, 76).
But what we see in the first chapter of Genesis is a different kind of answer to the question “How did we get here?”. It was not meant to be scientific, but an attempt to answer another, more human, existential, question. “There is water. There’s dry land. There are lights in the sky. There’s vegetation. There are animals. We are here. How did it happen? And, most importantly, what does it mean?” And the Genesis answers came from a particular perspective, a religious perspective expressed poetically. Rather than the modern stories of the Big Bang and of evolution—stories of the survival of the fittest, stories of “what wins”—Genesis tells a story of a God who wants us to survive—to thrive—and who has placed us in a world where that is possible. In other words, Genesis goes beyond the question of simply “How did we get here?” to “Why are we here?”, and, then, equally important, “Who’s are we?”
The story we heard this morning doesn’t necessarily start with answering the question of “Why we’re here?”; it simply begins with the (rather flat) statement that God began to create. What we see is a process that produces order out of chaos. We see a progressive, continual, ordering and separating: God’s Spirit begins to calm chaos. And then comes the separation of light from darkness. A separation of the heavens and the “earth”. A separation of dry land from the waters. Then the earth and waters cease being barren— producing vegetation. And that make it possible for fish and birds, and then land creatures. And, finally, humans are brought forth: initial diversity: male and female. And humanity is given a reason for being. And, then, “creation” is done; “busy-ness” is over. And the final good act of creation—rest—takes place.
How did we get here? Genesis lays out the way from chaos to order; everything is put in place for us—for humans—to be here. Yes, the story of Genesis has humans as the culmination of creation. But there’s more to the answer of “Why are we here?” than simply to say that God wanted humans to be the “crown”.
The end of Genesis one gives us our marching orders. We, like other creatures, are to be fruitful and multiply. But, we, unlike other creature, have another task. In the language of Eucharistic Prayer D, which we used all during Easter-tide, we “in obedience to . . . our Creator . . . [are to] rule and serve all [God’s] creatures” (BCP, 373). In other words, we are commissioned to act as God’s regents; we are tasked to act in God’s stead to care for that “good” creation we just heard described. Genesis, chapter 1, then, tells us HOW we got here—the progression from chaos to order, and WHY we’re here—to be fruitful and multiply, and to rule and serve God’s creation. AND, it reminds us of WHOSE we are—we are here as God’s regents.To God belongs our allegiance and to God are we responsible for the carrying out of our mission.
And, if Genesis one didn’t make that process and relationship clear, it is driven home in Psalm 8. In this liturgical psalm, set for the evening service in the Temple, a cantor calls the congregation to remember that God is trustworthy and reliable: "You [God] have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, to quell the enemy and the avenger” (3). And in reply, we—the congregation—look up from the Temple courts into the night sky (no light pollution in those days), both in awe of what God has created, but also humbled by the task God has given us:
When [we] consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What [are humans] that you should be mindful of them? *
the [children of humans] that you should seek [us] out?
You have made [us] but little lower than the angels; *
you adorn [us ]with glory and honor;
You give [us] mastery over the works of your hands; *
you put all things under [our] feet . . . (BCP, 592)
The psalmist reminds us that we are here because God put us here. And we—awestruck—recognize our role. And, contemplating that which is so much beyond us, we are humbled. Our awe at what God has created, and our place in that creation demands that we behave in ways that show we respect the integrity of the world God has made. We are little lower than the angels, but God has set us the task of caring for the “works of God’s hands”. As we heard from Genesis, we are here at God’s behest; we are God’ regents; we wear God’s crown in this world God has made.
“Wearing God’s crown in this world God has made” means caring for it as God—the God who called creation “good”— cares for it. “Dominion”, as we often hear Genesis 1.28 translated, doesn’t mean “domination”. Good monarchs—divine or human—know their responsibility for their realm. God would not exploit a good creation; on the contrary God would conserve it. We—God’s regents, God’s co-creators—have the same responsibility; we are to be stewards, not consumers or abusers. We are called to restore the crown to our co-regency.
There is a “mystery” to creation. As we bow—and some of us literally do, in our liturgy—in recognition of the mystery of the Incarnation; as we bow in reverence of the mystery of bread and wine made flesh and blood; as we bow in reverence to the mystery of the Trinity . . . we bow in reverence to the mystery of creation. We bow in humility before the God who created all that is around us. We bow in humility before the God in whose image we are created. And we bow in humility and obedience to the God who calls us to fulfill our responsibility to share in caring for, a very good creation.
Amen.