Creation & Invitation
TRINITY SUNDAY
Genesis 1:1-2:4a • Canticle 13 • 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 • Matthew 28:16-20
As we seek to understand the world around us, even our most contemporary observations and studies eventually take us to the beginning. Where do we come from? What is our origin? A child wants to know about their birth story. In premarital counseling we talk about our family history to know where we come and whom we come from to gain insight as to what our patterns and tendencies might be. In plants and animals, we study seeds and fertility to learn about…well, just about everything we can. Religious traditions are no different. In the fourth year of Education for Ministry, the emphasis on theology is a practical one: among other things, our understanding of God shapes how we view our purpose in life and how we relate to one another. In religion, too, we focus on the beginning, our origin story, to guide our way forward.
In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants, Potawatomi citizen, mother, scientist, and decorated professor Robin Wall Kimmerer begins her book with a Preface that is an invitation to receive the stories she has to tell (and they are so beautifully told!). The first chapter, “Skywoman Falling,” is the origin story, as she adapts it from oral tradition, of the creation of our planet, “Turtle Island” as it is called among many. This story, however, is about more than the origin of our earth. She writes, “The story of Skywoman’s journey …holds our beliefs, our history, and our relationships.…Images of Skywoman speak not just of where we came from, but also of how we can go forward.” [1]
On this Trinity Sunday, I recognize the gift we have to think about how we understand our beginnings–from the very beginning of Creation and of our beloved Church.
In the beginning, there was a formless void and depth over which God called forth what was to be, which was created and was named. Creation is, and it is good; it is blessed. Indeed, everything that was created is “very good.” Have you noticed in all the times you have heard or read this story, that God puts forth the intention, that the idea is given shape and form, and the creation is given a name. It’s no wonder that we like everything to be named, labeled, and understood. Those of us who have grown up in the Christian church or Abrahamic traditions have been told from the beginning that all of creation is given a name, is blessed with a word.
There are a few words in our origin story that I want to draw particular attention to: the first couple which has been given perhaps too much attention and one not enough.
Those of you particularly passionate about stewardship and care of Creation are probably keenly aware of the problems that have arisen because of the words “subdue” and “dominion.” When it comes to how we relate with Creation, that God wanted humankind to “subdue” the earth and granted “dominion” quickly gives rise to problems when such power is used to the detriment of what has been dominated and not to mutual benefit. The distortion of presuming that those who have been granted the responsibility of stewardship have power over, including over the One who has created, leads quickly to the path of idolatry and greed, prominent sins of our time and through all time.
As much as the dominant in Christian society like to emphasize the God-given directive to rule over, there’s relative silence over God creating in God’s image, as is spoken. Neglect of emphasizing that God said, “‘Let us make humankind in our image’” (Gen 1:26, emphasis added), allows us to carry on through the years in a gendered, binary view of God. As Dr. Wil Gafney pointed out for us during the Tippy McMichael lecture, she focuses on feminine pronouns and images of God because not doing so for millennia has distanced many from God, and she named that to go to the inclusive pronoun of they/them for God would be a step that not many are ready or able to make. God—the royal We, the Holy Trinity—created in their Divine image. All of us. The entirety of Creation. And it is good. It is blessed. It is enough.
Even with care, sustenance, and blessing from God as fundamental in our origin and belief, the stories throughout our Holy Scripture and our history reveal how we have ebbed and flowed in living in right relationship with God and one another. Distorted power between us, violence among us, and outright aggression create a distance between us and from a loving God, as if we were closer to our original void than a benevolent Creator. In the presence of the resurrected Christ, even some of the eleven disciples doubted. They had such hope in Jesus, that things would change. Life felt different in the physical presence of the Son of God. When he was crucified, that hope was dashed. Dare they hope again? Even receiving a command from one who has all authority in heaven and on earth, would it make a difference? Could we make a difference? Could I make a difference? Many of us have been baptized in the name of our triune God. We are disciples. We have been given commands and share in the teachings of Christ. Christ is with us until the end of the age. Yet, don’t some of us still doubt?
Of course we do. While Paul quaintly tells us to “put things in order,” to “agree with one another,” and to “live in peace,” that’s fine if he means to get along with those we already get along with, but that’s not what he means. Getting along with one another is good in our existing, loving relationships. Those relationships show us what is possible, even for with those whom we disagree, outright dislike, and want to hate. What is hate but a distortion of love? We hate that which we cannot tolerate, and we often hate that which we fear. I do not pretend to understand what you may hate, but I will say that my experience has been that when I think I hate something, if I look at it deeply enough, if I trace it back as far as I can, even if it involves some imagination, I can find what was broken, what was separated from love, what was abused or stripped of dignity, care, and respect. I find the suffering and realize that that suffering is mine, too, not because I caused it but because we are neighbors—we are kin to one another in this kin-dom of Creation. Now what do I do with that?
I could separate myself from that which hurts, identifying it as your problem/their problem/not my problem. Heaven forbid their suffering actually be linked to a suffering I have experienced, too. What do we do with that? What do we do that is mutually lifegiving, loving, and liberating for all? The truth-telling and the reckoning necessary for healing and for true peace are not easy, but the invitation is ours to extend and to receive. Why? Why is the invitation ours? Because Creation, as God created it, is good and blessed. We, in our thoughts, words, and deeds, have at some point chosen to distort or not to recognize our kinship, including our relationship with God as our first and foremost love, and, because the well-being of Creation is given to our care, it is our mutual responsibility to make sure we are all restored to union with God. That unity is the mission of our church. Our history guides us going forward, not specifically but generally. We move forward in communion, with God and one another. It’s in our creation to be together, to share with one another. It’s in our covenant to work together to manifest the community of heaven on earth. It’s in our blessing to be in unity, of one mind and one spirit.
Wall Kimmerer wrote her book with knowledge of what has transpired through history. She invites us into the precious, sacred stories of her people knowing that there are those who have tried to erase them, that there are still those who are desecrating Creation as we speak. She knows what others know, too: indigenous ways are key to saving Turtle Island, this fragile earth, our island home. Their ways are bound in relationship to one another, not only among humans but also between humans and animals and plants, land and water, sky and spirit…everything connected, especially in Spirit.
This way of connection is in our tradition, too. Only somewhere along the way, we fell into the mindset that our well-being was affirmed by our comfort rather than the well-being of ourselves among creation, the physical and the spiritual. But the way Jesus shows us is not to focus inward, on ourselves or even on the law alone. Jesus was always pushing folks outside their comfort zone and into healthy relationship, into communion. Do the thing you think you cannot do. Imagine what you cannot conceive. Risk it all. What do you have to lose? More importantly, what do you have to gain?
We do not live isolated from one another…at least, we do not thrive in isolation. Part of the ineffable grace of Jesus Christ is the invitation, the way into the fullness of relationship with God, which reciprocally, somehow, brings us more closely into relationship with one another—abundant love is like that. In union with God is the fullness of joy, of being, of peace that passes all understanding and exceeds all imagining. If we’re paying attention, we might recognize the communion of the Holy Spirit in the midst of it all, moving among us with the power that strengthens us and attunes us to God’s dream for us. I dare not try to explain how God is three in one and one in three, but as I live and move and have my being, I believe that we are all wonderfully made, beautifully loved, and divinely inspired and that we have the ability—and responsibility—to continue revealing God’s love and care for all Creation as we move forward.
[1] Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions: Minneapolis, MN, 2013, p. 5.
© 2023 The Rev. Sara Milford
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas