God’s Earth: Our Common Home

Genesis 1-2:4

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
April 16, 2023
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

In 2014 Matthew McConaughey started a science fiction film called “Interstellar.” The premise of the movie was that earth, about 100 years hence was becoming increasingly uninhabitable. The farming was almost impossible, food was scarce so NASA began exploring other possible inhabitable planet somewhere and they had a couple in mind.

They used a wormhole to travel across the universe and they went to one of the two places and discovered they was a violent ocean, totally uninhabitable so they traveled again the vast space and time and they got to other only to discover that it was an icy desert with ammonia filled atmosphere, a frozen world, and so in the end, humanity was preserved, not by finding another planet on which to live and settle, but by a artificial space habitat orbiting around the planet Saturn that used technology that gives people who live on it a sense that they were living on earth’s beauty that they had lived once upon a time, to appear real.

I’m not sure the message the makers of the movie had in mind, but it occurred to me, we already have a perfectly beautiful place. It is designed for all kinds of life to flourish, not just ours.

So it makes sense to take the one that we already have and to take care of it and to enjoy it and to appreciate it, rather than searching in vain all through the universe for some other place to live or depending upon technology to somehow take care of us and build and inferior limitation. Doesn’t that make better sense, to care for what God has given us.

Today is the 9th anniversary of the death of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), author of “100 Years of Solitude” and “Love in a Time of Cholera.” Reflecting on his signature work, essayist William Kennedy said, “Second to the book of Genesis, “100 Years of Solitude” ought to be required reading of all human race.” I think Genesis and the entire word of God ought to be in our minds and thoughts daily.

I don’t know how long it’s been since you read Genesis, chapter one, this simple, elegant, beautiful cadence of poetry in the first chapter of the Bible describes God’s act of power creation.

It’s a beautiful poem, the orderly structure: days one, two and three corresponds with days four, five and six. What is created on day one corresponds with day four, two with five, three with six, so orderly, it is beautiful.

There’s this simple, “Let there be” and there was” that flows from the lips of God and is repeated again and again and again in that form. There’s this steady “And there was evening and there was morning, day one; and there was evening and there was morning, day two, to the end of each stance. And there is this joyful statement, “And God saw what he created and it was good,” it pleased God, He took joy in what he had done there.

I don’t know how long it has been since you’ve read this poem, but I’m going to read it in its entirety, Genesis, chapter one thru Genesis, chapter two, verse four.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the water.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.

God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.

God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so

The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.

God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.

God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

The next few weeks we’re going to be thinking about creation and our place in it as part of God’s act of good creation. I’d like for us to think about what it means for us as Christian people, followers of Jesus Christ, responsibly, here in our common home.

I like that phrase, “Our common home.” Pope Frances used that phrase “Our common home” in an encyclical about five years ago as he talked about some of the issues we were facing on planet earth. He called it, “Our common home,” one we share with each other and with all the other creatures on the planet. But in fact, it’s not a common place, is it? It’s a very uncommon world.

God called this universe into begin some 13.8 billion years ago. He spunk it into existence. Some astrophysicists say that as many as ten trillion galaxies were flung out into the emptiness of space in that moment of creation, in that powerful event.

If each one of the galaxies is even approximately the size of our own, each one of them has 100 billion stars in it. And the number of stars in the universe would be expressed in terms of one followed by 24 zeros’, that’s a lot of power and a lot of creation.

About four and a half billion years ago, God’s creative power called this solar system into existence. He set the planets orbiting around one of the stars we call “the sun.” And about 3.8 billion years ago, on one of those planets he began to work that providential journey toward life that would lead over time to human beings created in his image, made for relationship with him, bearing his own breath breathed into it.

We share this beautiful home with 8.7 billion species of animals and plants. It’s a marvelous place and a degree of interdependence among the species is just a wonder and we are part of all of this.

Look all around you, see what the Creator and King has made. Be in awe of his Creation and give him praise and honor.

The book of Genesis, in particular coalesces beautiful with science, where is the contradiction? A close friend of mine said that his son-in-law does not believe in God, he believes in science. Well, science points us to creation and religion points us to Creator.

This week Dr. Greg Reichhardt, my physiatrist, specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation commented that Fr. Greg Ames of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church at CSU said, “Whether it’s science that discovers it or Scripture that reveals it, God is the Creator.”

I wholeheartedly concur. God is Creator and He is King and worthy of our awe and adoration. When last were you awed of our Creator and King? Many of us are like Martha who was constantly busy trying to impress Christ with her work and Christ rebuked her: “Martha, slow down, Mary has chosen the good part.” When Mary chose the good portion, she was choosing to keep her priorities straight, and that resulted in Jesus, the Messiah, receiving her full and undivided attention and affection. She was choosing to sit at his feet, listen to his words, and have a full, unbroken view of his face. When last were you in awed of your Creator and King?

All across the Bible, God is a king. Jesus began his ministry in Matthew’s Gospel with the proclamation, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He taught us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33) and to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). When he returns, his name will be “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

For many in our culture, by contrast, God is a “Big Pal” who exists to “help out with things.” How do you know which is true for you?

If God is only your Father, you can disobey him. If he is your Savior, you can trust him for your salvation but reject his word in other areas of life. But if he is truly your king, you have to do what he says.

In fact, the best way to know whether God is your king is to measure the degree to which you do what he says when you don’t want to. When last did you do something you didn’t want to do, or stop doing something you wanted to do, purely out of obedience to Jesus?

The fact is that the more we make God our king, the more we experience his best in our lives. And the more we experience his best, the more we impact our culture with his transforming power and grace.

Our secular culture, by separating God from life, is missing the life only God can give. Let’s refuse to join them.

In his small but helpful book Intimacy with the Almighty, Chuck Swindoll quotes this Puritan prayer of confession and commitment:

When you would guide me I control myself.
When you would be sovereign I rule myself.
When you would take care of me I suffice myself.

When I should depend on your providings I supply myself.
When I should submit to your providence I follow my will.

When I should study, honor, trust you, I serve myself;
I fault and correct your laws to suit myself.
Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to You.

What is your “chief design” today?