Order, Words, & Voices
09.10.23, Rivers, Genesis 2:4-25
Order
Pre Worship Music
Opening Song Lynn & Team
Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise
All Hail the Power of Jesus Name
Call to Worship Response/Lord’s Prayer Rick
Reading Genesis 1:4-25 Segun
Songs Lynn & Team
Morning Has Broken
Psalm 23
Message Rivers Genesis 1:4-25 Rick
Music Lynn and Team
Breathe on Me, Breath of God
Community/Peace Rick
Benediction/Closing Peace Rick
Post Worship Music
Music (slides) – Lynn and Team
Immortal invisible God only wise
In light inaccessible Hid from our eyes
Most blessed most glorious
The Ancient of Days
Almighty victorious
Thy great name we praise
To all life thou givest To both great and small
In all life thou livest The true life of all
We blossom and flourish
As leaves on the tree
And wither and perish
But naught changeth thee
Great Father of glory Pure Father of light
Thine angels adore thee All veiling their sight
All praise we would render
O help us to see
‘Tis only the splendor
Of light hideth thee
All hail the pow’r of Jesus’ name
Let angels prostrate fall
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of all
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of all
Let ev’ry kindred ev’ry tribe
On this terrestrial ball
To Him all majesty ascribe
And crown Him Lord of all
To Him all majesty ascribe
And crown Him Lord of all
O that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall
We’ll join the everlasting song
And crown Him Lord of all
We’ll join the everlasting song
And crown Him Lord of all
Call to Worship (Slides) – Rick
Leader: For the marvelous grace of your Creation, we pour out our thanks to You, our God.
Response: We praise you, O Lord for plants growing in earth and water, for life inhabiting lakes and seas
Leader: We praise you, O Lord, for life creeping in soils and land, for creatures living in wetlands and waters.
Response: We praise you for life flying above earth and sea, for animals dwelling in woods and fields.
Leader: How many and wonderful are your works, our God! In wisdom you have made them all!
Response: But we confess, O Lord, that we often choose arrogance, ignorance, comfort, and greed over caring for Your Creation.
Leader: Your creation, O Lord, reveals who you are.
Response: You are God.
Leader: Your creation, O Lord, reveals your character and your nature.
Response: You are God.
Leader: Your creation, O Lord, reveals that you are the creator, the provider, the protector, the and the orchestrator of the heavens and the earth, you are the present and your are our God.
Response: You are God, you are love.
Leader: You, O God, are present in the garden and in the wilderness, you are with us in the times of joy and the times of pain, you are the God of harmony and the God of deliverance.
Response: O God, you are present in our striving, our failing, our seeking, and our searching. You are God.
Lord’s Prayer (Slides) – Rick
Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, while we forgive those who trespass against us. And, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Reading Segun
The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground,
but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river or stream flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four rivers.
The name of the first river is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.
The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush.
The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (Genesis 2:4b-15, NRSU)
Music (Slides) Lynn and Team
Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world
Sweet the rains new fall, sunlit from Heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day
I sought the Lord and He answered me
And delivered me from every fear
Those who look on Him are radiant
They’ll never be ashamed
They’ll never be ashamed
This poor man cried and the Lord heard me
And saved me from my enemies
The Son of God surrounds His saints
He will deliver them
He will deliver them
Magnify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name together
Glorify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name forever
O taste and see that the Lord is good
O blessed is he who hides in Him
O fear the Lord O all you saints
He’ll give you everything
He’ll give you everything
Magnify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name together
Glorify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name forever
Let us bless the Lord
Every day and night
Never ending praise
May our incense rise
Let us bless the Lord
Every day and night
Never ending praise
May our incense rise
Magnify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name together
Glorify the Lord with me
Come exalt His name forever
Message (Slides) Rick
[Leave slides up for entire message]
[Slide] ‘Genesis is an origin story: a prosaic telling of how things came to be the way they are.’ (Wil Gafney, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas)
[Slide] As things came to be, we they, as we, became. Today we begin our journey of understanding the path of ‘Becoming’, so we begin with the origin of our becoming path – Genesis 1-3, the story of the ‘Becoming’, creation, as well as the ‘Becoming’ of the relationship of God and Humans. If we begin here, looking closely, not just at what we have been taught to look at, taught to see, but instead to truly look, we will have a clearer perspective of all we are going to see all the way through Lent and the Resurrection. This is the story, the path, that Paul described when he wrote to the church at Corinth, saying, ‘for our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ (II Cor 5:21)
[Slide] ‘The story, [of the first three chapters of Genesis], is as much about God as it is about humans for it sets up the equation that will be played out again and again in the Bible. The people disobey and God provides a new way.’ (Beth L. Tanner, Professor of Old Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, NJ)
[Slide] Believers divide over their interpretations of the first three chapters of Genesis. Divide, not discuss, not respectfully disagree, not consider, not research, not investigate, they divide, they separate, and in doing so, they shun the other. Sadly, in taking this path, we/they miss the first hints of God, who God is, how lovingly God relates to us and to all of creation, how God compassionately provides and cares, we miss the first evidences of God’s extravagant grace. Instead we divide – just like we divide over our interpretations of eschatology, end times. How odd is it that it is in these beginnings and endings that we choose to divide and separate. God gave us these stories of beginning and ending to bring us to epiphanical revelations in our journey of ‘Becoming the Righteousness of Christ.’
In my own early days of professional ministry, it was not uncommon to sit and voice our own individual thoughts and questions in regard to beginning and ending questions. Respect was our primary boundary, not man made dogmatic doctrines. We were not limited to what we were allowed to say and think in regard to reading passages such as Genesis 1-3. And, ironically, it was in unboundaried freedom to consider and fearlessly voice our considerations, we saw God in ways we seldom see when our heart and intellectual freedoms have been restricted and limited.
Let’s take one small section from the creation story to see what we are missing.
[Slide] “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living person.” (Genesis 2:7, NASV)
We commonly interpret the hebrew word ‘Adam’ as ‘man’, as in ‘male’, as in the gender of being a male human. However, it is actually a much larger word, it is humankind, or humanity. Adam was the first human. Right off, here in chapter two, in this zooming in of the creation story, we see God create Humanity, humans. But what is really significant here is the how of God’s creation of Humans. He does it from the dirt, more specifically from the dust. We do not see this in the chapter one human creation account but here it is. From the dirt, actually, or even the formed dust of the dirt.
[Slide] Dirt, the first element that we seek to rid ourselves of when we are cleaning our house. Dirt, the primarily element needed for most farmers to plant and grow their crops. Dirt, whose primarily component is formed by the decomposition of leaves and other plant material by soil microorganisms. Dirt, whose multitude of cells are capable of giving rise to several different cell types. Cells, capable of duplicating and creating other, same, cells. Dirt, upon which God first walked. Dirt the element Jesus mixed with his own saliva to heal the blind man’s sight. Dirt, the canvas upon which Jesus’ painted the gift of grace to the woman caught in the act of adultery.
Dirt, an intentional act of God in the creative process. An intentional lesson to us to recognize the immensity of God’s grace to choose us, humans, made from the dust of the dirt, to be God’s people. Dust, vacuumed up and added to our trash, yet, it is with dirt that God chose to relate.
[Slide] And then there was Eve. Who was created from Adam’s side, not from a rib but from his very being. A duplicate. Different but the same. Adam remained known as ‘Dirt’ or ‘Adam’, and the woman is not named until after both of these first humans chose to reject God as God. The woman was named ‘Eve’ by ‘Adam’ because, as he saw it, she was the mother of all things – in a time when before neither had experienced the process or journey of a mother or a father. Even before there was the reality of childbirth.
Eve, the other, was created after God saw that nothing else, no other creation, in all of creation was a suitable partner for Adam. Not a servant or a lesser human, but an equal suitable to be a protector, an encourager, a true equal partner, a companion, a giver and receiver of love, a human who would live out the human experience along side the other. Both fully invested, both mutually selfless, both fully sacrificial, both striving to be there with and for the other. God provided this partner, this ‘suitable other’ so that Adam, and Eve, would not be alone, isolated, vulnerable, and hopeless.
Get the revelation here, God had said that they would surely die if they disobeyed, when they did disobey, there was not an immediate anger motivated death. Death would come, as we know earthly death comes for us all. However, iIn the immediate, God gave them protection, even in the exile from the garden God still gave them hope.
[Slide] According to Old Testament scholar Beth Tanner, ‘the climax of the creation story is seen in verses 21-24 of chapter 3. God does not destroy Adam and Eve as the warning seemed to say. God instead makes them clothes and sends them out of the garden. There were consequences for their disobedience to God. However, God chooses not to destroy and instead to tend to the new needs of the wayward children. It is here that the way to the cross is set. God says “I will not execute my fierce anger . . . for I am God and not a mortal” (Hosea 11:9).’ (Beth L. Tanner, Professor of Old Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, NJ)
While I will agree that the creation narrative sets up the journey to the cross and even more so the resurrected Christ, we also must not miss the big picture perspective of God that is taking place in the midst of the creation. Detailed in verses 10-14 of chapter 2, squeezed in between God’s creation of ‘every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food as well as the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ and God’s placement of Adam in the garden we see another, long term earthly and physical provision of God –
[Slide] ‘ A river or stream flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four rivers. The name of the first river is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.’
[Slide] God provides a stream that waters the plants and produce of the garden then that stream divides into four rivers which will be the water source for what will be all of humanity for the entirety of the Bible.
Water for all humanity to come. Dirt and the connection of human to the dirt, even with all the cells and nutrients of the dirt can do little, if anything, without water. The one thing essential to the existence and to the journey of humans and dirt. Water, the provision given as God looked ahead to identify and then, proactively, provide.
[Slide] Native American tribes, bipartisan politicians and environmentalists alike, cheered recently at the proclamation of the establishment of the (Bajj Ne Wav Joe) Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni monument. Encompassing parts of the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and other land for a total of almost 100,000 acres. Land on which native people declare that it bears their ‘ancestral footprints.’ Land that has long been home to wildlife like bison, elk, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, and rare cactus species. This protected area encompasses plateaus, canyons, the Colorado River tributaries, making it the holder of countless culturally and spiritually significant sites for the Indigenous peoples of the Southwest. A land which was to them is holy.
One indigenous speaker, at the monument declaration, described the sacredness and holiness of the canyon, especially citing the existence of the water flowing through the canyon. Water, the crucial life giving element of creation, Given as it flows in, Granted as it is exists, and a Gift as it flows out to others and beyond.
[slide] The creation story is about our connectedness to God and God’s creation. It is the story of the creator who is identified from the beginningnas our gracious, merciful, compassionate, and extravagant provider. It is the story of us, it is the story of God, it is the story of those who traveled this path of becoming long before we ever stepped foot onto the path, it is the story of those yet to come who will walk in our footprints learning how to step out of them on their own in onto their own path to becoming. It is our connection to the dirt and flowing gift to us of water – it is our connection of God who chose to relate to dust, to us, and looked ahead to our needs as concretely and metaphorically evidenced in the unboundaried gift of water.
Music (Slides) Lynn and Team
Breathe on me breath of God
Love and life that makes me free
Breathe on me breath of God
Fan the flame within me
Teach my heart and heal my soul
Speak the mind that in Christ we know
Take me to Your sanctuary
Breathe on me
Speak to me, Voice of God
Soft and still inside my heart
Speak to me word of God,
Comfort, heal, restore with love.
Teach my heart and heal my soul
Speak the mind that in Christ we know
Take me to Your sanctuary
Breathe on me
Community (Slides) Rick
- Next Sunday, ‘Who Would Ever Believe?!’, Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7
- Next Book Discussion Luncheon, ‘Making Sense of the Bible’, Some Books available in entry was -$15, or link on web page will take you to Amazon order page (audio, or library app), luncheon will take place in October (date – TBA), ‘[I wrote this] in the hope that [you] will come to love the Bible, and that in it [you] will find [your] defining story.’
Benediction (Slides) Rick
As we leave this place may we continue on our path of becoming. A Becoming that is a gift of God, a journey fully dependent on the life and work of Jesus Christ. We are on this path by choice. We are on this path gratefully due to God’s extravagant grace through which we were, and are, welcomed to this endeavor. We are connected to the dirt of the path yet chosen by the Holy God to live in the pursuit of becoming the righteousness of God.
We walk even when we cannot see, we take from the flowing provision even when the waters appear difficult, we hope even though despair often threatens to consume us, we love because that the the true and intentional impact and outflow of our journey. We step onto the path in trust, in hope, in love.
Closing Peace Rick
Leader: May the Peace and Hope of the Lord go with you.
Response: And also with you.
Leader: Go in the Peace and Hope of the Lord.
Order, Words, & Voices 