When God Lets Go

I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, August 22.  The text is Genesis 1:25-2:4; read it here.  Click on the link for more information on the book of Genesis and the creation stories. 

 

*

So God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God they were created; male and female God created them.

 

This weekend I rolled up my sleeping bag and sleeping mat and stuck and few things in a bag and got on a train and made my way up to Vermont, where I met a whole bunch of really wonderful friends from graduate school for a little annual camping weekend we’ve held since our last year in Divinity School.

 

Every year we get together, and every year I marvel at the change that can take place in a year. We’re all getting a little mellower and growing into ourselves a little more.  We’ve

moved in and out of relationships, and the cast of characters has grown to include

new partners, a couple new dogs, and, for the first time this year, a baby named Allie who’s going to be two years old on September 6.

 

This was Allie’s first time camping, and he was a total champ.  He was excited about everything.  He got to toast his first marshmallow, and go swimming in the lake, and sleep in a tent, and sing songs with the grownups.  There were nine of us there camping,  so Allie was the center of a LOT of attention, which he handled pretty much like a professional.

 

Allie’s also a really verbal little guy and he’s been learning words and stringing together sentences like crazy.  It was amazing to watch him learn by imitating the adults around him, and it was amazing to watch the adults all drawn into that process.  Allie would hear us say, “delicious!” when we were eating, and he’d shout out “delicious!” and all nine of us would immediately chorus back, “delicious!”  And then he’d say it again, and then we’d say it again…

 

Children learn primarily through imitation: through mimicking the adults around them,  copying words and then phrases, dipping spoons into bowls, tying shoes, and bigger things too, like expressing emotions or dealing with conflict.  So much of what we learn we absorb, modeling ourselves almost unknowingly after the people around us.

 

Working with choreographers and dancers, I’ve watched them copy one another, mimic one another’s movements, learning, without language, how to move in unison.

 

A good part of the role of a music teacher is simply to play a line well and have the student play it back how you did, the student improving not through explanation,but imitation.

 

We become who we are by modeling ourselves after others, knowingly or unknowingly,   practicing patterns and imitating rhythms that will mold us and shape us.  And in the same way, God molds us and shapes us in God’s image, creating us as reflections, as shadows of God’s self.

 

 

So God created humankind in God’s image…

male and female God created them.

 

 

In this story of creation we are told explicitly that humans are created by God, to be like God, that, just like Allie is a reflection of his mom and dad, we’re reflections of God.  Children of God, whose needs and desires and impulses and bodies are not sinful or errant, but Godly.

 

And just like Allie imitates his mom and dad, picking up words and phrases and ways of being, we have God as our model.

 

So who is God in this story?

If our genesis is divine, with God as our model, how do we pattern our lives after God?

 

In this story, God is a creator and a teacher: a skilled craftsperson who takes humanity on as an apprentice, showing us with time and patience, how to be creators ourselves.  God has made a world that is dynamic, in constant motion, and decided not to retain control over that world, but to give ownership and authority away in a divine collaboration with humanity and creation. 

 

God creates an earth, and asks the earth to bring forth animals.

God creates the sea and asks the sea to bring forth sea creatures.

God creates humanity and says,

It’s not me who will rule over this creation,

it’s you.

I give you authority over the world,

over the plants and the animals.

I’ve made you to be like me,

to create, to care,

to be in relationship with the earth

and in collaboration with one another.

And if you’re attentive, you can learn from me,

learn from the way in which I’ve created.

 

God wants to see what will happen when God lets go.

 

This is a divine pattern of creation and release that we’re imitating here at St. Lydia’s in a multitude of ways.

 

I’ve you’ve been around a few months, you may have noticed that the leadership has shifted from the services being led mostly by Rachel and me, to being led by many of you.  As we grow, Rachel and I are letting go, giving away ownership when the right time comes, sharing the creative process and the authority with the entire community.

 

Or what happens when we sing together?  A leader begins, singing a melody that all of us learn.  Then, as the community learns,  the leader steps back, and allows the community to do the leading.

 

We’re engaged in building something here that’s modeled after God’s creative act in this story.

It’s evolving slowly over time,

it’s made in collaboration with an entire community,

it pulls people together

into relationship with and care for one another.

It’s designed to continue to grow and change,

and it’s designed to continue to flower

as the creators see what happens when they let go,

and the world we’ve made together spins along on its own.

 

 

 

We share the sermon at St. Lydia’s, and so I invite you to share a story from your experience that was brought up by the text or my words.