The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection GPS Guide for Monday, 4 January 2021

 The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection GPS Guide for Monday, 4 January 2021

The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection <info@mc.cor.org>

Monday, 4 January 2021

 The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection GPS Guide for Monday, 4 January 2021

A worshipful, poetic creation story

Daily Scripture:

Genesis 1:1 – 2:3

1 1 When God began to create [Or In the beginning, God created] the heavens and the earth— 2 the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— 3 God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. 4 God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God named the light Day and the darkness Night.

There was evening and there was morning: the first day.

6 God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” 7 God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. 8 God named the dome Sky.

There was evening and there was morning: the second day.

9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky come together into one place so that the dry land can appear.” And that’s what happened. 10 God named the dry land Earth, and he named the gathered waters Seas. God saw how good it was. 11 God said, “Let the earth grow plant life: plants yielding seeds and fruit trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind throughout the earth.” And that’s what happened. 12 The earth produced plant life: plants yielding seeds, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit with seeds inside it, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was.

13 There was evening and there was morning: the third day.

14 God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will mark events, sacred seasons, days, and years. 15 They will be lights in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth.” And that’s what happened. 16 God made the stars and two great lights: the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. 17 God put them in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was.

19 There was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.

20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with living things, and let birds fly above the earth up in the dome of the sky.” 21 God created the great sea animals and all the tiny living things that swarm in the waters, each according to its kind, and all the winged birds, each according to its kind. God saw how good it was. 22 Then God blessed them: “Be fertile and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.”

23 There was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.

24 God said, “Let the earth produce every kind of living thing: livestock, crawling things, and wildlife.” And that’s what happened. 25 God made every kind of wildlife, every kind of livestock, and every kind of creature that crawls on the ground. God saw how good it was. 26 Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth.”

27 God created humanity in God’s own image,

in the divine image God created them,

male and female God created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and master it. Take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and everything crawling on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I now give to you all the plants on the earth that yield seeds and all the trees whose fruit produces its seeds within it. These will be your food. 30 To all wildlife, to all the birds in the sky, and to everything crawling on the ground—to everything that breathes—I give all the green grasses for food.” And that’s what happened. 31 God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good.

There was evening and there was morning: the sixth day.

2:1 The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed. 2 On the sixth day God completed all the work that he had done, and on the seventh day God rested from all the work that he had done. 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all the work of creation.

Reflection Questions:

Genesis told two creation stories, neither one “scientific.” “The inspired author(s) of the primeval prologue drew on the manner of speaking about origins that was part of their culture and literary traditions. Ch. 1 needs to be read in light of creation accounts from Mesopotamia.”* Note, e.g., that they saw the sky as a dome with waters above and below it. Later Genesis 7:11 said it rained because “all the springs of the deep sea erupted, and the windows in the skies opened.” Genesis echoed pre-scientific ideas but taught timeless spiritual truths.

Many ancient Mesopotamian cultures pictured violence between rival “gods,” with earth created from the body of the loser. Genesis 1’s poetic writing (likely used in Hebrew worship at times) was a striking contrast. Dr. Stuart Briscoe wrote that while Genesis 1 “raises many unanswered questions about how [God] created, it provides many answers to questions about who did the creating.”** How did Genesis 1 assert the goodness of Israel’s one God?

In the ancient Near East, many saw the sun, moon, stars and other parts of nature as gods. (Some scholars believe “lights” in Genesis 1:14, 16 was to avoid naming the “moon” and “sun” others worshiped.) Genesis said God created nature and ruled over it. We still face tornados, drought, earthquakes and storms. How can trusting that God made these forces help you deal with fear and count on God’s love being stronger in the end than any natural force?

Prayer:

God of creation, Genesis said you were there before anything else existed. You set it all in motion. Thank you for still creating, for being the God of new beginnings and fresh starts in my life. Amen.

* La Sor, W. S., Hubbard, D. A., & Bush, F. W. Old Testament survey: The message, form, and background of the Old Testament (2nd ed.) Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996, p. 19.

** D. Stuart Briscoe, The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 1: Genesis. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987, p. 25.

Want more reflection on today's GPS?

Read the GPS Insight by Melanie Hill

Melanie Hill is the Community Life and Small Groups Program Director at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, Leawood.

Melanie Hill

Melanie Hill is the Community Life and Small Groups Program Director at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, Leawood.

I think everyone has their own issue concerning faith that they must reconcile before fully embracing it. I remember a good friend struggling with the concept of free will versus predestination. He must have read a dozen books on the topic and spent months wrestling with it until one day he had resolved it for himself. He had come to a decision on the topic that he was able to own and move forward with.

We all have at least one of these issues (for some, several) in our faith journey. Science was never one of those issues for me. Maybe it's because I was always pretty ambivalent about science. I neither loved nor hated it as a school subject. So when it came to reconciling it with my faith, I did not think too deeply on it. That is, until I had a teenager.

Ah, teenagers. If you’ve had one you know what chaos they can work on a parent’s nerves and peace of mind. For me it was the day my son told me he was pretty sure he was an atheist. I pride myself that on the outside I reflected only curiosity while on the inside I was screaming, “What?!” He went on to tell me that he had outgrown religion much as one out grows a belief in Santa Claus, that after all it was only the “opiate of the masses.” And just like that I became very interested in reconciling science and faith.

Like my friend, I started reading books and talking to friends smarter than me on the topic. I realized pretty quickly that I was never going to become a science expert. Pastor Adam said he struggles with quantum physics--I struggle with basic physics. When it comes to science my son has already surpassed my working knowledge. He loves science, so it was easy to see it was going to be important for him to find a way to reconcile it with faith if he was going to move forward in faith. It also became clear I would have to approach it from another angle.

I recalled what Andrew Root had written in a book on adolescence: “Adolescence is a cultural and developmental time when we’re invited to embrace the explanation of things.” * He was right. The teen years are often ripe with new concepts that can lead to doubt. As teens start to embrace abstract thinking, it is natural that they start to reframe some of their childhood beliefs. This is when doubt begins to mature our faith as we find answers to our questions for ourselves. It is also in realizing this that parents can experience peace even while we watch our kids wrestle with their faith, knowing it is not only natural but essential.

I stopped trying to understand science and started trying to understand my son. We went on many long walks and had many conversations. I asked lots of questions and allowed him to teach me some things. This opened him up to asking questions and allowing me to share some answers that had helped me. Those months have become one of my favorite seasons of parenting and getting to know my son.

What I realized was that science was never the enemy of faith. The true enemy of faith is a bland or flat experience of it. As Andrew Root later said, “We claim faith not simply because we have some objective proof. If we did, then we couldn’t call it “faith” at all. But our experience of faith isn’t blind; it is always seeking understanding. We claim faith because we have had personal experiences that have revealed to us that indeed there is a personal mind in the universe.” * These events or encounters are sacred moments. They are transcendent. And they are meant to be shared. My husband and I committed to redoubling our efforts to share our personal experiences of faith with all our kids, especially those encounters with God that science can not explain.

The best argument for faith is a life lived fully embracing a relationship with our Creator, with all its doubts, mysteries, certainties, and vibrancy. If our children (and really anyone) are to embrace faith it cannot be just a gap-filler in our knowledge. It has to be an all-encompassing, life changing, transcendent relationship. I pray that this week you will be given opportunities to share with your children, grandchildren, co-workers or neighbors those stories of transcendence. We often keep them to ourselves because we aren’t sure how they will be received, or we convince ourselves that they are personal and “just for us.” These are the very stories people who are doubting or searching need to hear. Tell them about your encounters with a personal loving God. Someone needs to hear your story this week.

* Andrew Root, Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies; Youth Ministry in the Age of Science. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2018.

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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011.

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