God is Still Speaking – Jan 3, 2010
Reading: Intertwining of excerpts from Genesis 1 and John 1
Voice 1 : In the beginning God (beat) Voice 2 : In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God Unison : In the beginning.
Voice 1 : (no pause) God created Unison : the heavens and the earth. Voice 2: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Voice 1: Now the earth was formless and empty, Unison : (staggered ) darkness Voice 1 : was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was Unison : light. Voice 2 : In him was life, and that life was the light (beat)
Voice 1 : light Voice 2 : of men. Voice 1 : God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the Unison : (staggered ) darkness. Voice 2 : The light shines in the
Unison : (staggered ) darkness, Voice 2: but the darkness (beat) Voice 1 : darkness
Voice 2: has not understood it. Voice 1 : God called the light “day,” and the Unison : (staggered) darkness Voice 1: he called “night.” And there was evening, Voice 2: and there was morning
Unison: –the first day.(pause) Unison : The Word Voice 2: became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Voice 1 : In the beginning God (pause) Voice 2 : In the beginning was Unsion : the Word, Voice 2: and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God
Unison : In the beginning
Sermon: God is Still Speaking
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John has such an interesting way of introducing us to Jesus. Jesus is “the Word of God.” No baby in a manger in this gospel, no moving tableau of the humble and the powerful all mixing together. Just the Word becoming flesh. The “Word.” Very interesting. Usually when I hear someone talk about the Word of God, I assume they are referring to the bible, the things that were revealed by God to the prophets and leaders of Israel that were repeated through the generations, then recorded. Or the stories about Jesus from the gospels that became the foundation of a new religion. I don’t usually think of Jesus himself as the Word. I came across the reading that Deacon Carol and I did that weaves together this prologue to the Gospel of John with the Hebrew scripture creation story from Genesis 1, the very beginning of the bible and it really called to me. Both start “in the beginning.” In Genesis, it begins with a formless void and darkness covering the face of the deep, a wind, and God’s intention to create the heavens and the earth. In John, the Word is there, in the beginning. In Genesis, how does God create? God speaks things into creation. “And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light,.. and it was good.’” Is this what John means when he says that the Word was there, in the beginning, that all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being? What came into being was all life and light. Jesus is the creative force of God’s words. Jesus is God speaking. Jesus is the voice of God calling out the creation of the sky and land, the sea and vegetation and animals and creepy crawlies and people. Let there be… life. Wow.
Gospel writer John describes “life” as the “light of all people.” And in Genesis 1 the first thing God speaks into existence is light. And yet, according to Genesis 1, God separates light from darkness, but doesn’t put bodies of light – the sun and moon and stars – to separate night from day until day four of creation. The light from the first vocalization wasn’t from any source that we understand now. John explains, the Word of God is and provides the light. The light is God’s intention to create, just at the moment it comes forth. A spark is ignited in this dark and formless void. Can you imagine it. Picture yourself in a pitch dark room. Someone will light a match. Can’t you see the spark even before the match ignites, how it doesn’t fill or overtake the darkness, but it makes the light separate.
Now personally, I don’t take these creation images literally, but I do take seriously the implications of this poetic description of Jesus as the Word of God. It gives me so much to ponder, and wonder about, a real joy for my mind that loves complexity, that loves not quite getting something. To me, when I don’t quite get it, it is an affirmation of my faith that there is indeed a higher power. And even though these words and ideas are hard to make sense of with my mind, they resonate somehow, settle into my soul so that I can say, “Ah yes, the Word of God.” The Trinity is like that for me, too. This idea that God is one Being with three distinct, yet somehow not separate, aspects. When we think of Jesus as the Word of God, it gives me insight into the oneness of God and Jesus. Aren’t my words, my speaking, intimately and deeply me? My words are an expression of who I am. And yet aren’t my words only part of me? They can’t be separated from me, nor I from them, but there is something bigger. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.
And so John tells us that this Word of God, this aspect of God that can’t really be separated from the beingness of God, this source of all life, became flesh and lived among us. This spark that separated the light from the darkness, the formless void from intentional life, comes to put skin on the love of God, the creative force for light and life. The Word came and lived among us. The Greek word interpreted here as “lived” can also mean “tabernacled,” or “tented.” Don’t you love that image? God put on skin and camped out with us on the human journey.
So the people of the middle east in the first century were able to literally see the face of God, to hear God’s word from the Word of God. But we can’t. We are left with words, books that tell stories of those times. Words that don’t always make sense, that are hard to believe, that seem to contradict each other. Even when translated to English, the words and concepts seem foreign. We read or hear about the casting out of demons, curses and plagues, people being raised from the dead. Jesus told his disciples that they could do all those thing by his power, and the stories of Acts tell us that they did. But we don’t hear much, if any, of that anymore. People may come back from the dead, but that’s medicine, isn’t it? And the healing through prayer that I’ve been part of helps people feel better, but doesn’t actually cure them. And would we even say someone is possessed by demons now? More likely epilepsy, yes? Treated with medication. No, the Word in the flesh is no longer with us. That was part of the deal of becoming flesh, part of having a human experience. There’s a time limit. The body goes. There was just no way around that.
And so we are left with words. But these do not have to be dis-embodied words, so to speak. As we talked about with the children, we can put skin on the love of God. Jesus Christ is with us, that spark that separates light from dark, life from emptiness, lives on. But he needs us to embody God’s love in the world. Jesus didn’t just show us the face of God, didn’t just tell us that God loves us, he walked the talk. He didn’t just tell Zaccheus that God loved him, but called out to him, had dinner with him, offered friendship. He didn’t just tell people God forgives, but extended that forgiveness to the frightened woman waiting to be stoned for her sins. He didn’t just speak of a kingdom of justice, but stood in solidarity with the poor and outcast. He didn’t just say that God wants wholeness for us, but touched the lepers to cure them, stopped the 12-year hemorrhaging of a woman, gave sight to the blind and speech to the mute. He didn’t just tell us that God wants us to have eternal life, but he picked up his cross, died, and rose again so that we might know it. That kind of love doesn’t go away with the body. It lives, it inspires, it lights the way. And it is up to us now to put skin on it. As St. Teresa of Avila says, “Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”
So we have words, words to read and reflect upon, words to live by. And we have our own words, the words that express who we are, the words that, make no mistake about it, create. Sometimes they create stress and conflict, confusion and even harm. But they can also create harmony, growth, healing, and wholeness. What is created, for example, when we say, “you matter to me,” “can I help you?” “thank you,” “you are beautiful,” “I’ll pray for you,” or “you are so special.” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Amen.
