Orval S. Wintermute - "A Faith in Creation" (August 14, 1966)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Was upon the face, the deep | 0:04 |
with these words the author of Genesis one | 0:08 | |
seeks to portray the dark barren hostile qualities | 0:12 | |
of an uncreative world. | 0:18 | |
The figures of speech each, which our author uses are subtle | 0:21 | |
and restrained, but there is no mistaking their origin | 0:27 | |
this particular understanding of creation. | 0:32 | |
Creation as an ordering, | 0:36 | |
which proceeds from chaos is Mesopotamian in origin. | 0:39 | |
The creation faith of Mesopotamian man did not consist | 0:46 | |
as some other later creation faith | 0:53 | |
in the belief that the God's had created something | 0:57 | |
out of nothing. | 1:01 | |
It takes neither wit nor faith to see that something exists. | 1:04 | |
Rather, the creation faith of near Eastern man | 1:10 | |
was the faith that the gods had taken this hollow waste land | 1:16 | |
these chaotic waters and shaped them | 1:20 | |
into a meaningful ordered God directed whole. | 1:23 | |
And that is an affirmation of faith | 1:30 | |
in order to see the faith dimension more clearly | 1:33 | |
we might travel in our imagination through both time | 1:37 | |
and space to a region just south of the city of Shuruppak | 1:41 | |
on the ancient course of the Euphrates, about 2,800 BC. | 1:48 | |
There, we might see a slender and wrinkled farmer | 1:56 | |
clutching in his hand, a small basket of grain | 2:01 | |
which he hopes to plant in order to sustain his life. | 2:04 | |
Yet one more year. | 2:09 | |
His face is drawn as he thinks of the odds | 2:12 | |
the worm and the blight, the thorns, and the thistles rock | 2:16 | |
and scorching heat in the ever treacherous Euphrates | 2:21 | |
which just the year before had left its course to wipe | 2:24 | |
out the whole city of Shuruppak, leaving in its wake | 2:28 | |
a deposit of slime and human bodies | 2:33 | |
which drew the wolves and vultures until a cruel famine | 2:35 | |
which followed drove them off again. | 2:40 | |
And now see our farmer as he stands, | 2:43 | |
clutching his precious grain | 2:46 | |
before an emaciated priest | 2:48 | |
who has gone through the same winter of famine | 2:52 | |
that our farmer has | 2:56 | |
but fate says a man of God might think | 2:58 | |
of stars marching in regular splendor across a moonless sky. | 3:02 | |
And the priest says to the farmer | 3:07 | |
may the gods who created the cosmos. | 3:10 | |
That means the gods who gave order | 3:15 | |
and meaning to this world. | 3:18 | |
May they bless your grain and give you an abundant harvest. | 3:22 | |
Can you see that farmer's courage? | 3:28 | |
What a leap of faith. | 3:31 | |
It took for a hungry man not to eat the grain | 3:34 | |
but to plant it. | 3:37 | |
And to believe that he did live in a created world | 3:39 | |
and not in some God forsaken corner of chaos. | 3:42 | |
Ancient man's affirmation of creation was always made | 3:47 | |
with a full consciousness of the hostile realm of chaos | 3:53 | |
which hides beneath the surface. | 3:57 | |
Biblical man lived in the same harsh world. | 4:01 | |
The facts of his environment were not essentially different | 4:04 | |
from the facts of his Mesopotamian neighbor. | 4:08 | |
That is why the biblical man could never escape | 4:12 | |
the fact that our world has grown out | 4:15 | |
of chaos and continues to exist | 4:17 | |
in tension with that chaos. | 4:21 | |
The first chapter of Genesis explains these facts; | 4:25 | |
subtly chapters eight and seven | 4:28 | |
repeat these facts dramatically | 4:33 | |
in the story of the flood. | 4:36 | |
For once upon a time, | 4:39 | |
the ancient man | 4:42 | |
the ancient Hebrew knew | 4:44 | |
God did release the dark waters of chaos. | 4:46 | |
And we are told that God blotted | 4:50 | |
out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground | 4:53 | |
man and animals, creeping things and birds of the air | 4:57 | |
they were blotted out from the earth | 5:02 | |
only Noah was left. | 5:04 | |
And those that were with him | 5:06 | |
familiarity, time, and distance perhaps | 5:09 | |
have robbed this story | 5:15 | |
of some of its original impact. | 5:16 | |
But the writer intended to tell us | 5:19 | |
that when God ceases to play his creative role | 5:22 | |
chaos returns and all life dies | 5:27 | |
perhaps in some small way, we can understand his message | 5:32 | |
as we notice that contemporary writers | 5:36 | |
of science fiction | 5:41 | |
who portray the same facts, | 5:44 | |
who portray the return | 5:49 | |
of chaos in some form of creeping, silent, toxic killer | 5:50 | |
or the insanity of atomic pride | 5:58 | |
which spills the remnant of mankind on some far | 5:59 | |
off shore seemed to strike home with their message. | 6:02 | |
There were none left but Noah, this phrase was designed | 6:09 | |
by the writer to convey the helplessness and terror | 6:13 | |
which man fields before chaos. | 6:17 | |
But the same story in the same account | 6:20 | |
back to back with this picture of chaos, portrays a rainbow | 6:25 | |
and a covenant and a promise which God made. | 6:31 | |
I will never again, curse the ground because of man | 6:36 | |
neither will I ever again, destroy every living creature | 6:41 | |
while the earth remains seed time and harvest cold and heat | 6:47 | |
summer and winter day and night shall not cease. | 6:51 | |
And that is an affirmation of faith. | 6:57 | |
Here most clearly the Old Testament writer based his trust | 7:01 | |
in a continued created order on his faith in God. | 7:05 | |
And he invites the reader to join him. | 7:11 | |
He would tell us that in spite of much empirical evidence | 7:16 | |
to the contrary, it is possible for man's faith in God | 7:19 | |
and in God's creation to prevail over man's dread of chaos. | 7:27 | |
Biblical man had no clear empirical evidence to assure him | 7:33 | |
that chaos would not return next year. | 7:39 | |
He had only his faith in a creator. | 7:44 | |
One might wonder whether man in 1966 | 7:48 | |
has a great deal more to go by. | 7:54 | |
In some man faith in creation | 7:59 | |
or Old Testament man is a daring faith in God's order | 8:03 | |
in the face of so many evidences of disorder. | 8:09 | |
It is this understanding of creation, | 8:14 | |
which made the figure of speech so adaptable | 8:18 | |
to other areas of human experience. | 8:21 | |
It was applied to the social order. | 8:25 | |
Yahweh was the creator of Israel who took a chaotic band | 8:28 | |
of slaves and made of them an ordered people. | 8:33 | |
For again, he was the creator who | 8:40 | |
in some future time would form a new Israel | 8:41 | |
and the figure was applied | 8:47 | |
to individuals within the community as well. | 8:49 | |
One of of the Psalmist's applies this figure | 8:53 | |
especially well to the hero King David. | 8:57 | |
Let us refresh our knowledge of David. | 9:03 | |
The most famous king in ancient Israel | 9:06 | |
reports concerning his early years are | 9:10 | |
filled with obscurities. | 9:14 | |
Nevertheless, it seems that by the time David became king | 9:16 | |
he had a great deal of bad publicity to overcome. | 9:21 | |
He had been an outlaw. | 9:26 | |
He had fought against King Saul. | 9:28 | |
He had aided the Philistine enemy. | 9:31 | |
So once he was king, | 9:34 | |
David spent much of his time creating the proper image | 9:37 | |
creating a spotless reputation of a great king. | 9:42 | |
He began by lifting up the office of kingship | 9:48 | |
in the face of all of the people | 9:51 | |
by lamenting over the death of Saul, the former king. | 9:54 | |
He then sought to display his own royal splendor | 10:00 | |
with the capture of Jerusalem. | 10:03 | |
By naming it after himself, the city of David. | 10:05 | |
The ark was brought to the city as David portrayed himself | 10:11 | |
in the role of patron of Orthodox religion. | 10:15 | |
He displayed, majestic kindness | 10:21 | |
by caring for the poor, lame grandson of Saul. | 10:23 | |
And when his ambassadors were ridiculed by | 10:29 | |
Nahash and Ammonite | 10:31 | |
his royal wrath led him to defeat not only the Ammonites | 10:34 | |
but all of their confederates | 10:38 | |
until he was the most victorious warrior | 10:40 | |
in all the land of Palestine and Syria. | 10:42 | |
And then, he saw a woman. | 10:48 | |
You know the story, David saw Bathsheba bathing, | 10:53 | |
where perhaps she ought not to have bathed, | 10:58 | |
but he saw her anyway. | 11:01 | |
He invited her into his palace. | 11:04 | |
Bathsheba became pregnant. | 11:06 | |
So David plotted the death of her husband Uriah. | 11:08 | |
One of the officers in his army. | 11:12 | |
And finally Bathsheba was brought into | 11:15 | |
the harem of the king. | 11:17 | |
Now in all this David sought to protect from scandal | 11:21 | |
the grand reputation | 11:26 | |
which he had created for himself. | 11:29 | |
But God knew. | 11:34 | |
And the prophet Nathan knew and all Israel knew. | 11:36 | |
And when the Nathan prophet can Nathan confronted David | 11:41 | |
with the charge thou art the man then David himself | 11:45 | |
knew the exalted king could be petty. | 11:51 | |
The kind ruler was also cruel. | 11:56 | |
The patron of orthodoxy was a great sinner. | 11:59 | |
The victorious military leader had betrayed | 12:03 | |
and brought to death, | 12:07 | |
one of his own most trusted officers. | 12:08 | |
Rarely in literature has the change of | 12:13 | |
personal fate been summed up so neatly | 12:17 | |
as Nathan's charge thou art the man. | 12:22 | |
All of the reputation which David had struggled to | 12:26 | |
create was washed away | 12:30 | |
by the chaotic flood of cruel and lustful passion. | 12:33 | |
But David, in a sense, | 12:39 | |
is every man and every woman who ever lived. | 12:42 | |
For all of us, do we not all pay lip service | 12:47 | |
to decency and order, | 12:52 | |
and yet, are we not all filled inwardly with chaos? | 12:56 | |
The author of Psalm 51 sought to capture the intense emotion | 13:01 | |
which raged within the soul of David | 13:06 | |
when he realized the truth of Nathan's charge. | 13:09 | |
The Psalmist writes have mercy on me oh God. | 13:14 | |
And again, I know my transgressions | 13:20 | |
and my sin is ever before me against the, | 13:23 | |
and the only have I sinned. | 13:26 | |
And then in the 10th, first | 13:30 | |
the Psalmist's prize created me a clean heart | 13:33 | |
oh God and a new ordered spirit within me. | 13:37 | |
This is the Psalmist's solution to David's plight, | 13:43 | |
David's own grand reputation. | 13:48 | |
David's own creation. | 13:51 | |
Like all the creations of men | 13:53 | |
since the tower of Babel has been, | 13:55 | |
the Psalmist says in effect. | 13:58 | |
Now God it's your turn, | 14:00 | |
create in me a clean heart, a new spirit. | 14:03 | |
We have read this Psalm so often | 14:07 | |
that we might well miss its hyperbole when a simple man | 14:10 | |
even be it, the king applies to himself. | 14:14 | |
The image of creation when he thinks of his own life | 14:19 | |
in terms of creation of moon and stars | 14:24 | |
the ends of the world, the powers of nature. | 14:27 | |
To paraphrase, it would go something like this: by all | 14:30 | |
of the creative power of almighty God who brought order | 14:35 | |
and meaning to the world around me, | 14:38 | |
let my life be created anew. | 14:41 | |
Drive out the chaos of twisted hopes | 14:45 | |
and vain self conceived ambitions. | 14:47 | |
Fill me with order and meaning | 14:50 | |
and purpose as your world is filled with purpose. | 14:52 | |
Create in me, a new spirit. | 14:59 | |
This cry of the trusting soul needs no great explication. | 15:03 | |
It provides one of the major themes | 15:08 | |
of our Judeo-Christian heritage. | 15:11 | |
It may be used to explain the life of St.Paul. | 15:15 | |
You all remember the story of Paul's life. | 15:19 | |
In his early life he was going to be a Pharisee | 15:22 | |
straight laced to the end. | 15:26 | |
In his zeal to order his life | 15:29 | |
on the model of a perfect Pharisee. | 15:31 | |
Paul, however, came to witness | 15:33 | |
the chaos of a savage stoning of the martyr, Stephen. | 15:37 | |
Paul the Pharisee became vicariously Paul the murder, | 15:43 | |
Paul the greatest of all sinners, | 15:49 | |
but on the road to Damascus he was recreated. | 15:51 | |
Little by little, he allows his life to be ordered | 15:56 | |
on a new model. | 15:59 | |
The servant of all, Paul knew where of he spoke | 16:00 | |
when he wrote to the Corinthians. | 16:05 | |
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. | 16:07 | |
The struggle against an inner chaos | 16:14 | |
and the creation of new man. | 16:17 | |
Is this not the story of Saint August, Martin Luther | 16:19 | |
of heroes of the faith too numerous to mention. | 16:23 | |
And the struggle continues today. | 16:28 | |
Clergy men who minister | 16:31 | |
in the local parish are all too familiar | 16:32 | |
with the many modern forms of chaos. | 16:35 | |
They read like so many stereotyped case histories. | 16:39 | |
A 39 year old housewife discovers | 16:44 | |
that she has spent much of her youth | 16:46 | |
and her energies to create the highest possible standard | 16:48 | |
of living for her family, a creation | 16:51 | |
which lately appears to have dissolved | 16:54 | |
into a chaos of bickering and bills. | 16:56 | |
Can the God who made son and womb | 16:59 | |
create within her a new spirit | 17:03 | |
a hard driving executive at 47 | 17:06 | |
realizes that well that he has bartered his life | 17:08 | |
to create a future that will never be | 17:11 | |
while the chaos of his shattered pride is made more cruel | 17:14 | |
by a wife who reminds him that he drinks too much | 17:17 | |
and children who want only the car. | 17:20 | |
Can the God made heaven and earth | 17:23 | |
create in him a new spirit? | 17:26 | |
And the co-ed who was determined to create her own world | 17:29 | |
of good natured enjoyment to get the most | 17:32 | |
out of these carefree years | 17:34 | |
a modern woman open to adventure in the joy | 17:36 | |
of easy harmless playful relationships | 17:39 | |
with both men and women | 17:41 | |
but there was something in the way her date spoke | 17:44 | |
to her last evening that made her feel less than a woman | 17:47 | |
less than even a playmate, more like a play thing | 17:53 | |
unduly abused by the chaotic whims of naughty children. | 17:57 | |
Can the God who made all that lives | 18:03 | |
and breathes create within her a new spirit? | 18:05 | |
The man of faith is ever eager to say yes | 18:10 | |
to these questions. | 18:13 | |
But that is because the man of faith believes in creation. | 18:15 | |
He understands that the world is | 18:21 | |
a meaningful ordered God directed whole | 18:23 | |
and that the lives of men and women may also be meaningful | 18:28 | |
or made meaningful by God would that all men had this faith | 18:31 | |
but many cannot honestly see it. | 18:37 | |
Wise men very wise, men have begun by examining | 18:41 | |
their own lives and concluding my life is absurd. | 18:45 | |
I believe that other lives are equally absurd. | 18:51 | |
I cannot in the whole world find one particle | 18:55 | |
of evidence for meaning or purpose | 18:58 | |
or God that states the case for chaos well. | 19:02 | |
But the honesty with which this view is | 19:09 | |
stated should teach men of faith. | 19:11 | |
Something about the convictional basis | 19:15 | |
of his own world view. | 19:18 | |
The fact that the world is created | 19:21 | |
that means a God ordered meaningful world | 19:25 | |
is not the sort of objective fact that is immediately | 19:31 | |
verifiable by anyone who looks at the evidence. | 19:35 | |
It is rather a stance of faith such as Paul took | 19:39 | |
when he declared that men in Christ | 19:44 | |
are indeed a new creation or the view of the Psalmist, | 19:46 | |
which led him to beg God to create within a new | 19:52 | |
spirit or even the view of the, the first farmer | 19:58 | |
who had faith in the harvest and planted his grain. | 20:02 | |
When he jolly well might have preferred to eat it. | 20:08 | |
Amen. | 20:14 | |
Let us stand for the benediction. | 20:17 | |
The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, | 20:29 | |
the love of God, | 20:34 | |
communion of his holy spirits. | 20:38 | |
Be with us all. | 20:41 | |
Amen. | 20:44 | |
(hymn plays softly) | 20:50 | |
(bell tolls) | 21:27 | |
(bell tolls) | 21:30 | |
(bell tolls) | 21:34 | |
(organ plays) | 21:41 | |
(organ music fades) | 22:01 |
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