The Bible begins with two stories: the Creation Hymn and the Garden of Eden story. The stories just appear without introduction, named author, source, origin, or timestamp. The Book of Isaiah begins “in the days of Judah’s kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah”. (Isaiah 1).  Matthew presents a long genealogy. Revelation notes that John’s vision came “through God’s angel.”  The creation stories read like Jesus’ parables. A parable like the Good Samaritan is not true because a robbery occurred along an ancient highway, parables are true because they are  true. Matthew, as editor, explains Jesus’ use of parables quoting Psalm 78, “I will use stories to speak my message and to explain things hidden since the creation of the world.”  (13:35) Stories invite us into truths bigger than facts and figures.

Some folks understand the Creation Hymn and the Eden Story as historical accounts or scientific explanations. However, doing so glosses over their differences and homogenizes their unique voices.  In the Eden story, God makes only one human being from the topsoil. God then breathes life into us. God grows a garden for that one person, complete with two magic trees.  Whereas, in the Creation Hymn God created plants on day three and at least two people on day six. In both stories God steps back from the easel or potter’s wheel and evaluates their creation. The Creation Hymn proclaims “we are made in God’s image” and God declares “this is supremely good!”  In Eden God sighs and says, “It is not good for human(s) to be alone.” There is a lot of theology in that!. So God decides we need a soulmate. God spins the potter’s wheel, perhaps turning a bird from the clay.  God shows us the bird and tells us to name it! Birds are beautiful and we love their songs, but all of us get tired of talking to a Parrot. Birds can’t fill the empty spaces in our souls.  God crafts a big furry thing, we name it “Grizzly bear” but it scares us to hold their claws.  And so it goes; God creates the entire animal kingdom, we make up animal names, but we do not discover an equal partner. Then God changes God’s mind: instead of using the topsoil to craft human soul-mate, God reaches right inside us, grabbing some of us and creating another person from our insides.  And when we wake up and see the second person we shout to the Lord “God this is it! They are perfect! They are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Thank you Jesus!” 

The Eden Story’s image of God, details, and plot devices differ from the Creation hymn. When the scribes and editors put the Genesis scroll together, don’t you think they knew the two stories were different? God uses different “stories to speak God’s message” in diverse ways. (Matt 13) 

Textual scholars, using word use, style, structure, and grammar tell us the scribes likely recorded the Creation Hymn during the liturgical renewal that accompanied the Babylonian Exile.  (The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 1) The timing should not shock us! God inspires when God inspires. Luke begins with an editor’s note: “Many people have already applied themselves to the task of compiling an account of the events that have been fulfilled among us. They used what the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed down to us. Now, after having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, I have also decided to write a carefully ordered account for you”  The Bible tells us that Luke used older source material and acted as an editor. Inspiration comes when it does. The Bible is filled with people’s experiences of the Holy. We Methodists believe God uses our experiences to help guide us and interpret Scripture.  

So imagine yourself exiled to Babylon in 587 BCE. Solomen’s Temple, David’s Palace and the Walls of Jerusalem are destroyed, but your identity as a Jew endures your deportation and the nation’s tragedy. Howard Thurman notes that God uses great suffering and great love to woo us into faith. (Jesus and The Disinherited) In Exile, your faith stories come alive. Your children hear Babylonian creation stories of warring Gods and Babalonian Nationalism and so the rabbis and scholars recorded or were inspired to write The Creation Hymn.  It lifts a universal note that all people “are created in the image of God” and all creation “is supremely good”.  

Hear the Creation Hymn.  Listen for God’s nature, God’s model and how we are made. 

When God began to create, the earth was without shape or form 

and God’s breath swept over the waters,

 and God said, “Let there be light.”

 And it happened. God saw how good the light was. 

God named the light Day and the darkness Night.

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

On Day two God made sea and sky. It happened! 

On Day three the Creator Created all the plants and God saw how good it was! 

On day four God said, “Let there be lights in the sky, 

Sunshine during the day and the moon and stars to guide us by night.

. The starlight to keep time and mark sacred days, weeks and years. 

God saw how good it was.

On day five God made birds for the air and fishes for the sea. 

Seeing how good it was, God blessed these animals!

 On Day six God made the animal kingdom in the morning  

And in the afternoon, God said, “Let us make humanity in our image “ 

And God created them in God’s image. 

        And God blessed us and told us to take care of everything. 

God looked around and said “This all is supremely good.”

God had completed the work. 

On the seventh day God rested.  

And God sanctified the seventh day making it holy, 

because on the seventh day God rested.

Did you notice God looking around, stepping back from the canvas and admiring the creation?  When do we do that? When do we stop hustling, producing, and posting and simply dwell with God, ourselves and others?  When do we see the goodness and beauty of swallows and sparrows, ants and elephants,  and all kinds of people?  When do we remember that all people are endowed by their Creator with the very image of God?  When do we step away from our tribalism, nationalism and racism and worship the Creator of All?

Did you notice that God takes the day off!  God, CEO of Everything, creates a screen free day, no cell phone ringing, no email checking, no prayer answering. We are made in God’s image and designed to take off a day off from work. We humans only showed up on Saturday afternoon and God gave us the day off!  We did not need to earn it!  God’s economy is rooted in grace. In Genesis two, God gives us work as a consequence of messing up the Garden!  How did we come to worship Work?  Why do we measure our worth by our work, wealth and titles? Did not the Devil tempt Jesus with a life built around thrones, titles and treasures? (Matthew 4) Jesus taught  “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt 6) Sabbath comes to us like a manufacturer’s recall, calling us back to our default settings, restoring the image of God within us all. Sabbath reminds us of who we all are: human beings made in God’s image. Against the market god’s advice, Sabbath arrives unearned and whispering “only faith, hope, and love endure forever. ( 1 Corinthians 13).  

Sabbath is not just an earned individual privilege for those powerful enough to get away from it all. Sabbath is a Christian social value, a kind of human right designed for all people. Moses thunders: “Remember the Sabbath! Do not do any work on it—not you, your children, your workers, your livestock, or the immigrant. Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day.” (Exodus 20) Deuteronomy 5 names the bitter taste of Egyptian slavery as the reason to ensure every worker gets a day off.  But, we have designed an economy that exchanges sacred worth for corporate profits. I read an opinion piece this week in the New York Times about how corporate profit taking pressure now means a Starbucks barista has 170,000 ways to make your cup of coffee.  America’s idolatrous worship of wealth blinds us to Jesus’ command to love and treat all people in the way we want to be treated. (Matt 7&22) In Luke 16, Jesus tells those who “love money” the story of a beggar named Lazarus and a rich person who lived in comfort- there is an eternal reversal at the end. In Luke 7, John’s disciples ask Jesus “are you the One?” Jesus says look around and see people getting healthcare and poor people hearing good news! James 2 declares “God chose the poor as heirs of the kingdom! But you dishonor the poor!. Don’t the wealthy make life difficult for you?” Maybe James was thinking of the terms and conditions statements that we agree to without reading them.

 Now, we do rhetorical violence when we reduce the global economy into a sermon or campaign sound bite, but friends, people should not have to work two jobs to feed their children or afford healthcare.  Christians value a worker’s sacred worth over corporate profits.  

These are not easy teachings to accept. During the prelude at the early service, I was thinking: “This afternoon, if I go on do x-y-x then I could do q-r-s and be ready for…” when I thought, “You clown, you are about to preach on sabbath!”  It is hard and we can’t step out of the global economy, but we need to remember God created us for sabbath. 

The Creation Hymn beckons us back into our design specifications: remembering our sacred worth and everyone else’s sacred worth. Remember, God’s Kingdom brings Good News to the poor.  Remember, God does not measure our standard of living by thrones, treasure and titles but by faith, hope and love.  So, remembering what God designed us for, let us stop working and work so that everyone can enjoy a day of rest.  Amen!