The Eternal Word: Source of us All

The Eternal Word: Source of us All January 4, 2009
John 1:1-9

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world

Happy New Year! The ball has dropped on Times Square, and the champagne bottles are in the recycling bin. Have you made your New Years resolution? Don’t worry if the one from last year was never achieved, like our library books, we can always renew them for another year.
What if we had a New Years resolution to be better stewards of God’s creation and serving as our brother’s keeper ? This New Years resolution needs to include how we treat one another as fellow sojourners in addition to recycling our cans and bottles and reducing our carbon foot print. We need care to just as much about one another as we do the animals in our shelters and humane societies. The Eternal Word is the source of us all, the lilies of the field, all living things. God’s light shines in all God has created. Do we see it, or do we dim it. Its still shining even if we are blinded by our idolatries.
When I was in Kenya I was somewhat puzzled by the tourists who were so preoccupied with getting a chance to see the Big 5 on safari they seemed to overlook the beauty of God’s creation made evident by the Kenyan people. We must always remember that our common humanity is a glorious part of God’s creation.
In our Gospel lesson John reminds us of how God came to us as the Logos (the Word) that has been present with us from the beginning of time. We worship the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit who spoke the world into being through the Word. Sometimes we get off track being understanding through phases. First there was Yahweh and the Hebrews, then came Jesus and his disciples then Pentecost and the Holy Spirit for us gentile churches. Our Triune God was there in the beginning and will remain with us until the end.
In the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, God says in the plural, “let us make them in our image.” Who do you think God was talking to? Surely, it wasn’t the section leader for his choir of angels. The image of God has been imprinted on everything God has created. God’s divine light is present in every creature and living thing.
I have been to many beautiful places of nature, the boundary waters, the Grand Canyon, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite. One of the highlights of my time in Kenya was climbing Mt Kenya and watching the sunrise. For six months, I saw this mountain from my bed room window. It was beckoning me to explore her and grasp a new vista of God’s remarkable handiwork.
Our communal time in God’s creation can be an act of worship. It’s humbling to see the grandeur of what God has ordered. We can feel small and insignificant. Likewise, the great Cathedrals in Europe instils in us this sense of humility in the midst of the columns and spires. Still, there is something more pure about reflecting on the things God brought to be without the use of our hands. It’s not our project or building campaign that brought these beautiful works of nature into being. I love the gospel song that goes, “Im working on a building for my Lord, a building not made by man’s hands.”
We are called to help build God’s shalom, here and now. With humility and a sense of awe, we commune with all God has created. We need some time away from all this concrete, glass and steel to appreciate our place within the creation that came to be through the Logos (the Word).
As Christians we need to confess that our agendas and interests have not always been faithful to God’s call for us to be stewards of creation. Some of you may remember that commercial from the 70s, the native American with a tear flowing down his cheek as looks over a land fill. In reality that man’s face is a metaphor of how God sees what we are doing to what has created for us.
In the beginning the Divine Logos created all of this around us and our ability to see this light has been dimmed by our actions. The light is among us but we don’t comprehend it. The issue of global warming is something that people of faith must confront. It’s really something when we can get to see a commercial with Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson sitting on the same couch to raise awareness about the environmental crisis that is before us.
Rev. Richard Cznick, the vice President of the Evangelical Association has carried a cross for some time. He had the courage to speak out about our call to be stewards of creation. There were some Christians leaders who were out to get him because he was getting off message. This doesn’t fit into our family values agenda. “You need to the tow the line mister!” There is a great Bill Moyers interview with Cznick on PBS. I’ll see if I can get a copy for the church library.
For too long, we have been idolatrous of our special place in God’s creation and failed to see God’s light in the creation. Our interests and agenda have usurped God’s commandments to care for what God has created. There are peoples lives at stake! When we see these droughts and famines in Africa we need to confess that some of our actions have contributed to it. When our brothers and sisters living on the coast lines are displaced or worse yet killed by the storms we should be confessing and repenting.
The gas crisis of this past year has forced us to make some tough choices. I hope that the drop in oil prices while not lull us back into complacency. When I bought my first econo car my buddies teased me about how unmipressed the ladies would be. They drove those supped SUVs. Ha, ha, who’s trying to sell their guzzlers now? This current gas holiday will not last forever. We have an opportunity to finally to take some corrective actions. There is too much at stake. Let’s let the smoke clear so we can appreciate God’s light still shining in midst of our smog.
President Elect Obama has many huge challenges in front of him. His plan to create green jobs as part of the stimulus package is consistent with our call to be good stewards of creation. If the rest of the world lived the way Americans live we would be in huge trouble. There are some costly prices for our comforts. We are only six percent of the global population, but next to China, we lead the globe in producing green house gases.
The Good News is God’s light has come to us in Bethlehem. God came to tabernacle, to pitch his tent with us and show us the way to the promised land. John’s theology lifts up the reality that God is present in everything. Our sense of being a neigbhor and steward to creatures that bear this imprint of God needs to be renewed.
For too long we have practiced the idolatry of speciesism. Our lust for greed and comforts have taken a heavy toll on the sacred garden that got has created for us. Part of the problem rests with the pendulum swing that came with a debate between Emil Brunner and Karl Barth, two prominent theologians of the past century. This was a great debate over general revelation and special revelation. Brunner argued for a natural theology. God’s spirit was evident in the created order and can be perceived by all humanity. Barth strongly disagreed. God can only be known through the special revelation brought to us in Jesus Christ’s life and ministry.
So where does our Gospel lesson fit into all this? If Jesus Christ is the Logos through which all things are created, than it would make sense that this light (the world) still shines through God’s creation. We need to step back from this heated debate about general or special revelation and appreciate that our Creator God calls us to be stewards of creation. Christians can get too puffed up in their specialness and lose sight of their calling to be humble servants. Our calling is not just to some narrow scope of family and friends, but to all of God’s creatures.
God’s light has come into our world to help us see God’s image, God’s handiwork among us. We should not be motivated by guilt and shame, but by as a sense of love and gratitude to God for beauty of the earth. When we walk the trails and canoe across the waters, let us we remember that Jesus, the Logos was there when all this was coming into being.
God’s eternal light that came into being out of nothing actually came to be with us as a fellow sojourner. Jesus light was too bright for many. His words of truth ruffled many a feather. Our Risen Lord has set a path for us that will often bring sacrifice and hardship. Being a faithful disciple is not easy but man its always worth it.
God’s eternal word is the source of us all. In the beginning was the Logos, the light, the Living Word. All that we see around us came to be through this light. May God touch our eyes so we can see anew the splendour of God’s creation. May our hearts and minds be transformed so we can walk the path before us as faithful stewards of God’s abundance. We are our brother’s keeper, the birds, the lilies, and the distant shores. God’s light burns bright to show us how.