Genesis 1:1-5

1st Sunday after Epiphany (The Baptism of our Lord [sic]) – Year B

 

These five verses set an important tone of assurance that care has been given and will be given. A case can be made for these being the most important five verses in the Bible. Come back and visit them regularly

Let’s listen in to Everett Fox from The Five Books of Moses as we first find ourselves in medias res, between evening and morning.

At the beginning of God's creating
of the heavens and the earth,
when the earth was wild and waste,
darkness over the face of Ocean,
rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters -

God said: Let there be light! And there was light.
God saw the light: that it was good.
God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light: Day! and the darkness he called: Night!
There was setting, there was dawning: one day

G*D brings order out of the empty darkness of chaos.

G*D is like "an eagle protecting its young" (Fox footnote) - Ruah hovers.

The eagle speaks, "You are my beloved. Let there be light! Let me see you."

Order comes - separation - setting/dawning

Later, Baptism comes to parallel Creation - separation - repentance/forgiveness

Who are "your young" that you will protect?
Who is not "your young" that you will let fall back into chaos?
Who are you? In whose image are you living?

Can you separate cultural from rushing-spirit values? Can you live in the empty darkness between the setting of civic religion and the dawning of rushing-spirit with an appreciation of ambiguity, without being crushed?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html

 

 

Paraphrase and shift of orientation alert [these will subsequently come along without prior notice] – In the Baptism, when G*D began to create belovedness, humans were formless. Then G*D said, "Let there be light "; and there was light. By that light G*D saw what was good and G*D clarified belovedness. G*D called the light Beloved and the darkness G*D called Dream and Possibility. And there was evening dream and there was morning light, the first day.

Out of chaos we find belovedness arising. It begins a shaping of the formless. Belovedness is a desire of the formless (Thanks be, G*D's light brings this to light). It is beginning and end, evening and morning.

Have you set a belovedness already formlessly present in your heart to work calling forth more belovedness within yourself and others? Have you received the name Beloved? Have you given the name Beloved to another? Have you seen the formless nonsense of the day being resolved into the shape of a beloved preferred future?

Big stuff in a big image.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/january2006.html

 

 

Creation moves from formless to formed, only to become the ground for new formation. Day by day, lightness and darkness interplay.

Repentance called for and responded to, follows this same process. This assertion calls us to look around: what light from today's repentance has come to guide us beyond repentances of old?

John's baptism unto repentance, Paul's baptism unto tongues and prophesy, Jesus' baptism unto belovedness, raises the question of what your baptism is unto? Might it be a baptism unto peace?

Regardless of a baptism focus offered or age/understanding when one receives, there is an entry into the mystery of creation and creation beyond creation. Relax, create, enjoy, baptize.

- - - - - - -

have you received a holy spirit?
what is that you ask?
it is this says you
well ok says I
and off we go

what once we knew we knew
it is reduced to babbling
pretty and comforting
but babbling still
it is expanded to consequences
harsh and challenging
but consequences still

what once we knew we knew
bows its head to play its part
between the less and more

between the less and more
is less and more
than spirits holy or muddy
can contain without
breaking apart into a blessing
on light and dark
beginning again
moving beyond

have you received a holy spirit?
of course
does it measure up?
not now not ever
and you
have you been released
from a spirit holy
to arise once more?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

 

 

The following comment was actually first written in light of the larger creation story to come. But in the editing process it seemed best to move it here. A question, of course, is whether it is worth moving anywhere or if it should be deleted altogether. For better or worse, we are committed as much to our warts as our gold and so here it is:

Another approach looks at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. Baptism is grounded in creation, or its not grounded. Genesis might well fit Mark’s opening line, “In the beginning of good news. . .” and continue on with “See, I am sending my messenger ahead.” [All the little fiddly bits (as fjords have been described in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), including all the details of days 1 to 7, have come before us to give evidence of good news.]

If we conflate the first and second creation stories in Genesis we might choose to focus on the third day. “And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters God called seas: and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:10, mostly KJV) From here it is but a hop, skip, and jump to Genesis 2:6. “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” (KJV)

That which was separated still belonged together. Baptism is a bringing back together of the humus/human/earth/ground and the sea/water/mist/river. Baptism is a creative moment – “Let there be . . . !” a returning to basics in order to go further than we have so far come – one step back that we might take two steps ahead.

Baptism that is Baptism is a very present ancient future that energizes us to new levels – indeed, to the very good. Baptism that is only baptism is still good in it’s bringing to mind what might yet be. The difference seems not to be in the amount of water, the trace minerals it carries, or the particular ritualistic tradition followed, but a mysterious, creation-oriented, gift of Wisdom and Holy Spirit. Good luck in trying to tie them down through any ritual, including Baptism.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

 

 

There was deep darkness. There was only deep dark - darkness so deep that darkness itself couldn’t be seen.

What is to be done? Drop a stone and listen for a clink? Sort of. Blow and whistle into the dark until it cannot hold and breaks apart. Lo and behold, there was light all along, but not sun light - formless, void.

This is a scene of high drama taking place under the stars that knows lunar months and solar years well attested in scripture. Here there is no astrological correspondence for a seven day week. We might look to numerology and all that we have claimed that “seven” means, but that is also problematic. Why not seven 4-day weeks instead of four 7-day weeks per lunar cycle?

If this recounting of calling forth light rather than finding it and naming it, is from the Priestly line, we might see this whole process as one of beginning a blessing of all that is, night and noon, and becoming our call to bless. It becomes the light the comes up out of the water, dark water, baptizing water, living water.

May you see numinous light and shape it to practical light. May your numinous light be named with your name.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/01/genesis-11-5.html