Genesis 1:1 - 2:4

• Sexuality is good. It is part of creation. It is part of fruitfulness and multiplication.

• Human sexuality is not helpful for describing G*D. We are continually slipping up by projecting our experience onto any mystery of G*D. Though sexuality seems to be intended by G*D, it is not constituent of G*D.

• Experienced sexuality comes in a multitude of ways. It is worth noting that verse 27 speaks of our singular and plural sexual identity. We are gendered and communal. Neither Genesis’ “his-ness” nor “them-ness” completes a picture of G*D. We still have more theologizing to do from an intersex perspective.

 

We may have to revisit Easter and Trinity in light of the fecundity of creation and wonder more about G*D and sexuality, but for now claim sexuality as a good gift, regardless of its orientation. There are boundaries of good and bad behaviors in every sexual orientation, but that is another story for another time.

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

As we deal with an image of GOD known as "Trinity" hear these words from Walter Brueggemann.

"...the statement about the image of God (vv. 26-27) must be understood in juxtaposition to Israel's resistance to any image of God....

"Within that critique of every religious temptation to idolatry, our text makes a surprising counter-assertion. There is one way in which God is imaged in the world and only one: humanness! This is the only creature, the only part of creation, which discloses to us something about the reality of God. This God is not known through any cast or molten image. God is known peculiarly through this creature who exists in the realm of free history, where power is received, decisions are made, and commitments are honored. God is not imaged in anything fixed but in the freedom of human persons to be faithful and gracious. The contrast between fixed images which are prohibited and human image which is affirmed represents a striking proclamation about God and about humanness."

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

Easter, as new creation, appropriately goes back to a prior creation. Here it is a grounding for a new beginning. However, we will be looking primarily at the strange Sunday dedicated to a construct of “Trinity”. Our hope is to add additional trinities to the standardized religious one. This will enhance the limitation of what has become tradition.

The most helpful commentary about this pericope is found in Genesis, by Walter Brueggemann, in the Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching series. While we quote him only regarding this text, his whole commentary is well worth your while. Brueggemann is at his usual best here and we can’t do better than listen in as he teaches us. Listen to Brueggermann as we deal with an image of G*D known as “Trinity”.

...the statement about the image of God (vv. 26-27) must be understood in juxtaposition to Israel’s resistance to any image of God....

Within that critique of every religious temptation to idolatry, our text makes a surprising counter-assertion. There is one way in which God is imaged in the world and only one: humanness! This is the only creature, the only part of creation, which discloses to us something about the reality of God. This God is not known through any cast or molten image. God is known peculiarly through this creature who exists in the realm of free history, where power is received, decisions are made, and commitments are honored. God is not imaged in anything fixed but in the freedom of human persons to be faithful and gracious. The contrast between fixed images which are prohibited and human image which is affirmed represents a striking proclamation about God and about humanness.

Imagine imaging G*D as Humanity, not Trinity! How do you then see G*D in the multiplicity of the human condition?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

Here is a “trinity” of pictures about the Sabbath from Walter Brueggemann that may help us rest easier in life. Can you see how to use this when teaching about some mandatory curricula as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”?

a. The sabbath discloses something about the God of Israel. The creator does not spend his six days of work in coercion but in faithful invitation. God does not spend the seventh day in exhaustion but in serenity and peace. In contrast to the gods of Babylon, this God is not anxious about his creation but is at ease with the well-being of his rule.

b. The sabbath is a kerygmatic statement about the world. It announces that the world is safely in God’s hands. The world will not disintegrate if we stop our efforts. The world relies on God’s promises and not on our efforts. The observance of sabbath rest is a break with every effort to achieve, to secure ourselves, and to make the world into our image according to our purposes.

c. The sabbath is a sociological expression of a new humanity willed by God. Sabbath is the end of grasping and therefore the end of exploitation. Sabbath is a day of revolutionary equality in society. On that day all rest equally, regardless of wealth or power or need (Exod. 20:8-11). Of course, the world is not now ordered according to the well-being and equality of sabbath rest. But the keeping of sabbath, in heaven and on earth, is a foretaste and anticipation of how the creation will be when God's way is fully established. Sabbath is an unspoken prayer for the coming of a new sanity shaped by the power and graciousness of God.

Have you been exercised about how rigorously to apply Sabbatarian principles? This helps us move off a pietistic rule to the merciful action of seeing to well-being and equality. Sabbath as social justice is a helpful vision.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

The language of “dominion” has long given us fits. Again, listen to Brueggeman reflect a healthier understanding of this part of the creation story. You might want to reflect on the unhealthy ways the language of the “Trinity” has been used and see if the shepherd image can help redeem it [father = cares, son = tends, spirit = feeds or some other configuration of these?].

The “dominion” here mandated is with reference to the animals. The dominance is that of a shepherd who cares for, tends, and feeds the animals. Or, if transferred to the political arena, the image is that of a shepherd king (cf. Ezek. 34). Thus the task of “dominion” does not have to do with exploitation and abuse. It has to do with securing the well-being of every other creature and bringing the promise of each to full fruition. (In contrast, Ezek. 34:1-6 offers a caricature of the human shepherd who has misused the imperative of the creator.)

Moreover, a Christian understanding of dominion must be discerned in the way of Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Mark 10:43-44). The one who rules is the one who serves. Lordship means servanthood. It is the task of the shepherd not to control but to lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:11). The human person is ordained over the remainder of creation but for its profit, well-being, and enhancement. The role of the human person is to see to it that the creation becomes fully the creation willed by God.

Yes, we can understand servanthood with our heads, but we keep acting as though power is the real game and servanthood is just a technique to achieve it. Where does this show up in the congregation you are with?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

One of the places we still have trouble is in the area of sexuality. Here is another way to look at a traditional “trinity” - creation, humanity, community - because if “trinity” doesn’t relate to the real parts of our lives, it doesn’t relate to anything. The following words are again from Brueggemann.

(1) Sexuality is good and is ordained by God as part of creation.

(2) Sexual identity is part of creation, but it is not part of the creator. This text provides no warrant for any notion of the masculinity or femininity or androgyny of God. Sexuality, sexual identity, and sexual function belong not to God’s person but to God’s will for creation. Because humankind is an image, a modeling, an analogy of God, sexual metaphors are useful for speaking of the mystery of God. But they are ways of reference and not descriptions. The slippage between God and image of God is apparent in sexual language here and elsewhere in the Bible. Sexuality is ordained by God, but it does not characterize God. It belongs to the goodness God intends for creation.

(3) The statement of verse 27 is not an easy one. But it is worth noting that humankind is spoken of as singular (“he created him”) and plural (“he created them”). This peculiar formula makes an important affirmation. On the one hand humankind is a single entity. All human persons stand in solidarity before God. But on the other hand, humankind is a community, male and female. And none is the full image of God alone. Only in community of humankind is God reflected. God is, according to this bold affirmation, not mirrored as an individual but as a community.

We may have to revisit this in light of the fecundity of creation and wonder more about G*D and sexuality, but for now remember sexuality as a good gift, regardless of its orientation. There are boundaries of good and bad sex behaviors in every orientation, but that is another story for another time.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

Continuing a journey with Brueggemann in his Genesis commentary, we hear of another important threesome that can be helpfully related to a reflection on the “trinity” – environment, humans, Sabbath – a Theology of Blessing.

The creation narrative is a statement about the blessing God has ordained into the processes of human life. Three times the term “blessing” is used: of living creatures (v. 22), of human creatures (v. 28), and of the sabbath (2:3). God’s action is sometimes regarded as extrinsic to life, essentially alien to it, and even in some tension with it. There is a tendency in some theological traditions to articulate a deep gulf between the goodness of God and the unhealthiness of the world. Sometimes the “otherness” of God is linked to the depravity of the world. Curiously, this is articulated both in some forms of Reformation thought and in Gnostic traditions. But here that gulf is denied. The world itself is a vehicle for the blessings God has ordained in it as an abiding characteristic.

...This liturgy affirms and enacts a blessing in the world that the world cannot reject or refute. It voices a protest against alternative ideologies of our day.

i. The declaration of news about our situation is addressed to literalists and rationalists who believe the world is settled, fixed, and without news. This liturgy affirms that God is at work to bring creation to his purpose.

ii. The dialectic of nearness (embodying fidelity) and distance (embodying freedom) is offered against every escape into a religious womb of transcendentalism and every escape from the hard obligations of freedom. It is further offered against the deception that we are on our own and can avoid answering the giver of life.

iii. The calling of human persons in the vocation of shepherd is offered against an ideology of grasping exploitation and against retreat into irresponsible self-indulgence. It invites a new modeling of humanness after “The Good Shepherd” who does not grasp.

iv. The articulation of sabbath as the goal of life is affirmed against all efforts to justify and secure in the name of competence.

v. The delight in the goodness and blessing of life is asserted against the view that life is neutral or hostile and that God is an outsider to it all.

Congregations can get caught up in dissecting their circumstance. This, of course, leads to the death of many frogs as well as the institutionalizing of lukewarm congregations. A "Theology of Blessing", as Matthew Fox brilliantly affirms in his writings, moves us toward a holism present in this creation story.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

Did you ever imagine there were so many connecting spots and helpful teaching images that connect the first creation story with the formulaic “Trinity”?

Presuming that this section of Genesis is written from the experience of Exile, it is interesting to note the liturgical nature of the poetry. It invites myself and the congregation I am in the midst of, to understand and rejoice in a world G*D has intended – which is far different from how the world is often experienced.

Instead of getting into a my-God-will-eventually-beat-your-God kind of mentality, the rhetorical pattern of this text is a gentle summoning. Brueggemann writes,

The shape of reality can only be understood as the purpose of God. Creation is in principle obedient to the intent of God. This is affirmed even to exiles who have doubted if the world is at all in the purview of God. Creation is what it is because God commands it. But the command is not authoritarian. It is, rather, “let be.” God gives permission for creation to be. The appearance of creation is a glad act of embrace of this permit.

Do you see traditional explanations of the “Trinity” as constraining or permitting?

Whether about creation or creed may we find ourselves more lyric and poetic, less descriptive and argumentative.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/may2002.html

Three and yet one. This same unified multiplicity is before us with creation stories. Here we find the language that can mean both that creation came forth from nothing (ex nihilo) or ordered from that which was present, chaotic as it may have been. 

One way of looking at playing between categories comes from a comment on Midrash lectionary comments (url?) by a neighbor, Will Houts,

A couple of years ago, I was doing some thinking about what the Trinity actually meant for contemporary Western culture. If it was even relevant.... And one of the things that hit me, was why three, why not four, or two, or one. And as I was thinking, geometry started to come back to me from high school. I thought about the number of points and how you could connect them all together. With two, you can only have a straight line, with four you have a rectangle with an "X" through the center, with five, a pentagon with a star in the center, but with three, you can only have a triangle and there will always be an open space in the center of it. And that was what hit me as really relevant for today’s world, that at the center of God there is openness. That openness is first of all mystery. It’s not clear to us exactly what the nature of God is (which may help to explain the headaches that I get when thinking about the Trinity). But also in that openness is space for us to be invited into the life of God, into the mystery that is God. I’m not sure how this is going to play out in the sermon for Sunday, but we will see.  Hope this helps.”

Thanks, Will, your imagery helps me remember how open and fluid was the beginning of the doctrinal history of "trinity". Even though it has currently morphed into a litmus test, you help me remember how meaning-seeking we are and to take a bit more lightly the formulations we come up with to try to explain that which is unexplainable.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html

It is easy to see how we can get to a Christian doctrine of Trinity from the Christian scriptures. This does seem to be significant jump from the Jewish scriptures and their focus upon G*D being one.

It is next to impossible to tell whether Trinitarian language rolled trippingly off the tongue of Jesus or was put in his mouth. It is possible to tell that this is a uniquely Christian doctrine. As such it has gotten in the way of Christian talking to Christian as well as between someone who is a Christian Trinitarian and someone who is not. We may need to look again at whether there is a place for Christian Unitarianism.

Ultimately this Trinity construct, no matter how helpful some think it is, needs to take a back seat to an appeal to live in peace (2 Cor. 13:11). This peace begins to be seen with three key (but not exclusive or exhaustive) descriptions of peace as grace, love, and communion.

- - - - - - -

heads trip on making patterns
where none is to be found

hearts trip on breaking patterns
where too many are present

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html

Another way of coming at this passage is the promo that Sojourner Online gave for the book by Dennis Bakke, Joy at Work:

Today, joy and work are rarely used in the same sentence. But God really does intend for us to find joy in our work. Is this possible? In JOY AT WORK: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job, Dennis Bakke describes how he created the most fun workplace in human history by eliminating the HR department, hourly wages, and job descriptions - using principles established in Genesis.

That promo helps us reflect on how we might change whatever trinity we have been using for a basis of our life. One popular such trinity is God-Work-Family sometimes put God-Money-Sex. Alternatives such as God-Joy-Peace are also out there. Again, what trinity are you using to ground your life and how might that change for the better?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html

Distinction and Extension. Dividing this-from-that and generating more-and-more. With these two tools no-thingness goes beyond some-thingness to potential more-thingness.

When these two processes do not work in relationship to one another we end up with the battle any institution faces as it strives to hold itself together in the face of forces ready to tear it apart. To put this in a different and more contemporary process of creation and de-creation there is a helpful working paper online, The Centripetal Network: How the Internet Holds Itself Together, and the Forces Tearing it Apart that exemplifies some of this.

Put graphically