I attended the Methodist church again this morning. I particularly
enjoyed the sermon because the pastor referred to the Babylonian
creation myth Enuma Elish, and also looked at the Hebrew of Genesis 2.
The pastor was saying that she doubts that the ancient Babylonians or
the ancient Hebrews interpreted their creation myths as literal,
factual, historical accounts. She then went on, however, to talk like
they did: she said that they believed that their stories were etiologies
to account for how things came to be as they are—-to explain why people
till the soil, why women suffer painful childbirths, why people get
married, etc. But her conclusion about the significance of Genesis 2-3
may be more consistent with not seeing Genesis 2-3 as necessarily
historical or factual: she said that the creation story was about
humans’ place in the world, in light of how ancients understood it
(i.e., tilling the soil), and that the Bible is about whether there is
more to this life than working the soil and trying to get through the
day. See here and here for some links on whether the ancient Hebrews understood their creation stories as literal and historical. And see here for the Stephen Curtis Chapman song, “More to This Life”!
Today is Pentecost for a number of churches, and Pentecost relates to
the story in Acts 2 about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on a group
of the early Christians. The pastor was tying Genesis 2 with Acts 2.
She was noting that, in Genesis 2, God breathes his breath into the
earthling, and it becomes alive. She said that the lesson from this is
that God is as close to us as our breath. I was unclear if she was
suggesting that everyone has the Holy Spirit. I can understand a person
arriving at that sort of conclusion, even if Paul seems to believe that
Christians are the ones who have the Spirit of God inside of them, and
the reason is that, in the Hebrew Bible, ruach can mean spirit
or breath. In a sense, God’s own breath is inside of us, according to
Genesis 2. Is that different from God’s spirit being inside of
believers? Is there diversity within the Bible on this topic? In any
case, the pastor’s conclusion on this seemed to be that God’s spirit has
been around and active for a long time in history.
The pastor made a point about marriage in Genesis 2, and that made me think. She said that, in Genesis 2, ha-adam
is split apart when God makes the woman; through marriage, however,
human beings unite again, for the man and the woman become one. That
raises some questions in my mind. First of all, does that suggest that
full humanity comes in marriage? What about singles? I know that Paul
in I Corinthians sees the single life as acceptable, and even preferable
for him in terms of his mission. But is there a sense in which
marriage makes people more fully human? I vaguely recall a rabbinic
saying that implied precisely that. Second, does this insight (about
men and women coming together in marriage) imply that men and women are
certain ways and complement each other? Third, does it indicate that
marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman, who bring their
own ways of doing and seeing things into the union? My impression is
that this church is rather liberal—-it is sensitive to
historical-critical insights about the text, it reads Marcus Borg,
etc.—-and thus would be more on the pro-marriage equality side than the
anti. Would the pastor say that same sex couples, too, reflect the
union of humanity that heterosexual couples do? I would ask her, but I
did not want to barrage her with difficult questions about controversial
issues after the service!
The pastor made another point that I kind of liked. She shared with
us a prayer of St. Augustine. She said that Augustine was big on
original sin, so he is not the type of person whom she ordinarily reads,
but that he has great prayers! I could identify with this approach. I
am probably more sympathetic towards Augustine on original sin, even
though I do not care for his belief in infant damnation (and yet I
respect that he struggled with that). But, as with the pastor, there
are things that resonate with me, and there are things that do not
resonate with me so much, and yet I am open to whatever encourages me to
live a healthy spiritual life.
The service this morning was calm and laid-back, and I liked that.
There was a peaceful quality to it, a calm in the atmosphere, if that
makes sense. The pastor’s sermon did inspire some questions inside of
me, but I do appreciate any sermon that is thoughtful and scholarly, and
hers certainly was. I am eager to hear her thoughts about other
biblical texts in future sermons, and maybe even in Sunday School, once I
start to attend that (which may be a while—-it will be sometime after I
get my own key to our apartment). Last week, I inadvertently sat in
someone else’s seat in the back row, and I noticed today that she sat in
another seat before I arrived; she may not have been intentionally
giving me her seat, for she probably just became accustomed to her new
seat, but I was glad to sit in that seat in the back row. Something
else that I like about going to this church is the thirty minute walk to
the church, and the thirty minute walk back. There are churches that
are closer to me, but I really enjoy the walk to this particular
church. It is a good time for praying, and the scenery is beautiful. I
talked with someone this morning who walks an hour to church!