An architect, a surgeon and an economist are discussing Creation. The surgeon says: “Look, we surgeons are most important. God’s a surgeon because the first thing he did was to extract Eve from Adam’s rib.” The architect says: “No, wait a minute, architects must be more important because they came before. God must be an architect, because before he had made Adam and Eve, he made the world in seven days out of chaos.” So the economist just smiles: “And who made the chaos?”
Interpreting Genesis 1-3 is challenging but these opening chapters of the Bible lay a vital theological foundation. They teach a worldview of God’s eternal sovereignty, man and woman’s created complementarity, humankind’s inevitable sinfulness and God’s holy resolve to judge and punish sin. All this is under fierce attack in our day by radical atheists, the gay lobby and secular humanists. That’s why we are focusing on these chapters – we are contending for the faith.
Who do you think you are? Sigmund Freud, the psychoanalyst, says you are a complex being, and the reason you do what you do is because you are motivated by repressed desires, most of which would be too embarrassing to voice publicly. Karl Marx, the political philosopher, says you are a social animal, inseparable from society, and you find meaning in your struggle against the oppression of capitalism and the opiate of religious belief.
Freud says that your basic, fundamental urge is your sex drive, your libido. Marx says it’s your aggression. So two of the three most influential thinkers of the last century (the other being Einstein) thought that our most primary impulses were for sex and aggression, and that defines what we are.
Marx’s thinking gave birth to communism, which was, and is, an atheistic ideology. Communists (if there are still any left in the world) don’t believe in Adam and Eve. They laugh at readings like the one we had this morning. But paradoxically, Adam and Eve could have been the first Communists. They had no house, no clothes, no car; they worked for nothing and thought they were in Paradise!
But, seriously, who do you think you are? You’ve probably read those things which break us down to our assorted component parts; the average human body comprises enough fat to make seven bars of soap, enough iron to make a medium sized nail, enough potassium to explode a toy cannon, enough lime to whitewash a chicken coop, enough sugar to fill a jam jar, and enough sulphur to rid a dog of fleas.
Your body is amazing. (Preachers can only say that when carefully avoiding eye contact with the good-looking women in the congregation!) But it’s true for all of us. Every day your mouth produces about one litre of saliva, your heart pumps about 30,000 litres of blood and each foot exudes half a pint of sweat. You have approximately 4,000 wax glands in each ear and if it weren’t for the mucous that lines the walls of your gut, your stomach would probably digest itself. Your body is truly amazing.
What about God? Who does he think we are? What has he got to say about the human condition? Quite a lot. And the short passage we read just now is a particularly rich seam.
1) Part of the Created World
First of all, coming straight after the description of God’s creating and ordering of the natural world, and written in the same vein, these verses tell us that we are part of the created universe. Just like the rest of the natural world, we are fashioned by God and we owe our existence to his autonomous, sovereign decision to bring us into being. It’s an obvious point really, you’d expect the Bible to say exactly that. You and I are here by intelligent design, not by random accident. We are part of the created world, but not just part of the created world.
2) Distinct from the rest of Creation
Genesis 1 states that have a place of honour in God’s grand design. We are special, indeed unique. We are the last species God makes, bringing a kind of closure to his creative work. Genesis 1 tells us that we are, in some ways, quite unlike anything else in creation. Up to now, God has majestically called things into existence; earth, sky, oceans, stars, planets, plants, fish, birds, beasts. God speaks from his royal throne and it happens. But when it comes to making us, God fashions each of us, like a potter shapes a lump of clay, into an only-one-of-its-kind masterpiece. Tellingly, when God creates men and women he doesn’t say “let there be human beings”, like he has done for everything else he has made. He doesn’t say “let there be” at all this time, in v26, he says, “let us make…” And accordingly, instead of assessing what he made as ‘good’ as he has for every other created work, God seems to place a higher value on making us, describing our coming into existence as “very good.”
Having made man and woman, God congratulates himself and rejoices at having made something exceptionally admirable and innovative. God, the great artist, looks at what he has in his hand with a particular pride. He smiles with satisfaction because Adam, Eve and all their descendants reflect back the beauty, the imagination, the subtlety, the genius of their Creator in a way that nothing else does. God wants you to know from these Scriptures that he takes unusual delight in those who are fashioned in his image and likeness - you and I. All the pleasure that God has in the rest of his works; open seas, vast mountain ranges, majestic savannas, pulsating tropical forests, wild beasts that walk, fly and swim, stars – all that is just plain to him compared with the place in his heart he keeps for you. God loves you. A lot. When he made you he held you in his hand, nodded approvingly and said to himself, “That’s… that’s very good.”
In this Darwin bicentenary we have all heard, I’m sure, that the genetic maps for humans and chimpanzees are 98% identical - and though I’m no geneticist, I’m sure that is true. But, “So what? Yeah and…?” Coal and diamonds are 100% atomically identical, and we know that diamonds are forever and coal is for burning. That 2% difference between us and even the most developed, most intelligent, most man-like species in the animal world is similarly enormous.
This week, I tried listing some of the differences I see between human beings and all other animals. This is what I came up with; only humans wear clothes. Animals don’t. OK, except this dog. But apart from him, animals don’t wear boots. We use tools; animals don’t. We find meaning in rites of passage; we name our children, marry, bury our dead, hold coming-of-age and remembrance ceremonies. Only humans cry tears when emotional. Only humans laugh, smile or have a sense of humour (okay, not everyone)... Only humans create and invent. We come up with things like the wheel, the printing press, the mobile phone... Only humans have a sense of beauty and transcendence; unlike animals we celebrate, stimulate and provoke in fine art, in making music, in poetry, dance and drama. Only humans have an existential awareness. It occurs to us to ask, “Who am I?” “Where am I from?” No other creature frowns and asks, “What is the meaning of my life?”
Contrary to the logic of the survival of the fittest, we humans look after our weak, our old and our sick, for long periods of time if necessary. We are capable of amazing philanthropy; no animal does good for its own sake. Dogs may be loyal but we are unique in creation as beings capable of expressing and receiving the love in which we find happiness and fulfillment. Human beings ‘make love;’ animals mate. About three months before our cat had kittens I saw her getting it together with the alley cat down the road, and there was nothing… how can I say this in church? They just… made kittens and then went home for tea. In our species, sex has a higher and greater purpose than just producing offspring, it is primarily about expressing desire, commitment, love.
And the last distinction; only humans are on a quest for God and ultimate reality. But as Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public Affairs for the Church of England, has said this week, in a critique of Darwin, “Despite our vastly expanding technical knowledge, even a fairly cursory review of human history undermines any idea of constant moral progress.” That’s right; only human beings sin.
3) Appointed over the Rest of Creation
Thirdly, we are not only distinct from; we are also appointed over the rest of creation. In v28 God gave our species a permanent mission to accomplish - to spread throughout the world and rule it, to multiply and govern. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” We’re back to Freud and Marx; sex and aggression – they were right in a way, but here the mandate is God-centred and not man-centred, and it brings fulfilment, not frustration. “Rule over the fish, the birds and over every living creature,” says God. So the whole awe-inspiring variety of our natural habitat, with its flora and fauna is entrusted to our care. We belong to our environment, yes; but we are also custodians over it.
In fact, this is the beginning of work. The work we do is part of God’s plan. Your ambition, your drive, your natural inclination to seek career promotion and want responsibility, the sense of pride you take in developing a project well, all that ultimately comes from God.
Remembering tomorrow morning that work is good and it is part of what makes us human in God’s image. Ants work to make nests, bees work to make honey, beavers work to build dams; many species “do work.” But none has a charge and responsibility to care for other species or for its natural environment like we do. We’re in charge. We’ve got the job of controlling livestocks; we’re responsible for the management of natural resources, for maintaining air quality and for the state of the water in lakes and seas. God put us in charge, said in effect, “You look after that.”
So we’ve sent thousands of species to oblivion, sometimes innocently, sometimes by greed, sometimes by carelessness. We’ve created acid rain, toxic seas, and North Atlantic cod, once so abundant you could hardly sail a ship though the water, we’ve fished almost to extinction. The rate of acceleration in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now so high; some scientists say that freak weather is here to stay. Overall, our track record is not good and it’s not just fringe politicians, new age dropouts in baggy jumpers who say we’ve got to do something about the environment; God started the debate centuries ago, here in v28-30.
4) Spiritual Beings
The fourth thing is this: unlike anything else in creation, however beautiful or splendid or awe-inspiring it is, only we have been made in the image and likeness of God. It means that every human being, however unexceptional, however limited in our eyes, is massively significant. Being made in the image of God means we alone in creation are spiritual beings, we alone can have a relationship with God and indeed we never feel fully human until we discover that.
We are restless, until we find our rest in God, as Saint Augustin put it. That’s because God has designed us that way. Unlike any other created beast, we alone have a God-shaped hole. I love telling the story about the little four-year old girl who grew up in an atheist household. One day she asked her dad, “Daddy, where did I come from?” And dad gave her some really helpful stuff about amino acids, meteorites, primeval matter, DNA, randomness, chance, and so on. Then, just for balance, he added, “Oh, and there are some people who say that all this comes from a very powerful being and they call him God.” The little girl got up and started dancing around the room with joy. “I knew what you told me wasn’t true. It’s him! It’s him!” Somehow, we just sense there is someone out there, especially when we’re young; it’s inbuilt. We just repress it as we get older.
5) Male and Female
The last thing is at the end of v27, a theme that is amplified in chapter 2. God made human beings in his own image; male and female, he created them. In fact, every living creature he had called into existence before Homo sapiens was male and female too, but it just says that God made them “according to their different kinds.” But male and female is specifically mentioned here because I think there’s something about the nuances and subtleties of human maleness and femaleness that reflects God’s character in a distinctive way. Bono sang about the “mysterious distance between a man and a woman” – and there definitely is one. Of our 70,000 human genes, only 78 (those found in the Y chromosome) separate men from women. But what a difference! The fact that we differ from each other at a molecular level means we are distinct from one another in every cell of our bodies.
Here’s a little story that illustrates that. There was once a perfect man who met a perfect woman who fell perfectly in love. After a perfect period of engagement they had a perfect wedding and embarked on a perfect marriage. Everything was just perfect. Then one snowy Christmas Eve, in foul, foul weather, the perfect couple was driving in their perfect car when they saw someone in distress in the street. Being perfect citizens, they stopped right away.
It was Father Christmas with his sack of toys. Not wishing to upset all those kids the next morning, they invited Father Christmas into their car to help him on his way. But the snow storm got worse and worse and the perfect couple and Father Christmas had a road accident. Only one survived. Question: who was it? Answer: the perfect woman. How come? Because everybody knows the perfect man and Father Christmas don’t exist. So, if the perfect man and Father Christmas don’t exist it must have been the woman at the wheel. Which explains why there was a car crash in the first place! Oh dear…
In the 70s and 80s people emphasised the equality of the sexes and, of course, it was mostly a healthy corrective. “Anything you can do, I can do too” as the song went, and quite right too. But maybe we got a bit confused. By imposing a cultural moratorium on talking about our inequalities we lost sight of our unique differences as men and women. Since the mid 90’s, with books like ‘Men Are From Mars…’ people have been less shy about admitting what makes us distinct from each other.
Scientists and anthropologists now think that one of the most significant differences between us sits between the ears. It would appear that men’s brains and women’s brains are not the same – which explains a lot. Women’s brains - get ready for this - are smaller (about 5% on average) but they have more connections, and therefore more interaction, between the left and right hemispheres. This is why, in general, women are more competent verbally than men; they have a bigger space for memorising words which is why they are able to recount conversations they’ve had in great detail to their friends over coffee. It also explains why they are often more intuitive. They tend to be good judges of personality. It’s why women tend to multitask much more readily and efficiently than men.
Men, on the other hand, tend much more to use only one side of their brain at a time. That’s why many of them want to be engineers and work with computers. They often excel in logic and geometry and tend to cope well with abstract concepts. It’s why Kathie sometimes gets out of the car and lets me back it into a small parking space. And it’s why I, in total awe of her multitasking abilities, let her do the ironing, answer the phone, supervise the kids’ homework, feed the cat and mow the lawn while I check the sports reports on the Internet. Only joking…
Ending
So the end of Genesis 1 gives us some amazing answers to the question ‘who are you?’ You are the crown of creation, the spine-tingling crescendo of God’s opus. You have been put in charge of managing God’s estate, given authority over other species. You have been put in charge of oceans, mountains, natural resources, and conservation… You have been lovingly and carefully crafted, shaped in God’s very likeness, mysteriously resembling him, especially in the delightful complementarities that exist between the sexes.
Finally, “Let us make,” says God in v26. ‘In our image’. God seems to be having a conversation with himself. One God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: creator, redeemer, and life-giver. And these three are in an eternal relationship of adoring affection. The Father loves the Son, the Spirit loves the Father, the Son loves the Spirit... Right in the heart of God is a celebration of infinite perfection, a festival of holy joy and endless, unfathomable, unbreakable love. God is love.
This is the God in whose image you are fearfully and wonderfully made!
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 22nd February 2009
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