It's nice to begin on familiar ground. This text is familiar to me for a number of reasons and on a number of levels. Speaking of the Lectionary in the opening post, the Catholic Church has us proclaiming this text just over a week from now in the service of Easter Vigil, the "Salvation History for Dummies" service with readings that stack, one upon the other, to tell the story of how God began things, got into covenant with us, and eventually sent Christ to be the perfect Sacrifice to once-and-for-all reconcile us with God. He had to start somewhere, and so do I.
As small children we hear this story because it is so fundamental to how we see the world. As Catholics we believe that the point being driven home here is that God made everything you see and everything you don't. It doesn't matter how, really...He chose to leave the manner of how Creation happened out of it perhaps to keep us focused on His Creator role and because the ancient person He inspired to write this didn't understand the manner. And He was there in all his Three Persons. "Before Abraham was, I AM."
When I read this, I am reminded to thank Him for calling his creation good, many many times. Light is good...and darkness is good, the formed elements of the universe (matter) and the unformed (vacuum of space, "dark matter", anti-matter, whatever amazing and beautiful things physicists are finding that might be out there). Whatever is, is fundamentally good...despite the fact that this is not the world as it was meant to be.
Another interesting point is that, while there is quibbling about the order and the fact that there are two creation stories back-to-back, the fact remains that the creation the Bible describes is progressive, pushing forward from one step to the next, (gasp) evolving. How long did this process take? Who cares. God is outside of time and seemingly created the cycle of time with the moon and sun three "days" in. Asking Him how long it took or how He did it is missing the truth He wants us to see, which is that He pushed it forward. His is the drive that pushed creation forward step by step, and He is the artist that painted the sky and taught the birds to sing. In reading this, and stating that I believe it, I'm taking a step out of the worship of creation that comes so natural to humans, both the very ancient and the modern, and fixing my eyes on the Creator.
I am told at the end of the chapter that I am made in God's image...a common enough phrase in Christian life. My soul, my little human soul, bears similarities to God. It is immortal. It can be taken out of time. And it, when all the sin is washed away, is perfect and holy. No matter what else I can say about myself, my soul is meant to be that way. When God created me female, it was to express a part of Himself. A part that doesn't change because I said "Himself", or because women aren't called to be priests and men aren't called to bear children inside them. My femininity is a reflection of the female roles God plays, and my husband's masculinity is a reflection of the male roles God plays. He wants us to be different and complementary.
I have dominion over the rest of creation in almost the same way God has dominion...I'm called to exercise it with both justice and mercy. The ten shrimp on my plate for lunch are not going to ask me for an apology for eating them, because I have to eat something, and God provided that for me in the form of the various plants and animals around me. My dog, when my husband and I get one soon, is going to have to listen to my commands and is going to get scolded when he does wrong. On the other hand, when my dominion doesn't follow God's pattern, when I poison the water the shrimp live in or harshly punish my dog without mercy or even justice, that is Wrong. And Sinful. It makes me less holy than He is and unworthy of being with Him.
It strikes me as very cool that the first thing God commands me to do is to "be fruitful and multiply", to participate with Him in continuing to create. He isn't done yet, and as soon as humanity existed he commanded us to be part of the process, his image and likeness even in this.
Reading Haydock, I find that my earlier point about God being there in three Persons is actually cleverly hidden in the text. "Elohim" is plural (gods) but the verb for "made" isn't...These three acted as one. Elohim was a Hebrew way to refer to God...which suggests to me that they "got" the Trinity, the fact that God is more than one Person, in an incredible Unity. We also use this passage during Easter Vigil, when folks are baptized, which gives even more weight and meaning to the idea of the Wind on the Water...the Spirit making the water holy and special.
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