Sermon on February 14, 2010
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
A little girl asked her mother, “How did the human race appear?” The mother answered, “God made a beautiful garden called Eden. God put two people in this garden, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had lots of children and they had children and that’s where people came from.”
Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.”
The confused girl returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”
Part of what we’re celebrating in church today is “Evolution Sunday”—a chance, really, to think faithfully and critically about faith and science, and to wonder a little about how it all fits together. Of course, today is also our congregation’s “Anniversary Sunday”—a chance to stop and reflect on what 171 years of ministry means, and perhaps to wonder about 171 more. Today is also Valentine’s Day, tomorrow is Presidents Day, and Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, thus beginning the season of Lent. You may be wondering this morning, “With Valentines, Presidents, Lent, and our church’s anniversary, did Ben really need to go dig up yet another thing to think about this morning?” Truth be told, I’m not going to say anything about Valentines or Presidents today, and I’m going to leave Lent for next week. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that today, on the anniversary of our congregation’s life, we think about issues of faith and evolution—science and religion. What better way to celebrate the rich, thoughtful, and engaging history of faith and learning at First Presbyterian Church!
I’d like to take a quick moment to explain that “Evolution Sunday” is not a day that I just made up for the sake of a sermon title. Evolution Sunday is a Sunday that coincides with the birthday of Charles Darwin, and it provides an opportunity for people of faith to raise questions about faith and science in the context of worship and Christian education. That’s what we’re doing today.
Churches around the country began holding Evolution Sunday services when, in 2004, a school board in Grantsburg, Wisconsin passed a series of anti-evolution policies. Of course, school boards around the country had already done similar things, and so I’m not too sure why it was that Grantsburg provided the impetus for what followed. I do know that at the beginning, a couple hundred clergy from around the state of Wisconsin signed a letter to the school board in Grantsburg. I won’t read the entire letter to you now, but here are a few pieces of it:
“While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook… Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts. We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator… We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.”
It started with 200 clergy in Wisconsin, and today that list has grown to over 12,400 signatures—all pastors, preachers, and professional Christian educators adding their “yes” to this statement about faith and science.
Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We all have different ways of thinking through these issues. For some, faith falls apart in light of what science teaches, and for others, science fails to convince in light of what the Bible says.
A zookeeper came across an orangutan reading two books. One was the Bible; the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Why are you reading such opposite books?” the zookeeper asked. The orangutan replied, “Well, I’m trying to figure out if I’m supposed to be my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”
That’s sort of where some folks fall—an understanding of faith and science as opposites, and a belief that, like the orangutan, we need to choose one or the other. So, which is it? Or where do we start? Part of the problem, in my mind, is that we’ve got too many people running around with Bibles trying to disprove scientific discoveries, and at least a few others running around with science books trying to disprove faith. Another part of the problem is that all too often, faith is strictly filtered through the lens of scientific discovery or science is strictly filtered through the lens of biblical teaching.
That being said, there’s also a temptation to say, simply, “Let’s let faith be faith, and let’s let science be science,” and to then never let the two comingle. But then can a Christian take science seriously without dismissing his faith? Can a scientist be a disciple of Jesus Christ without leaving her scientific brain at the door?
Our Scripture reading today from Genesis goes back to the beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”
For some, this is the beginning of all the science they need about Creation. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Theories and prospects of a “Big Bang” and any evolutionary designs that might have followed are apparently not worth considering. The problem, though, with this literal, simplistic reading of Genesis is that it misses something beautiful about what its author was attempting to say. Take the phrase, for example, “a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” For our Jewish faith ancestors, the “wind from God” was God’s Spirit, moving over the waters. Water itself represented chaos, disorder. So the image of Genesis 1:2 is an image of God’s Spirit, hovering over this gigantic churn of chaos and shining a light on it. “Let there be light,” God says, and so we’re given this image of a Divine spark, brining sense and order to Creation.
Is this significant because it says how it happened? Is it true because it gives a literal account of what things really looked like on Creation’s first day? Is this really all the science we need? Or, could it be that what we have here in these first two verses of Genesis really has nothing whatsoever to do with science and everything to do with how we understand the loving nature of God? God—never far from the chaos of life—hovering over it, actually, shining a light on those places in our world and in our lives where the chaos seems overwhelming—calling that light “good.”
The first chapter of Genesis is not a science textbook. It’s poetry. It’s a hymn that may actually have been sung when it was first written—a song of God’s faithfulness to Creation. The second verse goes like this: And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.”
Now all this talk of domes and waters might seem confusing. But imagine a person a few thousand years ago standing on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He looks out at the water. What color is it? It’s blue. He looks up at the sky and what color is it? It’s blue. And what is it that occasionally falls from the sky? Water! What might he naturally conclude about the makeup of the sky? There’s water up there! Another giant sea hovering high above us!
If there’s any science in Genesis, it’s a basic, observational science that concludes that beyond this dome above us called “Sky” there lies yet another chaotic churn of water. And guess what? Now that we’ve flown through our atmosphere, we know that that understanding of the Sky is scientifically wrong. But Genesis is not about science—it’s a poetic love song to God, the Creator. And the author says in Genesis, “Thank you. Thank you, God, for creating this dome in the midst of these waters so that we might have life and breath.”
The purpose of Genesis is not to scientifically explain it all. The purpose of Genesis is to express awe and wonder at the sight of it all.
A creationist would disagree. A creationist would find a way to argue that in spite of everything I’ve said, Genesis 1:1-2 really gives an accurate scientific, historical account of the first two twenty-four hour days of creation. A creationist might also argue that Intelligent Design be taught in public schools as a science, in spite of the fact that there are no peer-reviewed scientific journals publishing empirical data supporting intelligent design. None.
But a creationist would argue that the universe must have a source—that we human beings couldn’t possibly have evolved from primates. Of course, there are a number of problems with this, one of them being that Darwin’s theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the source of creation—it merely explains how it is that various species have come to look like what they look like today.
More conversation about this to come. As I preach today, I have the distinct advantage of knowing that Dave Higgs and I are about to begin a three-week Christian education series on faith and science, beginning today. That frees me to not try and say everything in the context of this particular sermon!
But for now I will say this. I believe that our best faithful minds and our best scientific minds operate in a similar direction. Both attempt to give voice to mysteries of creation and life. Both instill a true reverence for the way things are—for the sky, for fingerprints, and for the fact that our minds are advanced enough to even have this conversation. Both faith and science call us to wonder, to ask questions, and to marvel at universe around us.
Kenneth Miller has written a book, Finding Darwin’s God. In it he writes: “Even as we use experimental science and mathematical logic to reveal the laws and structure of the physical universe, a series of important questions will always remain, including the sources of those laws and the reason for there being a universe in the first place.”
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
May our best faithful and scientific minds lead us to wonder more and more about God at the source of it all. Amen.
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