September: the month when children go back to school and when church school classes for all ages start again. School teachers know that you do not begin the first day of class with new material, but that you go back and review material already covered. For us too, as we enter another season in the life of the church, it is good to review some material already covered.
“In the beginning…” So begins the famous opening to the book of Genesis (a word which means “origins,” as in the English word “genealogical”). The first line is a statement asserted without any compulsion to offer other proof: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” How it occurred, out of what materials, in what geological timeframe–none of those questions is addressed or felt to be a particular matter of concern. All that is important is the establishment of two actors in the grand drama of life–a creator, God, and a created stage for life consisting of heavens and earth.
Immediately, those few words cause people to part company. One group moves to the other side of the room, self-identifying themselves with a variety of titles: skeptic, scientist, rationalist, atheist, doubter…and then they insist that all that exists can be explained in non-religious terms. The universe has always been, or at least emerged on its own after the Big Bang. Human life evolved from simple life-forms. Human emotions and so-called spiritual inclinations (be they altruistic virtues or creative visions or instinctual, sacrificial love) are just the byproduct of hormones and genetic impulses. Smaller and smaller the conversational focus becomes, moving away from talk of heaven and hunkering down in lectures on genomes and pheromones and natural (“No God needed”) selection.
The other group self-identifies with their own variety of titles: believer, person of faith, trusting soul, churchgoer, religious philosopher…and in their own way, simply insists that all that exists cannot be explained in non-religious terms. While the other group talks about evolution and science and reason; this group nods approvingly and adds in talk about wonder, surprise and hope that is stronger than death. And the place where the scales tip in the direction of belief vs. doubt is that spot when we ask the question: Why? Why is there something instead of nothing? What is the “why” behind an atheistic, impersonal, chance-driven creation?
There is no “why” without God. But by going back once more to Genesis 1 and saying quietly to ourselves, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,” then a “Why” and a “Wherefore” emerges. It takes the shape of love, of hope, of a yearning guided toward a promised completion–all of which we humbly attribute to God and then happily spend a lifetime exploring what it means to say “Yes” to that beginning phrase in the book of Genesis.
It’s September. Time to review, to remember our foundations of faith, and then to continue the lesson plan set before us.