Foundational Stories

One of the foundational stories any culture tells explains how it was created. Think about our founding story as the United States. In ancient times, the political and religious divide didn’t exist. So founding stories were spiritual stories.
In Genesis, we find not one but two founding stories. Both place the creation of humanity within the context of a personal God. Both lift the goodness and beauty of creation and the role people are meant to play.
In the second story, two things are noteworthy: naming and knowing. God creates and calls the Earth-Creature “Adam.” Then the Earth-Creature (that is what Adam means in Hebrew) names everything else. God learns the names of things through the leadership of the Creature, Adam.  Isn’t that AMAZING? 
The Creator and Creature walk the earth together. But the Earth Creature is still lonely. That creature was originally neither male nor female. It was non-binary. God was the intended partner for Adam. But God knew that the Earth Creature was lonesome, so God gave the creature a partner.
Knowing and naming are profoundly important. In our most intimate relationships, we need to be able to do both. Knowing means going deep in shared knowledge and mutual support and affirmation. Naming means articulating and assigning meaning. Are we doing these things with our Creator and our earthly companions? I hope so.
Our founding story guides us. It reminds us that our language is designed for meaning-making and relationship-building. Let’s be sure to use it that way.  As we share meaningful conversations, we deepen our knowledge of one another. Giving sound to the love within our hearts through Jesus Christ, the word made flesh.

---Pastor Rebecca