The Rhythm of the Days

Genesis 1:1-2:4

“Listen to this passage as a work of poetry,” is the way I introduced our scriptural text for the week to the roundtable. So often we approach the biblical texts as instructions for life, or as historical documentation. Neither of these approaches is at all helpful when we are reading the priestly account of God’s majestic work of creation.

When in doubt, we seem to go for the details, the little things. There is a hunger for more information, so I often get asked for more details, as if I have a different Bible that tells me more than the layman’s version.  This time, I had hopes that we could approach the text with a sense of wonder. And perhaps it worked.

“So, when it says God created the birds of the air, does that mean the robins and the cardinals and all the different kinds of birds that we know?” It’s an interesting question. Did God create every kind of bird that we know, or did some of these evolve later?

“Did God actually finish creating the world on the sixth day, or is the world still, somehow, being created?” The land and the seas are still moving, changing; species of plants and animals are still evolving; and the universe, itself, seems to be ever expanding. 

“How are we to understand the instruction God gives humankind to “subdue” the earth?” Knowing what we know now about the ways our efforts to become masters over the creation can do severe harm, do we want to consider a gentler approach? Such as to “tend” the earth?  Yes, here is another reminder that it does not always serve us well to read the scriptures as an instructional text, as if every verse of every book were law.

Finally, we asked about the seventh day. What do we think about this day of rest? With due reverence, we opined that God certainly deserved it. “But what about us,” I asked. “Do we deserve it?”

Of this we were not so sure. One after another spoke up in defense of certain kinds of work that must be done, even on the Sabbath day. Hospital patients need care, cows need milking. It’s just not possible for us to abandon all work for the sake of a day of rest.

Of course, this is true. Yet, I wonder. For what purpose did the priestly source include the description of this seventh day? What purpose could it be other than to say something about the essential nature of this regular pause in our activity? This is true for all living creatures. No one is so important that the world cannot go on without them. By the same token, no one is so insignificant that they can be worked interminably.

Sabbath is, perhaps, a reminder of our inherent worth to God – a worth that is given to each one of us in equal measure. As I read this story of creation, it is easy to see it as a story of gift. God holds the world lightly, with grace and blessing, and in the end, takes sacred joy in this creation. How could we ever imagine that we should do any differently?

Photo: By NASA/Apollo 17 crew; taken by either Harrison Schmitt or Ron Evans