Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Mark 3:31-35, “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

The sixth and final installment of the Star Wars saga opened this week in theaters nationwide. There’s been a lot of press coverage given to both the film and to the people who camped out in front of movie theaters, hoping to be the first fans to see “Revenge of the Sith”.

While camping on the pavement wearing a Princess Leia outfit is hardly anything I would do voluntarily, I assure you that in a week or two, I will pay good money to see the final episode of the Star Wars story, and I bet many of you will, too. And it’s not just folks here in the US that are gaga over Star Wars. Millions of people all around the world have grown up with the exploits of Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader and all of us are waiting to see how this last and 3^rd episode will tie it all together.

For more than 25 years, George Lucas has woven a multi-billion dollar grand inter-galactic epic around the struggle between good and evil. Even though the films are set in some far off unidentified future, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." Star Wars resonates deeply with us because it really is a familiar story. The struggle between good and evil has been played out in every country, region and tribe, generation before generation since the beginning of time, and the stories of those struggles are told & retold, probably throughout the galaxy, but they certainly are on this planet.

All over the world, human beings tell stories. Stories around the campfire, stories around the dinner table, stories on the radio and on TV & movie screens, stories on blogs and stories on cassettes and CDs for your car. We love stories. We love to hear them and we love to tell them.

Now some stories we tell just for entertainment – they make us laugh or scratch our heads, but by the next generation they are forgotten and replaced with new ones. The stories we remember, the stories we tell over and over and over again are the stories that strive to explain the things that matter, those things that upset us and confound us and make us ask ‘How’ and ‘Why’.

All over the world, people tell these stories: elaborate sagas about how the world began and how human beings fit in. These stories were remembered and retold generation to generation because they made some kind of sense, not really ‘sense’ like logic, but ‘sense’ in an fundamental kind of way, and with a careful reading, you can learn a lot about the people who told the story.

For example, while ice and snow constitute the setting of the Norse creation epic, the Maori story explains storms and the sea, and the creation story of the Jicarillo Apache doesn’t even mention lakes, let alone oceans. The Potawatomi tell how white-skinned and black-skinned people were created with flaws and impurities before the more successful creation of people with red skins. The Maya tell that humans were made because no other creatures could praise the creator gods. There are a zillion of these stories. Just google ‘creation stories’ and you’ll find them all, old and new, all offering an explanation as to how the world was made and how human beings are connected to the earth and to the divine, to the Creation and to the Creator.

The Genesis story that was read this morning is one of those kinds of stories. While few of us trace our ancestors from a middle eastern tribe of people, in a very real way, it is our story, our creation story, a story that describes not only how the world came into being, but also reveals the nature of the Creator and the nature of the Creator’s relationship with all of creation — and most especially, the nature of the Creator’s relationship with humankind.

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...” the people of Israel were held captive by the conquering Babylonians. After their holy temple was desecrated and reduced to ruins, the Israelites were taken into exile, to a strange city in a strange country a thousand miles away.

They were in despair. Their enemies held all the cards and the captives held little hope. The Babylonians delighted in their triumph over the Israelites. They knew that it was a victory won because their great god Marduk, “the creator of the universe and ruler of all”, had defeated Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews.

There, amid that misery some 2600 years go, the priests and scholars of the exiled Jews worked out a creation story that would explain not just how and why the world was created, but a story that would help the people understand how they had ended up by the rivers of Babylon, and why they should not lose heart.

You see, the story in the first chapter of Genesis is not really a myth, a primordial story of supernatural heroes. Nor is it a primitive people’s stab at a scientific explanation for the universe. They weren’t out to explain how the world happened, they needed to explain why, they needed to understand God’s intention for them. The Genesis story is not myth, and it’s not ‘science’. It’s a radical theological proclamation that rang true for the exiled Jews so long ago and it still rings true to us today.

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." Well, actually, just last week, in grocery store here in town, I had an encounter with a woman who cheerfully pushes samples at unsuspecting shoppers. You know those counters with plastic trays holding little white paper cups holding chips, strudel, cookies, quiche, lunchmeat, salsa, all kinds of stuff. She was there slicing up ice cream bars.

I smiled and said hello, as I am wont to do, and I think I must have asked something like “How are you?” because in a heartbeat, the woman behind the counter launched into a hi-speed monologue about how bummed she was. Angela (which as they say, is not her real name) was on a serious tear about the state of the world and how depressed she is and how it feels like she’s lost her country. “I worked on John Kerry’s campaign,” she said. “And the day after he lost we were all together up in the break room, just in shock. We didn’t know what to do or say. For the 2^nd time in 4 years we had lost everything! Those blankety-blank Christians are ruining the country!”

Well, having learned my lesson about this sort of thing just a little while back, I managed to break into her diatribe and said, “Hey now, hold on. I’m a Christian, I’m a minister in the United Church of Christ. You can’t just say that it’s just Christians who are screwing things up because that’s not true.”

Well, Angela picked her teeth up from the floor, did some fancy footwork, backed up the trail, and after a few more minutes of rant, she finally ran out of steam, with the plaintive sigh, “I just don’t have any hope any more.” And in that sigh I swear I heard the echoes of the voices of those exiled Jews in Babylon, lo these many years ago.

Now I may not be very happy about what’s going on in Washington DC, but shortly after Inauguration Day I pretty much got over losing the election. But Angela, and I’m guessing countless others in this country didn’t get over it either. They couldn’t get over it. They simply had no way, no tools, no faith with which to get over it and as a result, they feel — and act — like they are in exile! No wonder Angela is angry and depressed! What had been the central focus of her life was in ruins: When the candidate on whom she had pinned all her hope lost the election, Angela fell into despair and is stuck there. She feels cut off, isolated and powerless.

I managed to get another word in edgewise and I told her that “of course I had been sorely disappointed when Kerry lost”, but I wasn’t in desolation about it. I told her that in times like this my faith really helps me. (I did! I said that!) I quoted my favorite line from Martin Luther King about how “the moral arc of the universe is long, but that it bends inexorably toward justice” and I told her that justice matters to God, and that even though human beings don’t always make the right choices, God is still with us, God is still speaking and working in the world, and eventually, if we keep the faith alive, things will change, really they will.

Angela stopped arranging the cups on the tray, and looked up at me with the strangest expression on her face and said, “Where’s your church?” I gave her a card like the ones you can find back on the name tag table and wished her well, and did my shopping and headed home, thinking all the while about how the 1^st chapter of Genesis tells us about God and why we’re here. There’s a zillion sermons in there, but here’s what I was trying to explain to my sample lady.

“In the beginning…” At the 1^st crack of ever and always…

“In the beginning God…” At the 1^st crack of ever and always, there was and there is and there shall be God.

“In the beginning God created…” At the 1^st crack of ever and always, there was and there is and there shall be God creating! Not building like a bricklayer or designing like an engineer but creating like an artist of divine imagination, sacred aesthetic, exquisite touch, and an interesting sense of humor.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” At the 1^st crack of ever and always, there was and is and there shall be God creating all of the universe and our tender planet earth. We’re not just a dot in that universe, meaningless in the many. Our little green-blue planet was intentionally created: no mistakes, no accidents. God meant to do that. Wow.

The story says that over the course of 6 days, God spoke: and the void, the darkness, the welter and the waste of this new world responded. God spoke, and light, sky, ocean, land, vegetation, sun, moon, stars, creatures of the air and creatures of the sea, creatures of the land, and finally “humankind in our image, according to our likeness, male and female,” with dominion over all the creatures of the sea, the air and the land were created!

God blessed all the creatures of creation then God blessed us, and then God spoke to us and told us that all of creation was being given over to us so that we might live and prosper!

Do you hear that?! We not only matter to God, God made us in their image, which means we were made to create and bless and care for the creatures of the earth and give all of our creation to our children, and they to their children, and they to their children, and so on and so on. Well, lucky for us, God rested – and gave us a day of rest, too, so that all of us can take a day off every week and rest from the work of creation we’ve been given to do. It is, altogether, a terrific plan!

Oh, and don’t forget the best part: It was good. It was all good…and not a moral ‘good’ like the opposite of bad, but a ‘gooood’ like lovely, like beautiful, like wonderful.

For the exiles of Israel and for the exiles of our time, heck, for all of us, this is really good news, great news, encouraging news, sustaining news: God is intentionally creating a world of beauty and peace, healing and wholeness, and we ordinary people have an essential role in creation and God will not forget us.

Which means that no matter how far off in exile you are, no matter how much revenge the Sith or anyone else tries to take on you or anybody else, it’s not over. Not by a long shot. There is a lot more story to be told. You just remember that the wild goose of the Holy Spirit is with you and that God is still speaking, and creation never ends. Now, get busy. Tomorrow. Today’s your day off. Thank God. Alleluia. Amen.