Creation
1994 (Year B), 6 November / Pentecost 24
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
A well – known scientist gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady, it always is a little old lady, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said, ‘What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ The scientist gave a rather knowing, clever smile before asking, ‘If that is the case madam, what is the tortoise standing on?’ You’re very clever, young man, very clever,’ said the old lady, ‘But its turtles, turtles, all the way down!’
Two images of creation. One scientific, the other not so. And we smile because we think we know better than the little old lady. We’re more sophisticated. More intelligent. But what do we know?
At the big bang itself, the universe is thought to have had zero size, and to have been infinitely hot. But as the universe expanded, the temperature of the radiation decreased. One second after the big bang, it would have fallen to about ten thousand million degrees. This is about ten thousand times the temperature at the centre of the sun. At this time the universe would have contained mostly photons, electrons, and neutrinos and their antiparticles, together with some protons and neutrons.
‘As the rate at which the universe continued to expand and the temperature to drop, the rate at which electron / anti-electron pairs were being produced in collisions would have fallen below the rate at which they were being destroyed by annihilation. So most of the electrons and anti-electrons would have annihilated with each other to produce more photons, leaving only a few electrons over’. That’s what we know. And I better stop right now before your eyes glaze over completely and you start longing for turtles.
It’s more than difficult to focus on the enormity of creation. For me it’s an absolute impossibility. My mind simply goes numb. Julian of Norwich recognised the problem and got people to concentrate on a walnut instead the vastness of creation but even that leaves me breathless.
The Jews didn’t know how it all worked but they knew why. It was God who’d done it. And to show why, they told a story. One of the most amazing stories in the world. ‘In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void ... God said ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. But that’s not the story we heard today we heard the second one for there are two. And they are different. Look at them later when you get home.
St John didn’t know how either. Sitting on his little island writing his book of Revelation, he found it hard too. He told a story but he needed a little help to tell it better so he added a little something to his tea. Some of what he wrote might make sense to you, especially if you’ve taken the same kind of herb, but for most of us all these stories seem like mysteries.
And if like me the mysteries hinder rather than help put them aside. Put them aside and think about yourself Just yourself Nothing else. For you are wonderfully and fearfully made.
You are yourself a unique creation. There has never been another of you and there will never be anymore. You, sitting there, are something beautiful, created, hallowed and precious in the sight of God.
This isn’t some clever American course of positive thinking. Designed to make us all feel better about ourselves. It is a profound theological truth. It is the essence of creation. Even the advertisers have latched on to it. Just remember the next time you see the latest BUPA add on television for medical insurance. They’ve pinched a theological truth. Yet even this is so very difficult to believe. We are brought being told that we are of no value. Without gifts. Parents do it to children often unconsciously. Teachers did it to me all the time. Young people do it to the old and the old certainly do it to the young. All kinds of systems work to convince us that we are of no worth. Even the church.
But you are a creation of infinite worth loved, and precious in the sight of God. God made you for himself as the collect says and if we really are precious in the sight of God then we are of infinite worth
Sitting here in church really is the mystery and the glory of creation. Just let a little of the enormity of that begin to sink in. The implications are astonishing. If we are unique creations of God we have a duty to cherish that creation, just as the divine does. We must love it. Care for it tenderly. When was the last time you loved yourself? When was the last time you treated yourself tenderly. If you do nothing else this week at some point love yourself as God does. Treat yourself tenderly as your divine creator longs to.
And so to him who made us, loves us and sustains us be all glory, majesty dominion and power now and through all eternity. AMEN