Second Sunday before Lent – Sexagesima – evening
Sunday 4th February 2018
2 before Lent (Sexagesima)
Gen 2. 4b- 25 – The Garden of Eden
Luke 8.22-35 – Demons into Pigs
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Just this week I was invited through the Diocese to complete a short survey about attitudes to science in church. And the story of Creation is one that often provokes interesting conversations especially with those outside the church.
Sometimes people are surprised when I tell them that – as a priest – I have no problem reconciling the theory of Evolution with the accounts as presented by the Bible. And as someone with a vaguely scientific background –( I loved doing A level physics, although it now seems lost in the mists of time), I have no problem squaring this with my study of theology.
So what is the point of the stories we read this evening? What message is it trying to get across and what is its significance for us today?
Well, it can be argued that the very things that were considered important by the first people to read it, are the self-same things that preoccupy us today!
Among them are
1) We are dependent upon God for our existence, for the food we eat and the beauty we see.
2) We must care for our environment
3) All nations are descended from common ancestors, so all are sisters and brothers, despite some differences in outward appearance.
4) We were meant to love God and our neighbours, but instead we choose too often to be selfish.
These are matters of life and death. So if anyone wants to nitpick about how the world could be created in six days, they are turning away from the vital core of the message to concentrate on stylistic trivialities, and – what is worse – distracting themselves and others from what God is trying to tell us.
God will always put his messages in words that people can understand – and I use the present tense, because I reckon he is still doing it, although too often we have our ears and hearts closed off and refuse to hear.
The first audience for these stories knew all about how to grow things, and how a potter creates things out of clay; but they knew nothing about what we now call science. So God uses language with which they would be familiar. The language of story and legend.
But today we have fallen into the delusion that legends are unimportant in daily life – although we still flock to the cinema or theatre to see them acted out. But they are safely contained in the world of entertainment – they don’t really matter! We have forgotten that legends often have vital lessons to teach us about how we lead our lives.
The theory of evolution that was developed by Charles Darwin and others in the 19th century is now pretty widely accepted. When it was new, many Christians welcomed its new insights into how God brought his creation to progress to more and more complex life forms until the being – Homo sapiens – evolved which was capable of responding to his love. But others – the literalists and creationists, took offence and tried to prevent God’s vital message from being heard; dependence on God, care for the environment, the oneness of humanity and mutual love.
In our day Richard Dawkins has argued that not only physical characteristics, but also human behaviour evolves by the survival of the fittest. In this way of thinking those who behave in the most selfish way, by indulging in sex with the greatest possible number of partners, will ensure the survival of their particular genetic make-up.
But this doesn’t stack up. Those who contribute most to the quality of human life are those who love unselfishly, and if need be, sacrificially. The opposite of selfishness is altruism, putting the needs of other people before your own. Putting the needs of total strangers before your own – by say, giving charitably to Food Banks or the homeless or refugees in Calais – is a trait that only really humanity displays. And this has nothing to do with survival of the fittest. So we can only conclude that God caused evolution to progress to this point, where we can understand that our creator loves us, and respond by loving him in return, and by loving our neighbours as much as we love ourselves, for God’s sake. There is nothing unscientific about that; but it takes you much deeper into your understanding of life than any scientist ever could.
This week I asked our confirmation group a question. What do you most like about yourself? It proved a bit difficult at first, getting them to think what qualities they had that they really liked. So in the end I got them to say what they liked about each other! You might like to try this at home!
We then talked about God calling us to be the best individuals we could possibly be and, since we are all made in the image of God, that best quality of ourselves might also tell us something about God too. Try it!
Jesus restores the man who is possessed by a legion of evil spirits. Today we would probably say that he is suffering from severe psychosis and has mental health problems. But Jesus faces up to the reality of this poor soul and restores him to life and to society. He is in his right mind. He is able to hear and respond to God’s call to him. Creation is restored, but for some, this will always be too difficult to bear. Don’t be like those people whose first reaction to this miracle of healing was one of fear. That is not a quality that is ever found in the perfection of Love which is God. Amen.