Tim Reardon tackled the Creation story of Genesis 1:1-2 this week, in response to thoughts from the Sunday study series we’ve been engaging in: Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. Tim thought that in thinking about what stories we tell, and how we tell them — we could look at our Creation story.

In the beginning…. when God began to create, he took the formless chaos and emptiness, void of life, and made, from her love, a creation to be present with, to find grace and peace among, and this is where we come from and the hope toward which we move.

What are the stories that form you? There are so many stories that shape us and many that lie to us — we must be good story tellers ourselves. Telling stories about the creating God, a story bigger than just ourselves but that encompass all Creation, about a God who creates life and peace from love, who is present with all creation, and calls us to the wholeness and reconciliation of all things. These are the stories that unite us and give us a common vision.

We are children of a God who not only began to create, but continues to and will create. We serve a God who hovers over our darkness and forms new life, who sees our need for liberation and reconciliation and comes to dwell among us, suffering alongside us, confronting the powers, suffering execution and rising to new life. God is the creating God. This is an important declaration for me. This creating is what sustains us, what makes enough for all, what calls us to life and to live in the grace of life together, not in violence, domination, acquiring, and storing, but generosity and kinship, in praise of God. This God forms out of the chaos and brings forth life, may we find this God with us, and may we walk with her, to deconstruct our formless stories, and shape us into creations of God’s peace.

This is primarily from Tim’s sermon summary — to hear in depth listen in below.

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