One of my hobbies since we bought our first house has been landscaping and gardening. I love pondering plants, placement, and fussing over them once they are in. Now, we’re in a new house and the yard is a barren expanse of wood chips and concrete with no irrigation system. Something will have to be done, but I just don’t know what yet and I’m pondering my choices.

Everywhere I go right now, particularly in our neighborhood, I’m looking for inspiration. One of our neighbors has all rocks in their yard except for one flower bed. It’s very Spartan. Another neighbor is a field biologist and she has a dizzying collection of native plant species. Her yard is wild. Another neighbor appears to have a pollinator garden with solid hip-height grasses and wildflowers, which is even more wild. Then there’s other folks who have buzz cut lawns with military precision edges while others who have nothing but weeds. We are surrounded by quite the array of garden styles, ranging from total neglect to regimented control and I’m learning from it all.

When you’re creating anything new, there’s always a process of creation, right? It generally starts with something. Any blank slate is not really a blank slate. For example, our front yard faces NW and gets intense sun in the summer. So, in the front yard, we’ll plant the shrubs and flowers that thrive in that heat. The more delicate plants will go in the backyard for the gentler micro-climates. Even the basically empty canvas of our wood chip yard is not without contours. The emptiness, the space into which something will be created, is not nothing. This is always true for us when we create. There’s something that we’re creating into.

In the Genesis reading, God creates heaven and earth through the power of God’s Word and the Spirit, but God did not create something when there was absolutely nothing in this story. Did you notice this? The earth was there, but it was in chaos and darkness.

So, God comes along in God’s Trinitarian mystery and sets about creating new life, but he does so by first creating order and setting the boundaries of reality so that diverse ecosystems could thrive. This isn’t a creation story from nothing to something, but from no life to abundant life, from dark chaos into light.

For life to survive and be abundant, there first needed to be structure put into place; the night was separated from day, the waters above were separated from the waters below (this reflects that ancient understanding about the structure of the planet), dry land was separated from water, and then the light was separated in a way. The light in general became light from the sun, the moon, and the stars. While some of the science bits of this story sound goofy to us now, the important part is that God first sets the stage for life to thrive by first creating order out of chaos.

As the story continues, we hear that humans are given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air. And we hear that we are made in the image and likeness of God! Doesn’t that make us fancy!? Doesn’t that sound like license to do whatever we want, including world domination and subjugation? That’s what we tend to do, anyway, but perhaps something else was meant by this statement. Perhaps it means we have some serious responsibility on our hands. After all, Jesus teaches us the first shall be the last.

I don’t believe we’ve ever really understood how we are to live faithfully as ones made in the image and likeness of God. And I’m sure there are many answers, but today I’m wondering about God’s action to create abundant, thriving life from chaos and darkness.

In general, chaos does provide fertile ground for creation. Perhaps this has been true for you, as it has been for me. In our lives, when chaos reigns, big changes can happen more readily than when life is smooth sailing. We do naturally create newness out of chaos, just like God. So what are we to create? And how should we do it?

In the Genesis text, God creates ecological niches and places for life to flourish in all its diversity, but I don’t see God micromanaging the emergence of creation. What if that is what we are also to do, create good conditions and structures and then let life do what life does; expand, grow, and thrive.

This strikes me as a beautiful way to exercise dominion. We do have the power and authority in our lives and in the world to put stable, loving realities and structures into place so that life, in all its many forms, can thrive. This reminds me of my neighbors’ yards that are a bit unruly because there’s so much life going on. They are not micromanaging every grass or flower, so it’s a bit wild, but it’s wild in a way that is very different than the yards that are overrun by weeds. Yet, it’s also different than the yard down the street that’s only rocks or the other yards that are so intensely precise the shrubs seem to stay still even in a stiff breeze, like little soldiers.

The goal in God’s good creation is abundant life for all life. The birds and the sea creatures are blessed and all of God’s is deemed to be deeply good by God. Genesis 1 is like a love story with God being amazed and dazzled as God’s good creation comes into being.

What might this look like for you? I think parents, or dog-parents in my case, are very aware of the need to create a home with rules and predictability so that our little ones, fluffy or not, can thrive. We’re not responsible for the life that emerges through them, but we are responsible for bedtime routines and good food. The same thing is true for ourselves. That’s basically what good adulting is, creating healthy structures so that we can thrive.  

Likewise, in our communities and societies, we are also called to participate in creating supportive structures and boundaries. In our Adult Forum, we’ve been reading the social statement of the ELCA, Faith and Civic Life and it is all about how we are a church and as individuals are called to engage in creating, building, and supporting or protecting the supportive structures of our society for the sake of everyone’s thriving.

Perhaps this idea of prioritizing foundational structures is helpful to us in considering how God would have us create in the world for the sake of ourselves and others.

Sadly, we do not all think alike about the world being structured for the sake of abundant, thriving life for us all. For example, have you heard the phrase disaster capitalism? It is a practice of people who also create newness out of chaos but not for the sake of the thriving of all people or all of creation. I’ve read about disaster capitalism and I believe it’s a thing, but it was also hard for me to imagine people being so callous as to use disasters for personal enrichment while ignoring the plight of the people involved. However, in the last trove of Epstein files, there was an email where Epstein was telling a friend about the many opportunities to cash in because of a new war that had sprung up. This is disaster capitalism. It was and is horrific to contemplate, but this is the world in which we have been called to live our lives as creatures made in the image of God and to nurture discipleship for Christ. This is a world in need of strong, healthy structures and boundaries that allows good new life to emerge from the chaos in which we live. We are among the ones who are called to co-create new realities with God for the sake of all people.

Jesus trusts us, his disciples, the ones who see him and yet still doubt, to be the ones to bring the Good News. God trusts us to be made in his image to create, like him, structures and realities that support the flourishing of life even as we are also the creatures tempted to profit from war and darkness.

As God’s children and disciples of Christ, our commitment has to be for the flourishing of life. We can do this in big ways or small ways, for ourselves, our families, our church and communities, or our country and our world. In whatever way we can, we are called to participate in the creation of healthy boundaries and supportive structures for life to flourish. God has got the life part. We don’t have to worry about that. Life thrives. So let us pray that God shows us, guides us, nudges us and inspires us to be bold gardeners and partners in God’s good creation which is founded upon boundaries and structure to make flourishing not only possible, but inevitable for us, all people, and all of creation.

AMEN