Pastor's Reflection for February, 2006
"Creation's Lord, We Give Thee Thanks..."
February, in this northern hemisphere, seems like a good time to ponder God's creation. It feels to be creation's most dormant time. The earth's fecundity is less visible now and must be anticipated for a future but not too distant season. The days are lengthening since the winter solstice, which means more light and more warmth in our latitudes. Soon stirrings will begin beneath the earth's surface, activities unseen by human eyes for many weeks ...powerful forces that will eventually result in an explosion of nature into the visible world, breaking through the thawing soil, pushing into the ever-warming air. Spring always arrives from the ground up. The trees and many shrubs that dropped their leaves long weeks ago now rest, awaiting their new green garments of beauty and utility. Next month the sap will begin running, and soon the green haze will appear in the stands of maples by the roadside. The great brown bear is still in hibernation, also resting for a season to prepare for another awakening to life and activity, as are many of the creatures, great and small, that are not to be seen in February.
Who else but a great and beneficent God could be behind such a gift as creation? Psalm 104 makes for excellent February reading, and includes these lines:
"O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures....When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground."
In mid January, Janet and spent the better part of an afternoon in the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and most of that time in a marvelous exhibition titled "Darwin." His theory of how creation, or nature, evolves was so revolutionary and incendiary, that he felt the need to wait twenty-one years before publishing his findings. Unfortunately, a needless conflict between religion and science ensued, reaching one climax in the Scopes trial of the 1920's and, sadly, continuing today in the culture wars debate between creationism or intelligent design and evolution. I call on my faith to answer the big questions of the "Who?" and the "why?" of creation; I look to science to elucidate the "hows?" and the "whens?" As a person of faith, for me the theory of evolution points to yet another miracle, a sign of God's ever-present shaping hand and a testimony to the God for whom "a thousand years in [his] sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night."(Psalm 90:4) As long as science doesn't overstep its boundary and declare the impossibility of a divine intent - or faith overstep its boundary and pretend to know the hows of God's creativity, the conflict is unnecessary.
There is a hymn, written sometime during the years that Darwin's theory was causing shock waves in religious belief, titled "Creation's Lord, We Give Thee Thanks" (It can be found in the old Pilgrim Hymnal among others).
"Creation's Lord, we give thee thanks
That this thy world is incomplete...
That thou hast not yet finished man,
That we are in the making still."
What a blessing to be part of a dynamic creation that God is still at work in and on (yes, the scientists say it as "still evolving."). Many Hebrew scholars believe that the very first words of the Bible, in Genesis, are better translated, "In the beginning of creation, God..." rather than, "In the beginning, God created..."
So...here we are in February, in what some would think of as the bleakest, bluest part of the natural cycle of seasons. Yet things will be stirring beneath us, Spring on the way from the ground up. And beyond the recurring seasons, God will continue to shape her creation in a divine purpose that we cannot see in full but can be part of here and now as we tune our lives to God's way - even in February!
Blessings to all,
Rev. Dr. Floyd W. Churn
Pastor
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