God Speaking
God is still speaking, and Words have a way of taking on flesh
Message by Holly Johnson
Pastor at Spirit Garage
Genesis 1:1-5 & John 1:1-5
June 2, 2024
Welcome to Summer, everyone. This summer we are exploring the words we use to describe ourselves here at Spirit Garage: Creative, quirky and curious. And in our worship services, we’re thinking about how God is all of those things too.
During the month of June, we’re especially going to think about how God is creative. Not just because God is the creator, but because as the creator, God engages in creativity. And God does so in some creative ways.
This month we start at the very beginning, of two different books in the Bible. The one at the very start-Genesis, and the beginning of the Gospel of John.
You know the one–we read it at Christmas time. “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the word WAS God. The Word was there in the beginning, and not one thing was created without it.
The Word was God. Well, as a person who likes writing and reading, I like thinking about God as Word. And maybe, we can imagine a trinity of God: as Writer, as Word, and as Paper; all three things are necessary for a word to come to be written. Or, imagine God as Word, as Speaker, and as voice.
Either way, if we look back at the book of Genesis, with it’s beautiful poetry that tells a story about how the world began, we have a story about how God, the Word, started the world:
The world was formless and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep, and God said, let there be light.
God said it. Each thing God made, God spoke into being, with words. Debbie Thomas, in her essay for Pentecost called “When You Send Forth the Spirit” reminds us that words make worlds. And unmake them too. Language has power.
Like the world-building of fantasy or science fiction writers, where words strung together into sentences, into paragraphs, pages and chapters, invite us into fantastic places like Middle Earth, or Narnia, or worlds in space. They set down words that create a whole new world to imagine for the reader.
And God, as the original author, did this first. Created the world with words, and the wind. These words were so powerful that this world was created not in the minds of the readers, but in reality for all of life. They were spoken, and so we exist. In the flesh. Because words have a way of taking on flesh and dwelling with us. God created in such a creative way.
We can imagine this scene on the first day of Creation, as the story tells us; and we can imagine the cosmic Christ who is Word, who was there in the beginning but who became the Word Made Flesh, full of grace and truth.
When this word-made-flesh spoke, what became flesh was truth and grace.
But the time of Jesus is different now. Jesus does not walk all fleshy around us anymore.
But the Word? God? as Author of life, as word, and as paper or voice? That is still happening.
Maybe you’re familiar with the United Church of Christ, and their tagline. I love it:
“God Is Still Speaking”
A UCC leader John C. Dorhauer wrote about this believe–that God is still speaking on the UCC website in a post dated Oct 23, 2017.
He said that believing this involves taking on a posture of radical listening—because if God is still speaking, we probably should listen. And that means that each generation is called to make the faith their own.
He goes on, reminding us of words that have been spoken in different generations:
The prophet Isaiah writes “Behold, I am about to do a new thing; do you not perceive it?”
John wrote in Revelation “the former things have passed away.”
John Robinson spoke to those boarding the Mayflower and setting a course for life in a new world, “Remember, there is still more light and truth to break forth from God’s Holy Word.”
The abolitionist poet James Russell Lowell wrote in his landmark poem “The Present Crisis” that “New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth. We must upwards still and onwards who would keep abreast of truth.”
Gracie Allen told her husband George Burns before she died: “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”
God is still speaking. How do we listen? Where do we hear? As I sat and thought about this and then did my own writing and creating and fleshing out words that became a sermon and are taking on life with us as I speak them, I was also listening to the airplanes flying low overhead. Felt like the blue angels were in town. A talented bunch and a marvel of engineering but the noise. And, down the road, someone is landscaping their yard. I’m sure it will be beautiful, but the process involved some piece of equipment that needs to back up every few seconds. All day long.
“Sometimes it’s hard to hear through the noise. Sometimes we have to put in place practices that make us listen. ”
So sometimes it’s hard to hear through the noise. Sometimes we have to put in place practices that make us listen.
What helps put you into a listening posture? Meditation? Walking in nature? Kayaking the waters? Staring at the night sky? Reading? Listening to music? Making your body move? Coming here? Being with loved ones? Journaling your own words to see what comes?
Sometimes, when I hold a baby, I get really close to them, cheek-to-cheek with my mouth right next to their ears, and I whisper to them, asking them to tell me what they know. Oftentimes a baby’s breath would catch; like they stopped breathing for a moment, and I’d imagine it was possible they were considering answering, and trying to figure out what to say. But I never got an answer. Perhaps there is too much to say, and too little I would understand.
There are other people’s voices. Elders. Strangers. People you pass who are living on the street. People across the world screaming as loud as they can hoping someone will hear and do something.
There are all kinds of sacred moments; moments when God’s creative work is coming through us and through the creating world; Moments of insight and inspiration, Moments meant to wake us up and call us to action. Moments intended to make us angry and alive. Moments meant to give us peace and perspective; moments of grace and truth.
Worlds are being created in the words we hear, spoken in many different ways. Sometimes with new words and languages that are hard for us to understand. But regardless, those words have a way of taking on flesh and living with us. Keep listening for this voice, this word, this wisdom coming from this creative God we have.
Sources:
Debbie Thomas, “When you Send Forth the Spirit” published May 16, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3017-when-you-send-forth-your-spirit
John C. Dorhauer, “God is Still Speaking” published October 23, 2017. https://www.ucc.org/into_the_mystic_god_is_still_speaking