"Taking in the Beauty" - Sermon from June 19, 2011

Taking in the Beauty

 Driving from west Texas, out of the prominent odor of gasoline and cow manure, and into the vibrantly colorful and extraordinarily beautiful reddish mountains of New Mexico, I had a remarkable experience of awe for the God of creation.  Never had I seen such glorious beauty like that of those colorful mountains so up close and personal.  Then as night fell and I could see, for as far as my eye could travel, millions of stars in the night sky, simultaneously I felt both a distance from God and a peacefulness from God.  And like the Psalmist I wondered how the God who created such vastness could be mindful of my petty life?  Amazingly, of all stories, the Creation Story affirms for us that God indeed is not only mindful of us but has created us in the likeness of God purposefully to be in good relationship to the created order and to our Creator.The distinction between living creatures and the rest of creation that was made prior to them is found in the Hebrew word bara, which is a verb meaning to create.  All of the other pieces of creation were spoken into existence with the Word, but this verb, bara, is used only in conjunction with the creation of living creatures--now we see that there is a direct relationship between God and creature.An even more closely related creature to God is humanity because we are made in the selem, image of God.  That word, selem, means duplicate.  God has made us the representative of God on earth and we are called to maintain God’s dominion over the earth.  We are to care for the earth in God’s stead, as God, our loving creator, would do.  Our calling as the image of God is to resemble God and to function purposefully within the created order.Gerhard Von Rad explains in his commentary on Genesis that when God said of creation “it is good”, that declaration was less of a value statement and more of a calling. Von Rad says, “The word contains less an aesthetic judgment than the designation of purpose and correspondence.”“The decisive thing about man’s similarity to God therefore is his function in the non-human world.”  He also says, “God participates more intimately and intentionally in this than in earlier works of creation”.  Once all is created, God declares it all very good, or rather, completely perfect, “referring to wonderful purposefulness and harmony than to beauty.”And so, we are created in the image of God to have function and purpose in our relationship with all of creation, including our relationship to each other.  As we take in the beauty of God’s creation, let us Take in the Beauty—receive, and take into our souls the beauty with which God created us.  When we can recognize that beauty, we can recognize our purpose, that our being is intended for good.  We are called “good” for the purpose of functioning well with all of creation.I’m going to share two stories with you that I hope will help us to understand the importance of recognizing the beauty that is created within us and what that means for how we function in the world.Excerpts from The Ugly Duckling Story:

It was near the time of harvest.  The old women were making green dolls from corn sheaves.  The old men were mending the blankets.  The girls were embroidering their white dresses with blood-red flowers.  The boys were singing as they pitched golden hay.  The women were knitting scratchy shirts for the coming winter.  The men were helping to pick and pull and cut and hoe the fruits the fields had brought forth.  The wind was just beginning to loosen the leaves a little more, and then a little more, each day.  And down by the river, there was a mother duck brooding on her nest of eggs.

Everything was going as it should for this mother duck, and finally, one by one her eggs began to tremble and shake until the shells cracked, and out staggered all her new ducklings.  But there was one egg left, a very big egg.  It just sat there like a stone.

An old duck came by and the duck mother showed off her new children.  ‘Aren’t they good-looking?’ she bragged.  But the un-hatched egg caught the old duck’s attention and she tried to dissuade the duck mother from sitting on that egg any longer.

‘It’s a turkey egg,’ exclaimed the old duck, ‘not a proper kind of egg at all.  Can’t get a turkey into the water, you know.’  She knew, for she had tried.

But eventually the big egg began to shudder and roll.  It finally broke open, and out tumbled a big ungainly creature.  His skin was etched with curly red-and-blue veins.  His feet were pale purple.  His eyes, transparent pink.

‘Maybe it is a turkey after all,’ she worried.  But when the ugly duckling took to the water with the other offspring, the duck mother saw that he swam straight and true.

So she presented him to the other creatures in the farmyard, but before she knew it, another duck shot across the courtyard and bit the ugly duckling right in the neck.  At first his mother defended him, but then even she grew tired of it all, and exclaimed in exasperation, ‘I wish you would just go away.’  And so the ugly duckling ran away.  With most of his feathers pulled out and looking extremely bedraggled, he ran and ran until he reached marsh.  There he lay down at the water’s edge with his neck stretched out and sipped as he could from the water now and then.

Later, he came upon a pond and as he swam there it became colder and colder.  A flock of creatures flew overhead, the most beautiful he had ever seen.  They cried down to him, and hearing their sounds made his heart leap and break at the same time.  He cried back in a sound he had never before made.  He had never seen creatures more beautiful, and he had never felt more bereft.

He turned and turned in the water to watch them till they flew out of sight, then he dove to the bottom of the lake and huddled there, trembling.  He was beside himself, for he felt a desperate love for those great white birds, a love he could not understand.

One morning the duckling found himself frozen in the ice and it was then that he felt he would die.  Luckily a farmer came by and freed the duckling by breaking the ice with his staff.

Soon, the gentle breath of spring came again, and on a pond nearby, the water became warmer and the ugly duckling who floated there stretched his wings.  How strong and big his wings were.  They lifted him high over the land.  From the air he saw orchards in their white gowns, the farmers plowing, the young of all of nature hatching, tumbling, buzzing, and swimming.  Also paddling on the pond were three swans, the same beautiful creatures he had seen the autumn before; those that so caused his heart to ache.  He felt his heart beating hard.

As soon as they saw him, the swans began to swim toward him.  No doubt I am about to meet my end, thought the duckling, but if I am to be killed, then rather by these beautiful creatures than by hunters, farm wives, or long winters.  And he bowed his head to await the blows.

But, la!  In the reflection in the water he saw a swan in full dress: snowy plumage, sloe eyes, and all.  The ugly duckling did not at first recognize himself, for he looked just like the beautiful strangers, just like those he had admired from afar.

And it turned out that he was one of them after all.  His egg had accidentally rolled into a family of ducks.  He was a swan, a glorious swan.  And for the first time, his own kind came near him and touched him gently and lovingly with their wing tips.  They groomed him with their beaks and swam round and round him in greeting.

The second story:My sister, Rachel, recently had a dream about the Trinity that she shared with me that I think is quite a beautiful analogy of the communion that exists in the Trinity and a great example for how we who are created in the image of God relate to one another.  She was seeking to explain to those gathered at her baby’s Christening (all a dream of course) that Christians have the benefit of experiencing all the parts of God and that others who worship God but don’t recognize the Trinity are just experiencing one part of God.  Then all of the sudden an extraordinary piece of gold, round in shape and detailed with signs of life like vines and infinite circles, appeared that helped to further explain the Trinity.  She said that it came apart in three pieces almost like a puzzle but not shaped like a puzzle, each piece with it’s own unique beauty; however, they each fit into each other, and when they were connected, there distinction was impossible to be seen within the gold piece.  They fit each other perfectly and snapped together such that you could not see how they were individually a piece of the whole.  I think this is an amazing analogy for the Trinity and for the example of relationship the Godhead is to us.  We must find how we fit into each other for the purpose of good.  Like the Ugly Duckling, we must recognize the beauty in us so that we can fit together well as a community with a purpose.  When we are functioning well with each other, we snap into place with one another, doing as Paul admonished us, “to live in peace with one another, to agree with one another” and in that way we are experiencing the very presence of the loving and peaceful God within us.The scriptures comfort us—“And the God of love and peace will be with you---live in peace, grace, love, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with you.  I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  From the beginning of generations to the end of the age, God communes with us.Sometimes when we look at the beauty of the world, we question if it is really true that the God of the universe is mindful of us.  When we do, let us recall the creation story and remember that it is purposeful in showing us how the Hebrew God is intent on relationship.  Human relationships can be complicated, but the Godhead is the greatest example to us of what relationship should be—that our function, all of creation’s function, is to be good, to be in good relationship with all that exists.University Baptist Church is a people who are a beautiful reflection of God, a people who’ve found each other in the world, who’ve chosen to relate to one another for the purpose of furthering the kingdom of God together.  Among us are people like Darlene Gavenda and Mary Bouldin, who diligently and humbly reflect the image of God through gracious, often unnoticed acts of service.  People like Lisa Cauble, Olin Clemmons, and Roy Larson, whose devotion to our calling as a church is reflected in their faithful commitment as leaders.  People like Guy Paul and Phillip Rozell who greet each person that enters here as the representative faces of a welcoming God.  I am grateful for the women who created the Sacred Stories for our toddlers, like Alisa Marrow and Maggie Glazner, who teach us that beautiful detail to story is important to share with the least of these.  We are blessed with folks like Nathan Jones and Edith Butcher, who teach us that stopping to spend precious time with another is sharing the presence of God.  People like Rodeo Blasingame, who taught us that we are incomplete without all of God’s children at the table.  We are a gangly crew for sure, but a beautiful one.  Just like the story of the Ugly Duckling, we’ve found each other; we must recognize the beauty that God created among and within us so that we can live out our purpose together as the body of Christ.  When we are living purposefully, we fit together like a puzzle whose pieces are indistinguishable and yet quite unique when they come together.  Take in your beauty and see where you fit in.  Thanks be to God for you, for your purposefulness together as the fuller representation and image of the living and loving God!

-Associate Pastor Rebekah Falk