This is the final post in the series, The Work of Creation. We invite you to spend time re-reading the series and using it as you wish. The links for each day’s post are below.
So we have spent a lot of time talking about what these Genesis stories are not: they’re not scientific, they’re not historical, they’re not to be read literally, etc. We would like to end this series by talking about what they are:
They are an absolute endorsement that it is good to be human.
We receive this message all the time about human flaws. Blaming something on being human means recognizing our own shortcomings and flaws. Along the way, being human has been hijacked and reframed in a negative way.
We hear preachers from more evangelical and conservative traditions talk a lot about Original Sin, essentially saying that there is nothing we can do about it, but we just inherited these fatal flaws. And without their solution to sin, we die in eternal conscious torment in hell and live unfulfilled lives. Does that really happen? Probably not. But their message has poisoned the water as we read these Genesis texts. So we need to reclaim them, as we have done this week.
So here is the text from Genesis 1 when God creates humankind:
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Notice verse 28. It is often overlooked (maybe for convenience?). Think about it. If people in power tell people that they are inherently bad and missing something that only those in power can offer, it is a message that can sell. You can build a lot of buildings based on that message. But if the people in power tell others that they are inherently good and blessed, the people in power no longer have a niche service to offer.
We have commodified faith and salvation.
We have made faith into a product to be marketed and before it can be sold, there has to be a need for it. Enter the doctrine of Original Sin.
Today, many people are being freed from the grasp of these manipulative tricks and re-reading verse 28 with open minds. What if before anything was lacking, there was blessing? And what if that blessing never goes away? What if there is truly nothing that can separate any of us from the love of God, not even sin?
Theologians are calling this Original Blessing. It is the idea that before any sin entered the picture, there was blessing. This blessing, not sin, is what is inherent in humans. We bear the marks of blessing throughout our lives and can never lose it.
Richard Rohr says, “For some reason, most Christian theology seems to start with Genesis 3—which features Adam and Eve—what Augustine would centuries later call “original sin.” When you start with the negative or with a problem, it’s not surprising that you end with Armageddon and Apocalypse. When you start with a punitive, critical, exclusionary God, it’s not surprising that you see the crucifixion as “substitutionary atonement” where Jesus takes the punishment that this angry God intended for us.”
Where we start is where we are headed. If we start with violence and negativity in the beginning, we are going to end with violence and negativity. In this system, the cross is a payment to a vengeful God (or in the case of ransom theory, a powerful satan figure). In that case, the solution is still violence. If we start with blessing in the beginning, we will end with blessing. In a system of blessing, the cross is a tragic representation of what happens when someone offers blessing to all.
For so many, they need Original Sin to make sense of why Jesus came to earth. But what if Jesus came not to deal with this sinfulness, but to offer welcome and inclusion so that we would awaken to our blessedness? What if Jesus’ whole ministry was to help us see our blessing?
Danielle Shroyer says, “Rather than seeing our lives as naturally and deeply connected with God, original sin has convinced us that human nature stands not only at a distance from God, but also in some inborn, natural way as contrary to God.”
Rather than Jesus coming to convince God that we are not all bad, Jesus comes to show us that we are not distant from God and God is not distant from us. Instead, God is with us, Immanuel.
Danielle Shroyer again, “That’s original blessing. It is nothing less than the anchoring conviction that God is with us.”
God is with us. God is with us. God is with us.
These stories were written to show us that no matter what hard times came upon us, the God of the universe would be with us because we are God’s blessed creation. And that is the best news ever.