creation, part 3

Good morning friends,
Today we won't be meeting for our book group; Maggie and I will be at a graduation dinner. This time of year we celebrate many graduations; we give thanks for the growth and development of our young people and their opportunities to use their gifts to create a better world. That's what this passage is about too: not graduation but our gifts and calling to serve and guide the world. God made human beings in God's image and God told those first men and women to rule the earth. We're called to govern the world so that all creation can thrive. We haven't always been faithful to that calling. Too often we have thought only about our own comfort instead of the well being of the plants and animals entrusted to our care.

I don't want to make too much of it, but I would like to point out that in the beginning God gave us only plants to eat. With the work of creation finished, God rested on the seventh day. Later God commanded us to rest on the seventh day as well. That's the one of the Ten Commandment's I most often disobey. Sabbath rest is a gift and blessing because it heals us and helps us remember we are not just our work.

Blessings on your day,
Sam

Genesis 1:26-2:4a

26Then 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.” 27So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28God 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.” 29God 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. 30And 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. 31God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.



2:1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

4These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.