How to read the Bible (courtesy of Genesis 1 and 2)

Genesis 2:4b-24

There are so many different ways to go here with the creation story that it’s hard to pick just one direction. So I’m going to fall back on what I do with this story when teaching Confirmation because I’m sure a few of you could use a refresher back to those days. Creation always comes up when we’re in our Old Testament year, obviously, since it’s the only sensible place a person can start when it comes to the Bible, but it also comes up in our 9^th grade capstone year a couple times when we talk about Heaven, Hell, and New Creation, when we talk about God, the Land, and the Environment, and maybe most importantly when we talk about the Word of God.

            These shouldn’t really be heated verses. Clearly the world was created, surely there was some kind of order to it, and human beings today are this wonderfully complex latest movement in the creation process. But because of how these chapters are read scientists get set against Christians and creationists against just about everybody. We use this chapter in Confirmation to talk about how we read the Bible and why that matters. So, on this Rally Sunday, with new programs starting up and the school year underway, I imagine few better times to talk about how Lutherans read the Bible than today.

            Of course, in saying this I should point out that individual Lutherans read the Bible in all sorts of ways. Moreover, I can’t even say that all Lutheran churches read the Bible in the same way. The Missouri Synod reads it differently than the ELCA, which reads it differently than the LCMC and NALC and all those other initialed churches. If you read the creation stories differently than how I’m talking about today I’m not saying you’re wrong; I’m just saying that you might be unorthodox (which some of you would see as a compliment anyway). Today I simply want to illustrate that what many Christians believe to be orthodox (or traditional) is not necessarily what has been orthodox in the Christian church for far longer than they’d imagine.

            Here’s what I mean: When we discuss Genesis 1 and 2 in Confirmation I open up by asking the students how many stories there are of the creation of the world in the Bible. This is universally met by blank stares just like yours right now. For most people it never occurs to them that there could be more than one creation story, because our overriding understanding of Genesis is that it is to be read like a history book. A history book would distill creation to a single unified story by way of retelling, to the best of historian’s knowledge, the way that things happened. No historian worth his or her salt is going to put two accounts side by side with completely different details. But that’s exactly what Genesis does! In fact, it’s the first thing that Genesis does! Immediately after giving us our traditional six day creation with God resting on the seventh day, the book turns to a second account of the creation with things occurring in a completely different order and less emphasis on the chronology but more on the importance of humanity.

            This seemingly strange way of beginning the most important book in the history of the world should get us thinking, but such is the cognitive dissonance of most Christians that we can read the first two chapters of Genesis, nod in agreement, and when asked about what we just read we say it’s the history of the creation of the world.

            Here’s the problem. When Christians debate over the creation story we do it out of a false paradigm, which suggests that the creation story is either history (what some might call a “literal” translation) or the creation story is metaphorical (what some might call a “figurative” translation. On one side you get the creationists who aren’t willing to budge even an iota on the six day creation sometime around 6000 years ago, and on the other side you get Christians who think science answers all their questions and, when faced with something strangely different, they think, “Man, that’s silly. Of course the dinosaurs weren’t living alongside human beings,” so they decide that the whole thing is metaphorical and each day is meant to represent so many millions of years or something along those lines. Other people—probably most of you—just stop thinking about it because it just comes down to faith. But the interesting thing is that neither camp—the historical-literal or the metaphorical-figurative—are how Jews and Christians originally read these stories. Even up to the Middle Ages these stories were read differently. Only after the Enlightenment, when reason became to guiding principle for Western civilization did people shift to this modern-day bickering that pits Christian conservatives against Christian liberals.

            We don’t always need to go back to how things were to find wisdom, but I’m going to argue that when it comes to reading scripture we have to re-learn how things once were—long before our parents and grandparents; back to a time that is different than our own, because otherwise we’re going to continue having stupid squabbles over trivial things while the rest of the world looks at Christians for the hypocrites that we truly are.

            I mean, look at this scripture. It’s beautiful! It’s fantastic!

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
   and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
   for out of Man this one was taken.’

            This is a splendidly crafted story. We have to ask ourselves: “What is the purpose of this story?” Are we honestly going to say that Genesis gives us this beautifully-composed, well-balanced tale of man’s search for a partner because it is a history book? Or are we really going to weaken the story with some squishy metaphorical interpretation?

            No! There is a third way to read this and it is the most traditional, most Orthodox way, and I half-wonder if it isn’t Satan himself who keeps us reading it these other ways to preoccupy us with arguing over what should be beautiful and faith-building. The third way to read this creation story is to read it theologically, which means that we read the story always asking the question, “What does this story tell us about God, and what does it tell us about us?”

            The age of reason hates the theological approach to reading scripture because it makes a huge assumption, namely that God is real and that God is revealed in these pages. To read the creation story theologically is to stop asking, “How did creation happen?” and start asking “Why did creation happen?” And if you start asking why you’ll start to realize that that question makes a heckuva lot more sense than “How?” Genesis isn’t concerned with telling you ‘how’; it’s concerned with telling you ‘why.’ Why was the world created? Because it’s good and God loves good things. Why was a woman needed for man? Because it was good that man not be alone.

            The moment we start asking questions of chronology and history and science we’ve taken the same path that Adam and Eve soon take when they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is to say that we care more for the “how” than we do for the “why.” They cared more about understanding than they do about their relationship with God and the creation they are a part of. Sin enters the world by asking the question, “how?” of God. Only when we start with “why” can we move to “how.” When we start by believing that God created the world because it was good and God delights in all good things—trees and birds, stars and moons, you and me. When we move forward through scripture with an understanding that God loves me and you so much that he sent us his only son, Jesus, to die on a cross for you and me, then (only then) can the question of “how” further us as the human race to love one another. “How” is the response to “why?” and not the other way around. Said differently, the question “how” is reserved for making this life better; but it will not save us.

            To read Genesis theologically sets us on the right path to discovering what the Bible has in store for us. It helps us to ask again and again. “Why, God?” Why is the world this way? Why am I this way? Why do I do things wrong? Why don’t I have the nice things I feel I deserve? Why am I alive at all?

            Those are questions that the Bible is prepared to address.

            So, what do I answer to somebody who comes up to me and asks, “Do you believe in the seven day creation?” I say, “Yes.” And they go away happy, not knowing that the question they are asking and the one I am answering is completely different. Yes, I believe in the seven day creation because of what it tells me about God and God’s relationship with human beings. It may be hard to believe, but honestly, I don’t care any more than that, because God could have created the world is 7 days, 7 billion days, or, most likely, God is still creating today. That’s God’s business, not mine.

Likewise, what do I answer to somebody who comes up to me and asks, “Do you believe in evolution?” I say, “I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in God. You’re asking a “how” question and looking for a “why?” answer. Now, do you want to ask me if I think evolution happens, then yes, I can say with reasonable certainty that evolution is a real thing. But does Genesis care? Absolutely not.” We need to stop getting bogged down in debates between literalism and figurativism, between history, science, and religion, and we need to start owning what actually matters to us. Because, to be honest, a lot of what science and history is doing is beautiful in a different way than scripture is beautiful, and when we pit one against the other we end up missing the beauty in both.

In the history of the world I doubt anybody was ever brought to faith through pure reason. It would be like becoming a Vikings fan by virtue of careful consideration of the all the football teams and deciding they’re the one that is objectively the best football team in history. Nobody can seriously make this claim, but that doesn’t mean nobody can be a Vikings fan. Likewise, we are followers of God by virtue of faith and not by careful assessment of what is historically verifiable. Genesis knows this—in fact, the whole Bible knows it—and this is why we read scripture this way. It’s mysterious and deep, but would you want to believe in a God that is simple and easy? Would the sum of the world’s wrongs be righted by a God who is narrow and must be constantly defended by us? No, this is not what we believe. May God, who sent us Jesus Christ, open us up to the beauty of God’s word so that we read it neither as simple nor as impossible, neither as liberal nor as conservative, neither as literal nor as figurative. Instead, may we read God’s word upon our hearts, as it tells us about who we are, why we need a Savior, and ultimately that that Savior is ours because of a God who created the world and called it “good” while we were busy bickering about how it all went down.