Lesson 2: Creation 2 – What We Are To Do
Another feature of the Genesis and Johannine creation stories that is usually overlooked is the importance of words. God creates by speaking. The good order of creation has all living beings in conversation. The corruption of the order is illustrated by the inability of competing cities to share the same language. Genesis ends with words of forgiveness that bring people back together again.
All of this is in contrast to the Babylonian stories that picture a violent creation that emanates from the body of an evil god who a good god slaughters. Our God simply speaks, and it is so.
The creation process is nonviolent. Words make order from chaos by naming or separating things from one another. The order is corrupted when violence fills the earth, prompting God to destroy all he has done with a flood and start over.
Cain kills his brother, Abel, as an example of farmers’ enmity for shepherds. Lamech kills a young boy for just striking him as an example of human pride. The Tower of Babel continues linking words to nonviolence when it blames the violence of competition between cities on their inability to speak with one another.
Words are so important that God primarily relates to the world through them. The divine is identified as the Word, and the divine presence is described as God’s Word.
This draws our attention to the disorder caused by the use of violent language in our public discourse today. Leaders deliberately use words to destroy the creative order of society. People can no longer speak with one another.
In most of the Bible, this is associated with a return to the violence of chaos. God’s people are called to heal the great divisions in our society by speaking with one another. We are to create unity with “I love you,” “I forgive you,” and “Let’s talk.”
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