Sermon Brainwave 1101: Feast of Creation - September 6, 2026  🔗 **Source:** [Sermon Brainwave 1101: Feast of Creation - September 6, 2026](https://share.snipd.com/episode/80142e66-be4b-4290-9569-20562e6d1c45) ## Highlights - **John’s Logos As Cosmic Logic** - John’s logos reframes the Word as the cosmic logic through which all things come into being. - Cody Sanders and Karoline Lewis stress the Logos expands spatial and temporal imagination beyond human-centered theology. Transcript: Cody Sanders Yeah, it's resonant both with Genesis, of course, but also the Gospel of John, which doesn't start with the birth narrative. It starts with in the beginning. Karoline Lewis So we're going to do what we usually do on the podcast, which is start with the Gospel, then go to the first reading, Psalm, and end with the second reading. So yes, we do have John. Matt Skinner Usually a Christmas text, am I right? Karoline Lewis Usually a Christmas text. Yes, Christmas Day. Okay. Yes, you don't have a birth narrative, and this is the cosmic birth of Jesus, I like to call it. But in the beginning, of course, are the first words in the Septuagint of Genesis. So that's a direct connection back to the beginning. So even before the world is created, and this is what the text says, all things came into being through him and without him, not one thing came into being. So the word is present then in the creation of the world. And that becomes a really important Christological claim for John. And inseparable from John's Christology is Jesus' capacity or Jesus' offering of new life or new birth or new creation. And so it's a way, you know, not only to talk about God as creator, but also this creating activity of Jesus, that Jesus' presence in the world is an embodiment of this fundamental characteristic Of God. Cody Sanders Yeah. And this, you know, when we were so accustomed to reading the English in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, it can probably be helpful to help congregations Reenter this text with a new lens to play with the word word. Because, of course, in the Greek, it's logos and more akin to something like our English word of logic. I mean, you could play with the translation of that text. In the beginning was the logic of God, which was in the cosmos, you know. And this logic of God was with God. All things came into being through him. And so this pairing of this cosmic logic of God in the creation and the incarnation, which comes through later in the text. And there's some different notions theologically of where incarnation happens here. A lot of people located in verse 14, and the word became flesh. Others, though, located earlier. Verse 5. Right. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. A way that this also stretches our imaginations, both spatially and temporally, because we are so focused through our inherited philosophy, which is one, I think, based on a notion Of human supremacy over the wider web of life. So we're so focused on the human, but this text in the beginning was the word in a cosmic sense, expands our spatial and temporal imaginations for how God is present in the cosmos and the Ways in which God is active in the cosmos. ([Time 0:03:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/81aa8503-beca-4085-9179-5406518c1eda)) - **Focus Sermons On God Creating** - Preach God as creator and creating rather than sermonizing about creation as an abstract object. - Karoline Lewis urges focus on God’s creative activity linked to life and relational new birth imagery in John. Transcript: Matt Skinner I think if I were preaching on this, I would want to help people. I would personally turn the attention away from creation or even creator. I even. And we talk about creating. Karoline Lewis I wrote that. Did you write that down? I wrote that down. Oh, sorry. Matt Skinner No. I didn't even look at it over your shoulder. Karoline Lewis Are you sure you weren't peeking? I don't do that. I think that's so important. Well, why? No, you go first. Matt Skinner So important. Well, the idea of the logos here, as you talk about logic, there's one thing about Jesus as the fullest expression of who God is. Expression in the sense of what speech does. It expresses, so it reveals something of who you are. And in creation, we see God revealing who God is, expressing God's character, God's delight, God's nature. But I would also, if I had this text, I think I would probably cheat and make some inferences that aren't here. I want to bring in the line from the Psalm of Solomon that talks about wisdom being alongside of God and talks about the delight of creation, that creation happens, it's a social act, Or at least there's two parties to this. And I think that's also reflected in John's Logos theology. But the creating on God's part is an act of delight. And there need to be two people there. There need to be two beings there. There needs to be, we can use persons, you know, Trinitarian language there to be like, watch this. Look at the thing does. Wait till you see the platypus I just conjured up over here. And you know, I mean, there's something about that people see creating as an expression of divine creativity, but also delight and joy and wonder as opposed to, well, I think a scientist Gets this, but I mean, you know what I mean? Then to be a student of this creating or this creation requires not just a scientific point of view, but a poet's. Karoline Lewis Yeah. So the verbal, the verbal nature of it, creating. Matt Skinner You've maybe said a lot faster than I could have. Yeah. Karoline Lewis Yeah. Well, I mean, and I had a similar note that, that how on this Sunday, I guess my inclination is to lean toward God as creator, God as creating, rather than creation in general. As abstract, yeah. Matt Skinner Which we'll get at in the Genesis narratives, I think. Who are we in this place? But that's a different question, I think. Karoline Lewis And then fundamentally, at least for John, God as creator, reminding us of God's creative activity or fundamental characteristics of creator, then means for us in verse four, life. And the life was the light of all people. And so that creating is connected to life with God, relationship with Jesus. And then eventually what we'll get in the gospel is eternal life. ([Time 0:06:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6db443e-5502-4fc2-abbf-59ec3911a397)) - **Interweave John 1 And Genesis 1 In Worship** - Create a liturgical pairing by interspersing Genesis 1 and John 1 in worship to highlight creation and logos connections. - Cody Sanders suggests using the first five verses of each text as a call to worship sequence. Transcript: Cody Sanders It'd be really interesting to create a call to worship that intersperses the verses of John 1 with Genesis 1, like helps people to really see how these two texts are connected, especially This first, you know, just the first five verses of Genesis 1 and the first five verses of John 1 to sort of create some sort of liturgical piece out of that. ([Time 0:11:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/18ff54a3-c3a3-45f7-8c25-78bcba6f443d)) - **Creation As Ordering Chaos** - Genesis 1 can be read as ordering chaos rather than creating ex nihilo, making chaos the raw material for God’s creativity. - Matt Skinner and Cody Sanders cite Rashi and other readings that depict God’s breath hovering over the deep. Transcript: Cody Sanders And I love that when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos and darkness covered the face of the deep. To think about the relationship of God's creativity and chaos. I think we would tend toward seeing chaos as the antithesis of creation, but there are theological readings of this text that locate chaos as the first act. This tohu vobohu is the first act of creation. This is the out of which the creation comes, which helps us situate ourselves in relation to chaos a bit differently. If we look for the creativity of God in the midst of chaos, well, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters, I was hearing Rabbi I mentioned before, Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser, Who wrote a great disability theology book, Loving Our Own Bones. I heard her speak recently about this text, and she was talking about how there's sort of an 11th century commentary. Rashi, I believe, is the commentator who talked about the breath of God wrestling over the face of the waters like a dove hovering over the nest that she has made. I mean, I love that image. Matt Skinner I think if we're going to talk about chaos, then you really have to also parse out what have dominion and subdue mean later on. This is what verses 26, 28. So that people don't see that it's our job to somehow wrangle creation into a, to serve our needs. Right. In all the ways that's been horribly rendered over the years, but to figure out stewardship of something chaotic. Yeah. Sustainability in the midst of something chaotic. And I don't think chaotic means, well, sometimes it means dangerous, doesn't it? ([Time 0:11:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/74241c61-08fd-4239-ab96-0d4853e566cd)) - **Humanity Made From Dust** - Genesis 2 grounds humanity in the earth: ha-adam from ha-adamah, made of dust and given breath. - Cody Sanders highlights the Hebrew wordplay and the cycle of body from earth to dust at death. Transcript: Cody Sanders Verse seven, then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became living being. In the Hebrew, this would be a really helpful wordplay here. The ha-adam, the man, is made from the ha-adamah, the dirt, the dust. Karoline Lewis I like to call him the dust guy. Cody Sanders Yeah. Mud creature, creature from the Black Lagoon. You know, he's being taken from the earth. And when we read it in English, it doesn't necessarily come through to us as significant as it does with that kind of Hebrew wordplay. But in the trajectory of humanity, as portrayed through the biblical text, the human comes from the dust of the ground and then in our death returns to dust. ([Time 0:15:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3eb507f4-74db-49ec-bc7f-f76609698844)) - **Paul’s Natural Theology In Athens** - Acts 17 models a New Testament natural theology: God is discernible within creation and human longing. - Matt Skinner notes Paul’s speech invites seeing God as knowable through common human experience, not distant. Transcript: Matt Skinner Well, I was just saying then God is ascertainable within creation or findable within creation. And Acts veers towards that. This is Paul's speech to the Areopagite council in Athens. It's not the entire speech, which is a little bit odd in terms of his editing. I don't think his speech is about the natural world as much as it's about this innate human longing. But Paul does talk about a who's knowable simply by human life, right? This idea that somehow our common humanity, we recognize a kinship with one another, but we also recognize something bigger out there, which is again, when Paul gets into the, you know, Quoting the poets and things like that. So it's there. There's some similar things in Romans 1, but not quite the same, where Paul talks about this idea of having a kind of thirst for God being embedded within all of us. But he doesn't, Paul doesn't develop that well, or extensively at all in Romans 1. But there is this sense, this is about as close as you get, I think, to something we call a natural theology in the New Testament, that God is somehow discernible or observable in the mystery Of the world in which we find ourselves. ([Time 0:17:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e2bffcb1-4a62-4fd8-868f-15716216fc0c)) - **Co‑Worship With The Wider Creation** - Psalm 148 portrays all creation praising God, suggesting nonhuman beings have their own modes of divine perception. - Cody Sanders argues the psalm invites us to become co-worshippers by attuning to trees, stars, and animals. Transcript: Karoline Lewis I mean, just to, yeah, that God has, we praise God's name, praise God in the highest heavens because of this is who God is. Matt Skinner And this is where you invite creativity, poetry, you know, theology is not philosophy, it's poetry as well. So how do the moon and the sun praise God? How do the wind and the mountains and the fruit trees and all cedars praise God? And have some fun with this. Cody Sanders Another, I think, really profound question to ask of our congregations is how we perceive the sun and the moon and the snow and the frost and the stormy wind and the trees and animals and Cattle and creeping things praising God. Because to me, this psalm suggests that the larger web of life has a perception of the divine that leads the whole creation to praise, but it is likely one that humans have a hard time understanding Because each, you know, stars and moons and creeping things have different ways of perceiving the divine and praising the divine. And if we can attune our attention to those expressions, then we become co-worshippers with the larger creation. Because when we read this text and we get to verse 11, kings of the earth and all peoples and princes and rulers of the earth, young men and women alike, old and young together, let them Praise the name of the Lord. We don't think that is metaphorical for people, but we often treat the sun and moon and stars and cattle and creeping things and wind as metaphors. Those are just sort of pretty images. ([Time 0:20:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/042eb97e-5831-46d7-9ded-66426a7e04e7)) - **Shift From Care To Relationality** - Move from 'creation care' to a theology of relationality that affirms humans are imbricated within the web of life. - Cody Sanders contrasts stewardship and justice with deeper mutual belonging across ecosystems. Transcript: Cody Sanders It's a good invitation to reframe what we think we're doing when we get to something like the feast of creation or season of creation, because oftentimes I think churches either frame What we're doing is creation care. So we're doing good things like recycling and stuff like that. And that's good. We should do those things. Or earth justice or creation justice. We are pursuing ecological justice, which is also a really good thing, being in solidarity with the larger web of life and our pursuit of justice. But there's an invitation, I think, in this psalm to see a different movement in relation to the wider web of life, and that is one of relationality, to ask how are we bound up in relationship With the cosmic web and the other living beings and the mountains and hills and trees and forests and prairies and lakes and oceans. Because being in relationship with is different than caring for or stewarding or even working on behalf of in the works of justice, all those good things. But it falls short of our understanding that we are entirely imbricated within this living web as human beings. ([Time 0:23:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dac4a7b8-1f76-4ba6-85af-7870250e02a2))