Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 9th September 2007 by Rev. Kwok Nai Wang. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 8 and II Corinthians 5:11-21.


Christian faith affirms that the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob is both the historic and universal God. This only God is also our personal God. It is this God who calls us into existence. Our God is the origin of everything. This is why the first book of the Hebrew Bible which is also the Old Testament of our Bible is called Genesis. Genesis literally means the origins or the beginnings.

God is the Creator, so asserts our foreparents of thousands of years. All of us are part of His Creation. Chapter 1 verse 1 of Genesis reads, “In the beginning, when God began to create…”. This implies that God’s creation did not end with what has been expressed in the first two chapters of Genesis. Rather God continues to create, redeems and sustains throughout the course of history.

By far human beings are the most important part of God’s creation. God created human beings even in His image. So every person has God’s likeness.

Let us look at the two accounts regarding to God’s creation. The first one is found in Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a. This is generally known as the later Priestly or “P” account. The “P” account described God’s creation stage by stage carefully. When everything was ready God then created human beings. The second or the “J” account is found in Genesis 2:4b-24. This earlier “J” or Jehovah account chose to concentrate to narrate how God created human beings in details. The rest of God’s creation seemed to be less important comparatively.

Despite the vast differences of these two creation accounts, there is one thing in common. The centre of God’s entire creation was human beings. As I pointed out earlier the “P” account even asserted that human beings bear the image of God (or Imago Dei). As God is the Creator (in capital letter), human beings are also creators (in small letter).

The Psalm we chose to read this morning, Psalm 8, the 4th stanza reads: “You have made a human being less than a god, You have crown him with glory and beauty, make him Lord of the works of your hands, put all things under his feet.” (vv. 5-6 NJB).

The purpose of this psalm is to glorify God about His creation rather than human beings. But as God’s most precious creation, human beings though very small and frail yet everyone is made less than a god (In some versions, “God has elevated everyone to be an angel”). He or she is the lord of God’s creation (c.f. Gen 1:26-28). This lies the mystery of the Dignity of human beings. The dignity of human beings rests in our humble acceptance that we are God’s children, and not self-made. Genuine dignity and absolute humility go hand in hand. Only in utter humility, the dignity of humankind can be realized.

My wife and I were in Alaska this summer, spending quite a bit of time looking at numerous magnificent glaciers. All these glaciers have a history of tens and thousands of years. Compared with them, I felt once again how tiny human beings really are. Yet oftentimes, consciously or unconsciously, we want to be much bigger than what we actually are. We want to control things. In so doing we push God aside. We do not only want to be the god of our life, but also the god of other people as well. Let us go back to the creation stories as found in Genesis 1-11.

Genesis 1-2 contains two separate accounts of God’s creation. This is to be followed mainly by four accounts of human sin or the fall of human beings. They are called “fall stories” because human beings out of their own free will fell outside God’s will. Genesis 3 told the story of Adam and Eve who ate the forbidden fruit. Genesis 4 was about Cain killed his brother Abel because of jealousy. Genesis 6-9 – the flood story was about the corruption of humanity: “the human wickedness was great on earth and that his heart contrived nothing but wicked schemes all day long…” (6:5). Finally Genesis 11 told the story of the Tower of Babel. All these four stories have one thing in common. People disobeyed what God had commanded. In the Adam and Eve story, God told them to eat everything except the fruit of the tree in the centre of the garden. In the Cain and Abel Story, Cain violated Abel’s life. The violation of another person’s life is the violation of God because every person bears the image of God. We have no right to take away the precious life of another person. Yet Cain did just that. When God asked Cain where was his brother Abel, Cain answered, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9). This is a rhetorical question. We all know the answer. Cain especially forgot that God had commanded human beings to take care of each other (c.f. Genesis 2:15).

In the flood story, human beings should know better that as God’s co-creators, they were supposed to do good, rather than evil. Yet the people at the time did the opposite. They did all the wicked things. All day long they contrived evil plans!

Finally in the Tower of Babel story, human beings wanted to challenge God, “come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves…” (11:4). They did not want to honour God’s name any more!

Generally speaking, these four stories are known as the Fall stories. Human beings did not live within the bounds of God’s will. The Greek word for sin is “harmatia”, which means we miss the target. God wants us to be dignified human beings. Yet we overshoot: we want to be God. Other times we undershoot: we deny ourselves and do not want to live in dignity.

As a result of this fall or disobedience, human beings are alienated not only from God, but from the whole of God’s creation, which includes Nature, people and our own self.

Let us go back to the first Fall story. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, Adam discovered that he was naked and was ashamed of himself. By implication, Adam was separated from his own being. He no longer knew who he was. He was ashamed of himself. He could not accept himself. Adam was also alienated from his wife Eve. He blamed Eve for asking him to eat the forbidden fruit. Then Eve blamed the snake for tempting her. The snake was a part of the natural world. Thus, as a result of the human disobedience and alienation from God, they experienced total alienation, from nature, from other people, and even from themselves.

I have pointed out to you time and again that the central message of the Old Testament is like this, God commanded, “I shall be your God and you will be my people” (Lev. 26:12; Jer. 7:23; 31:27, 32; Eze. 34:24, 31, etc, etc.) and that God is the only God (Ex. 20:3; Deut. 4:35; Hos. 13:4 etc.).

The fundamental sin of human beings is that we do not want to acknowledge that God is Holy (Hos. 11:9); He is the Only God and we are His people.

Superficially, there is nothing wrong that people go their own way, and seek for their own interests. God loves them just as much. But deep down, a life disconnected with God – the ground of our being or the reason of our existence is distorted.

The Prophet Isaiah of the 6th Century B.C.E. had foretold the following:

“We had all gone astray like sheep, each taking his own way and Yahweh brought the acts of rebellion of all of us to bear on him.” (Is. 53:6)

This prophecy was about the coming of the Messiah or the Saviour. It was fulfilled with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God loves the human kind so much so that He came to us through incarnation in the person of Jesus. Jesus Christ came to show us what an abundant life, the life which God aimed to give to all of us, is all about.

Apostle Paul described Jesus Christ as the Second Adam in Romans 5:12-21.

Adam, the first man, was the representative of all people who rebelled against God, thus causing human beings separated from God. Jesus Christ as the Second Adam or the new man came to live a life of unity with God. Jesus’ absolute obedience to God, even unto his death has brought justification for all humanity. Thus Jesus could claim that “I have come so that people may have life and have it to the full.” (Jn 10:10). An obedient life is a life in full communion with God, and thus obedient only to God’s will.

When we live a life in communion with God through Christ, we can and will live a life in unity with God’s entire creation, that is in unity with Nature and with all human beings. It means we can appreciate and treasure Nature as well as love and accept all people, disrespect their race, culture and religions; disregard their political and economic backgrounds.

As Paul pointed out: this is God’s new creation (II Cor 5:17). This new creation is God’s Church. I must hastily point out that this new creation or the Church is in no way superior to the people who are outside the Church.

As Paul pointed out so poignantly, we are all sinners (Rom. 3:11). But by God’s grace we are the forgiven sinners. So as the Church we need to be humble. The Church needs to turn back constantly, from self-righteousness to be under God’s justice.

The motto for the II Vatican Council which took place between 1962-1964 was aggioramento. Pope John XXIII had summoned his conservative Church to update. He knew the world had changed a great deal since the last council about 100 years ago. So should the Church if it meant to serve the world relevantly.

But in reality there is much more to it. Ontologically, the Church needs to renew itself incessantly so that it will not stray away from God.

When the two Presbyterian Churches in America joined together in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), they chose the slogan for the new Church, “ecclesia reformata semper reformanda”: the Church renewed, ever renewing.

God’s Church is God’s New Creation. It sees things from new and wider horizons. We as this Church dare to look at our self with new light. Despite our inadequacies caused by our sinful nature, we dare to affirm we are God’s precious children. So we dare to confront the powers and principalities who cause endless miseries to the little ones in our midst. Yes, this world is full of calamities – such as senseless killings in Palestine, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur (the list can go on and on). They also happen in our doorsteps as well. Then there are incessant natural disasters. We as the Church need to hear the cry of the suffering people all over the world. We also need to hear the cry of Nature as a result of our callous depletion of its forests; our excessive emission of all kinds of toxic gases; our selfish overuse of the land, water, etc.

Humanity seems to be facing a hopeless future. The Church as the New Creation of God does not and should never pretend it has all the answers. But neither must it be indifferent. We the Church have to do our very best all the time. Hopefully the little we do can reconnect people to God, which eventually is the answer to the future of humankind. Although we may not know from time to time what is the right thing to do, we must not quit trying. We do our best and surrender it to God believing God is still in charge.

Glory be to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.