Tohu wa Bohu

I preached in College last Thursday. A number of people have been commenting since then how helpful they had found it. So for those who might value being able to reflect on bits of it again, I'm reproducing it here. I rarely preach from full notes like these, but the style required a closer attention to wording than I normally give. The numbers refer to slide accompaniments.

Gen 1:1 - 5 ; Mk 1:4ff

Riff-Sermon
Introductory slide is [1] -not for viewing start with [2]

Tohu wƏ bohu [2]
A formless void: formlessness and void; chaotic and empty; unstructured and unpopulated; shapeless and blank; formless and desolate; void and empty; disordered and uncultivated; unformatted and awaiting input .... a right mess wi nowt much appning.

To be alive means dealing with tohu w' bohu.

Tohu wƏ bohu [3]
Chaotic and unfulfilled. Peering ever more closely at fundamental particles, quarks, gluons, is to find randomness, mere probability rather than immutable laws, unpredictability at the very heart of what we think so solid and dependable: matter and energy. Our very being emerges from the wildness, the unpredictable, yes; the chaos of fundamental physical reality. Somehow reality is such that the randomness generates fields, areas and spaces of order, and more... and more... Somehow reality is such that even chaos is caught up into the making of order.

To examine through the eyes of physics and maths the nature and the equations of material reality is to find tohu w' bohu.

And in the beginning there is still a new story, a story telling us good news; for the Spirit of God hovers over the equations, and God is still saying “Let there be...” and there is ...

Tohu wƏ bohu [4]
Words to signal a main point in a counter-story for the people of God. Those who oppress them tell themselves a myth of epic primal battle between chaos and order. This story queries the Empire's foundational story in which might is right, and where order and peace are founded on bloodshed and suppression. Where the world, and everything in it, is reconstituted from the offal -the blood-soaked guts- of the defeated opponent. A myth of origins where the message is that peace and order come at the end of a sword. A myth justifying the suppression of the mass of people in the service of the few. A myth to tell human beings that we are worth little and the gods hardly care provided they get their cut.

To be oppressed is to suffer the consequences of other people's fear of tohu w' bohu.

In the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
And the spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters....

Tohu wƏ bohu [5]
No primal chaos monster to be defeated and gutted here. Just a calm scene-setting. A simple bringing-into-being.
No inscribing of violence into the very ground of being here. Just the power and intimacy of God's breath, God's spirit, God's life-force flowing, hovering, brooding, sweeping over all that God makes.
Here is no titanic struggle to give legitimacy to the exploiting of the hard graft of a slave population sweating for others' gain. Just some simple words to bring about
something new,
something beautiful,
something for everyone.

To be exploited means to be forced to handle other people's tohu w' bohu.

In the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
And the spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters....
And God saw that it was good

Tohu wƏ bohu [6]
Unstructured and empty. A phrase that could speak to a people who enter a wilderness. In a wilderness there are no streets, no familiar landmarks no directions. There is no sense of what is dangerous and what is safe. No fields, no food, no visible means of support.
What could a story like this mean to those forced to journey through the wild-erness, the wildness?
To enter a wilderness is to enter into tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the breath of God breathes through the experience. And God said “Let there be...”

Tohu wƏ bohu [7]
Disordered and blank. Chaotic and empty: that's how it must have felt for God's people hoiked off to Babylon; how to make sense of it all? Old securities gone. New ways not yet established. The mess and distress of finding new livelihoods, dealing with the prejudice and contempt of new neighbours, and most of all not knowing what the future could hold or whether we could dare to hope. Where God had been: where Temple had stood ... blank; erased; silence ...

To go into exile is to enter into tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the Spirit of God brooded over it all, and God said 'Let there be light'.

Tohu wƏ bohu [7]
Formless and void.
Later Jesus was to observe that the people of God were like sheep without a shepherd. Sheep!? All over the place. Facing different directions. Direction-less, wandering about. But for now, it's down into the water. Going in with the crowds, part of a people who are all over the place, and awaiting a shepherd. Making common cause with them, entering the turmoil and confusion. Waters of Baptism: waters of creation. And the Spirit hovers over the waters and over the Word-made-flesh.

For, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
And the Spirit of God brooded over it all, and God speaks in flesh and blood ....

Tohu wƏ bohu [8]
Meaningless and empty. To watch one die who had seemed to sum up in himself the hopes of a people, the purposes of God and even the very presence of the Divine caught up in the meaninglessness of an imperial injustice, ground between the competing blind forces of Empire, collaboration and resistance, identity and conformity, money and power. Such a death seems so ... meaningless. And without him life seems so ..... empty

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the Spirit of God brooded over the meaninglessness and emptiness, and God had a further word to speak.

Tohu wƏ bohu [9]
Messy and uncertain.
A young woman lies in the road behind the car that hit her. Her injuries mean that in about 11 hours surgeons will have to decide to amputate her leg.
For her family, for her church and for many many people whose lives that family's touch, there begins a time of messy uncertainty; a formless void awaiting developments form the conflicting forces at work in and around that life.

To be caught up in a serious and life-changing accident is to enter into tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the Spirit of God broods over the experience. And God speaks yet a further word...

Tohu wƏ bohu [10]
confusing and awaiting. A young woman certain of the call of God on her life for ordination. Trained at one of the finest colleges, clearly gifted and creative. Yet stymied time and again in a search for a curacy: passed from diocese to diocese; from bishop to DDO. From pillar to post. A husband needing to know where to request a transfer to for his work. How to make sense of call and lack of opportunity?

To await proper opportunities is to confront tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the breeze of God stirs through the experience. And God speaks a creative word.

Tohu wƏ bohu [11]
Meaningless and empty. A man is told he will be made redundant. This threatens not only his livelihood, but his sense of call, and of value and even threatens homelessness for a whole family. Things don't make sense, information is conflicting, emotional forces swing and eddy around him and within him.

To become jobless is to be rubbed raw against tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the breath of God breathes through the experience. And God speaks hope and creates afresh.

Tohu wƏ bohu [12]
A nation in turmoil; being torn between revenge and justice, hope and coming to terms with a horrendous past of oppression and abuse. Voices and forces compete to offer futures but so many seem to offer peace only through shedding the blood of those designated enemies. The danger is the forces that could be unleashed in reversing the racial power status threaten chaos, anarchy and might is right community building. A world watches in trepidation and ... prayer ...

To rebuild a nation is to stand amidst and be seared by tohu w' bohu

Yet, in the beginning is a new story, a story telling us good news.
For the wind of God blows through the nation. And God speaks and old yet ever new word ...

Tohu wƏ bohu [13]
Among the first words of scripture; but not the last.
The Spirit of God still hovers over tohu w' bohu
The breath of God still whispers through the tohu w' bohu
the Wind of God still whistles around the tohu w' bohu.
And God says:
Let there be artists and entrepreneurs
bringers of justice and makers of peace
wise and servant leaders
prophets and pastors
tellers of truth
healers
And there were.
And God saw that it was good.
And evening came and morning came. The sixth day.

Amen. [14]