What Will You Create?

Preached at Queens College, Oxford on Sunday 5th of February 2023

READINGS

Matthew 13:10-17 & Wisdom 13:1-9

SERMON

As a poet, I spend a lot of time thinking about words. More specifically, I spend a lot of time thinking about the implications of words.  And, as a Christian, I spend a lot of time thinking about God. I spend a lot of time thinking about the words we use for God, and the implications of those words.

And one of the conclusions I have come to, is that, when we speak of God - though we speak of a lot of aspects of God: God’s love, God’s justice, God’s faithfulness and care - the aspect we speak about most, is God’s role, as a creator.

And unless you’re partial to beginning prayers with “Creator God”, you may disagree with me.

But we pray to the Father, all of the time. Every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, every time we include, in our intercessions, the phrase “Merciful Father", or, my personal favourite, “Merciful Mother”, we pray to a God who is a parent, and what are parents, but creators? Craftspeople? Those who form us, physically, and/or emotionally.

If you will forgive me a descent into etymology: The word “Parent” comes to us through Latin, from ‘Parere’ “to bring forth”.

Underlining all of our faith is the belief in a God who creates. Who forms, and shapes. Who brings into being, who brings forth.

Of the many things God created - the earth and skies, distant galaxies, and tiny insects, God also created us - in God’s own image. Millions of tiny mirrors, tasked with reflecting the goodness of God back into this creation we care for. And, one of the things we reflect, one of the aspects of the Image of God we carry within us, is creativity. It is an innate human drive, a need carried within us, from the moment of our own creation. And with that drive, and the freedom that is also a gift, we did not just create art - though art is a deeply necessary thing - we also, in our own way, set about creating our world.

Think about it - when was the last time you walked somewhere free of human intervention?

These city streets are planned and plotted to within inches. This is a city of trimmed lawns, and “do not walk on the grass”. Our countryside is farmlands, managed woodlands, even the peat bogs are burned and harvested. Scientists have been clear for decades, there is no true wilderness left in Britain. Not a mile of this island is untouched or unmanaged. It’s been that way for centuries.

I think, perhaps, humans are creation, run wild.

We are what happens when the drive to create is coupled with the freedom to create whatever we want.

We create machines that enable medical miracles, and the pollution and weaponry that makes them necessary.  We create books and art, plastic and particulates, songs and statues, and nuclear weapons. We create beautiful churches, and stories that tell people they are not welcome in them. We try to create God, over and over again, in our own image, becoming not mirrors, but imitations. Because that’s the problem with being made in the image of God - eventually, if we are not careful, we try to become the thing we merely (and imperfectly) reflect.

As tonight’s reading from Wisdom shows us, historically, humans looked at the world around them, at the unpolluted night skies, full of stars, and the vast deserts, so much less controllable than our British fields and streams. They looked at God’s creation, and they thought it was God. Wisdom says: “through delight in the beauty of these things people assumed them to be gods” Now, we look at the world around us, the world we created,  at the cars and the planes, the tarmacked roads, and impossible engineering, and we think we are the sole creators, we think that we are gods.

It is, unfortunately, the downfall of all who create, to see ourselves as the sole creator. To fail to recognise the gifts which enabled our creation. We are “ever hearing but never understanding; [...] ever seeing but never perceiving”. Our greatest error is to see ourselves, not as participating in a grand creation - guided and provided by God - but as sole actors.

And that’s the complicated thing, the boundary we must acknowledge, but never cross - because in so many ways, we are participants. We join in the act of creation, and are encouraged, as stewards, to do so. God created the world, but left, for us, the work of forming mountains into building blocks, clay into bricks, ore into metal, wool into cloth, and, of course, grains into bread, and grapes into wine. Why? For the same reason Jesus speaks in parables - because when given something, so full of possibility, the human instinct is to explore it, and see what can be created.

In parables, Jesus gives us the raw materials of Christianity.

If He had spoken plainly, how many theology books would be unwritten? How many sermons unsaid? How shallow would our faith be? Would we be a barren land, without the depth of meaning, and wondrous possibility, that has fuelled this living faith? When time moved on and the world changed, how would Jesus’ words seem to apply if He had spoken in simple terms of the troubles of the specific time and place in which He spoke?

Jesus’ parables are the grain of faith. They offer universal messages that people -  regardless of time and place - can see reflected in their own lives. But it is for us to make the bread from these grains. To do the work. To listen to God’s guidance, and see what wondrous things can be created. It is important to note, however, that we are given, not commands, but choice, and chance.

Not all who hear Jesus hear and understand. Not because God wishes to hide Their face, but because humans, filled with the creative impulse, cannot cope otherwise. We cannot handle being handed a finished article, not when it matters.

If we were presented with a utopia, what would we do then? If every poem had been written, every song sung, every invention built, and every discovery made - what would we do? We are created in the image of a God who, at Their most basic level, creates - and so we must create.

Now, according to the Government, as a poet, I not only create, but am in “The Creative Industries” As far as I can tell, all that means is that I create stuff that seems to have no practical use. Builders create homes. Bakers create bread. But they are not in “The Creative Industries”. Not because they don’t create - but because they create in a way that ostensibly makes sense. In a way that is tangible, or useful - but then, isn’t art useful? Aren’t poems useful? (some would argue they are not, but I digress)

All human creation, whether it be a piston or a poem, a statue or a spreadsheet, is an example of us utilising  the gift of creation we are given.

What I am saying, I hope, is that I am no more “a creative” than anyone else - in that we are all creative. It is the fundamental condition of humanity to take the gifts God has given, and to create with them. But we must be aware of this. We must be aware of the gift we have been given. We must know that we create, not in spite of, or to challenge, God, but to glorify God. And so we must create things worthy of God. As Wisdom says, “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.” And their creator is not us, but God. 

So, as Christians, we must ask ourselves, how do we glorify God in all the small and myriad ways in which we creatively participate in God’s greater Creation? And how do we ensure that we use our freedom wisely, and honour these great and wondrous gifts?

That is, I think, the challenge of our time:

To move away from creating our world, a human world, a world which serves only us, and the unequal, unfair, and short-sighted desires we hold on to far too tightly, and instead join, knowingly, and deliberately, in creating God’s world, in creating the Kingdom, here, on Earth, using the gifts and the freedom we have, all of us, been lovingly blessed with, by God, the source of all creation, who as creator, as parent, brought forth the world, and all the goodness and beauty therein.

So I challenge you, tonight, to think: What will you create?

With all the gifts, freedom, and opportunity offered by God, what will YOU create?

Amen