Post #122 Poets, Prophets, & Preachers: Day 2, Session1

Day 2, Session 1
Rob Bell: “The Story We’re Telling”

Hope: AtomLab Video.
Watch the video!
“I went to a preaching conference and all I got was a crushed sternum.”

There is always a “thing behind the thing.”

What causes a message to really move people?
Where and how you begin and end a story shape and determine what kind of story you’re telling.

Let’s begin at the beginning.

Genesis 1:11
1 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so.

Dasha – Hebrew for produce/sprout
Progressive generativity
Creation is going somewhere
It is dynamic, not static
Tomorrow will be different from today.

Genesis 1:26-27
“26 Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Rada - Rule
Kabash - Subdue
Implies responsibility, stewardship,
Participatory Physicality
Harmony within Hierarchy
Everything in its proper place
Appropriate ordering of creation

Genesis 1:22, 28
22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
Barakh - Hebrew for blessing
Soil and Spirit are united in chapter 1
Heaven and Earth are united in shalom
There isn't "somewhere else"
-there is not a physical vs. spiritual in Genesis 1...everything is sacred.

There is something about you that is found in Genesis 1:
Aesthetics
Creations/making things
Relationships/partnerships
Worship
Exploration
Organizing
Naming
Learning
Responsibility

Whatever it is that we love about life...it is all here....our roots are here.
The story starts here.

Revelation 21:3
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

The story ends here.

It starts with a garden and ends with a city. There is a dynamic movement

Genesis 1 and 2 = Shalom
Genesis 3 = Disruption
Rebellion
Missing the mark
Sin is any way we disrupt shalom

Genesis 3 is not the beginning of the story.
Genesis 3 is not the end of the story.

The fall and sin need to take a proper place within the story.

Confession (yad hah) - admission, recognition, declaration, agreement.
Repentance (t'shuva) - is return, we were off course and invited to return.

The story is about God...
Renewing all things (Matthew 19)
Restoring all things (Acts 3)
Reconciling all things (Colossians 1)

If the story you tell begins in Genesis 3, then the drive of your story is the removal of sin.
If the story you tell begins in Genesis 1, then the drive of your story is the restoration of shalom.

The removal os sin is hugely important and deserves to be talked about, wrestled with, and understood; but it needs its proper place in the story.
A story that starts with Genesis 3 tells you what you aren't.
A story that starts with Genesis 1 tells you what you are.

If you start in 1, sin makes sense when you get to 3.

If you start in 3, the goal becomes some disembodied evacuation of Earth.
If you start in 1, the goal becomes the participatory physicality of the restoration of shalom!

What if "I'll fly away" misses the point? If God wants to come renew, restore, and reconcile this earth, we might fly away and pass him as he comes here!

In the Gospel of John, the writer mentions the "signs of Jesus."
the first on is in John 2 - water into wine
2nd is in John 4 - healing of the official's son
3rd is in John 5 - healing at the pool
4th is in John 6 - bread
5th is in John 6 - walk on water
6th is in John 9 - healing of the blind man
7th is the raising of Lazarus

In Hebrew thought, 7 is typically a number associated with God's power and with God's creation.
John 20 has the 8th sign: The Resurrection
The story is about Jesus' resurrection beginning a new creation, right here in the midst of this one.
Sidenote: Mary thought the raised Jesus was a gardener: the Greek word translates to "wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

The story is the reaffirming of the goodness of creation. It is the anticipation of the coming day when heaven and earth are united again. It is about the restoration of shalom!
If you start in Genesis 1 it changes the way you look at EVERYTHING!

Business is not just the exchange of goods, it becomes a vehicle by which you help others. The Hebrew word dasha from Genesis 1 - the earth produces and we use what it produces to increase shalom.

Art is not vain self expression, it becomes the arranging and rearranging of aesthetics in order to bless others. It is the separating and bringing together color, shapes, ideas, emotions, words, and melodies. In Genesis 1, God separated the light from the darkness, he created order from chaos. He created art!

Justice is not the human need to punish, it becomes an opportunity to renew, restore, and reconcile. A Genesis 3 understanding is not really interested in the poor, the hurting, and the hungry because the bottom line is that we will leave this earth and all of its misery. But a Genesis 1 understanding is really concerned because it brings that opportunity to renew, restore, and reconcile!

The sermon, then, is the insistence that the resurrection of Jesus brings a whole new world that everyone can be a part of. It is helping people see new creation with the eyes, mind, and hearts.

What you look for, you will find...
if you look for criticism, you will find it.
if you look for negativity, you will find it.
if you look for cynicism, you will find it.
if you look for greed, you will find it.

BUT

if you look for hope, you will find it.
if you look for love, you will find it.
if you look for devotion, you will find it.
if you look for giving, you will find it.

A sermon brings hope, not in escape, but in engagement; not in evacuation, but in reclamation; not in leaving, but in staying and overcoming!

2 types of hope:
Genesis 3: Hope that God will sweep us away, to leave this place.
Genesis 1: Hope that God would allow us to help change this world.

It always was, is, and will be God's world!