SKY

Genesis 1:1-8,14-19; Matthew 4:17, 6:9-13

2nd Sunday in the Season of Creation, September 10, 2023

Pastor Ritva H Williams

Welcome to Episode 3 of the Season of Creation featuring our exploration of Diana Butler Bass’ book Grounded in conversation with thematically selected scripture readings. 

Today we consider sky, beginning with these two images. First, a diagram of earth and sky based on a literal reading of Genesis. The outer edge of  sky is labeled “firmament” or what our NRSV translation calls “dome.” Inside the dome are the sun, moon, stars, clouds and so forth. This is what ancient humans saw when they looked up, and what we still see when we stand, sit or lay down on the earth — a clear blue dome across which the sun, moon, stars and clouds move and from where rain and snow fall through “windows.”

Second, a representation of our contemporary understanding of the sky as consisting of everything above the Earth’s surface, including the atmosphere and outer space. This diagram identifies five layers of the atmosphere together with human engineered things like hot air balloons, airplanes, satellites, and space craft that can travel at each level. Alongside these are various natural phenomenon that can be encountered — clouds and weather close to the earth, meteors and aurora at higher levels (ScienceFacts.net).

Both of these diagrams are based on human experience and observation. They differ because things look different from different vantage points. Ancient humans did not have flying machines and so all their observations were made from the surface of the earth. We might correctly dismiss the ancient idea that the sky is a solid dome with windows in it. Scholars debate whether the Hebrew word rakia actually referred to a solid dome. Rakia can just as well be and is translated as expanse — an intangible something spread out over/around the earth. Ancient observers simply didn’t have the concepts and language to describe that intangible something. Today we know that the atmosphere is a mixture of gases that provides us with air to breathe, shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation coming from the Sun, traps heat to warm the planet, and prevents extreme temperature differences between day and night. We should note too, that ancient philosophers and rabbis from speculated that the sky consisted of multiple layers even though they had no way to confirm their theories.

But what does all that have to do with God? Our scripture reading proclaims, that “when the earth was still a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” According to Bass, this means

The animating agent of creation was the air, in Hebrew ruach, a word signifying “wind,” “spirit,” or “breath.” At each stage of creation, God breathes new life into the world, the spirit speaks all things into being. The beginning of Genesis reads like a poetic version of the Great Oxygenation Event. God is literally the air upon which all earthly life depends. … This [divine] spirit is the sustaining force of the universe, the invisible presence necessary for all life (pp. 110-111)

If God is literally the air upon which life defends what happens to the idea that God is in heaven? Bass points out:

In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the word “heaven” [most] often means the sky. The Hebrew word for “heaven,” shamayim, referred to everything in both the earth’s atmosphere and outer space… In an interesting theological twist, “heaven” became interchangeable with “God” in the rabbinic tradition; shamayim, without an article, became a regular expression for the name of God(p. 119).

So God is found in the sky — as in Earth’s atmosphere and in outer space — and one of God’s names is Sky. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ ministry begins with his proclamation that the kingdom of heaven has come near. As Bass points out, “if heaven is nearby, so is God. Heaven is here-and-now, not there-and-then” (p. 120). Jesus teaches us to pray for heaven to come here-and-now, so that we can do God’s will here-and-now with the result that hungry people are fed, and we release each other from debts and obligations, and from harm we do and receive from one another.

Bass describes the kingdom of heaven preached by Jesus as “an alternate vision of peace, blessing, and abundance — the world as God intended it to be. Because heaven embodies the sort of virtues that human beings long for, it is depicted as a place of perfection, a paradise.” Unfortunately promoters of vertical religion insist that heaven is “ far away, unattainable in this life, a blessed reward for having lived with patience and grace in the suffering of this world.” (p.120)

And then in what I think is the best paragraph in this chapter, Bass writes:

If you think about it, however, heaven is not far away at all. We may walk on the earth, but the rest of our bodies move through the sky all the time — the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that extends upward from the earth’s surface to about thirty-five thousand feet. The sky begins at our feet. Thus, we actually live in the heavens now, in the space in which earth and sky meet. God’s “heavenly” presence is the air we breath (p. 120).

She goes on:

To speak of God and sky is to speak of intimacy, but it also hints at a different sort of distance as well — not like God sitting far above the world, but perhaps more like God at the horizon. Just beyond what we can see, there is more. Not God above, but God at the edge, the edge of the visible world, the horizon of mystery … just beyond the place where sky meets the ground. The Spirit calls our gaze outward, to lift our eyes to the edge … we need the sky to remind us that no matter how close God is, God is still the One who hovers at the horizon (p. 121) 

Scripture teaches us, that it is in God that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Lutheran theology affirms that God-Christ-Holy-Spirit come to us in, with, under and through the ordinary things of this world — earth, water and sky, critters and pets, bread and wine, words— spoken and sung, neighbors and strangers, caring conversations and humble service. God is with us in, with, under and through all creation. This is the good news that we invited to know, live and share with the world around us. 

excerpts from “In Praise of Air” by John O’Donahue

Let us bless the air, benefactor of breath, keeper of the fragile bridge we breathe across. 

Air waiting outside the womb, to funnel a first breath that lets us begin … 

Air: vast neighborhood of the invisible, where thought lives …

Air: home of memory where our vanished days secretly gather … so nothing is lost or forgotten.

Air: reservoir of the future …bring[ing] us [new] friends and …stones of sorrow.

Air along whose path Presence builds its quiet procession…in waves of sound … tides of music.

Air: the breath that enables flowers to flourish and calls the dark, rooted trees into blossom. 

Air: kingdom of spirit where our departed dwell, nearer to us than ever, where God presides.

Let us bless the invigoration of clean, fresh air.

The gentleness of air that holds and slows the rain, lets it fall down.

The shyness of air that never shows its face.

The force of air in wall after wall of straining wind.

In the name of the air, the breeze, and the wind, may our souls stay in rhythm with eternal breath.