PARSON TO PERSON: Take a vacation and lighten up

'I command you to take a vacation!” OK, so maybe God didn't say it exactly like that. But God did lead by example when on the seventh day of creation, God rested. I love Genesis 1 and that first creation story. It's full of rich imagery and shows a collaboration between God and the earth. Each day builds on the previous day until finally, upon completion of creation, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.

In Genesis 1:27 we read that 'God created humanity in God's own image.” The Imago Dei. So what does this mean? If we look into a mirror we see God reflected back at us? I would argue that it's more than that. What if it's more like a prism than a mirror? What if when light shines on the prism, the reflection of God that dispersed from that light are the colors of the rainbow, the great colors of diversity that reflect this wondrous and beautiful creation?

In creation binaries are broken. There is so much more than just darkness and light, land and sea, male and female. There is a full spectrum of life. I think about how black and white things have become. There doesn't seem to be much room from gray anymore. But this goes against all of creation. God is not male. God is not female. God is God and words alone cannot define God. God set creation on its course and let the waters swarm with living things and let birds fly in the air and the great sea animals roam the waters and the earth produce everything living kind of thing. Creation cannot be contained. When our light shines through that prism it transforms into a million colors. Creation is diverse and wild.

Author P.K. McCary has written a retelling of the Bible called the 'Black Bible Chronicles: A Survival Manual for the Streets.” Her telling of creation goes like this, 'Now when the Almighty was first down with His program, He made the heavens and the earth. The earth was a fashion misfit, being so uncool and dark, but the Spirit of the Almighty came down real tough, so that He simply said, Lighten Up!”

Maybe we can take a lesson from McCary and ‘lighten up' and simply live into this beautifully broken world.

This is the Word made flesh and fresh.