Genesis 9: 8-17; Matthew 6: 25-34
Listen or watch this service here and part two
Decades ago, I had someone tell me they couldn’t believe in God when God spelled backwards is dog. How could you believe in such a concept of a super powerful being that permits itself to have its name backwards be *dog*? A cur. A mongrel. Nothing.
At the time I was angry. I was insulted. How dare you mock God — the Lord — the ultimate power?
I also felt a nugget of doubt… was this someone right? The name of God is said to be great power. I didn’t know of the unspeakable name of God at the time. The name we just abbreviate as YHWH. I only knew the name ‘God’ and… yeah. Backwards, it is dog.
Was this a sign from the chaotic and senseless universe that it was senseless and stupid to believe in a being controlling language, let alone our lives?
My doubt and my insult changed as I aged and experienced more of the world; and especially as I sought out and developed my personal beliefs and understandings of God.
I learned that God is Dios in Spanish. Dieu in French. Kami in Japanese. And even ‘God’ isn’t a name so much as a title. It was a gothic word meaning the person who is sacrificed to and replaced the Greek word Theos — the one you watch– in those early translations. I learned in seminary of how careful Jews are not to speak or write the proper name of God – and instead, use El Shaddai — which we translate as The LORD — as a fill in. I learned God – who God is – is beyond the simple name/title of ‘god.’ The greatest power, the greatest love, the creator of all – is beyond what our mouths can pronounce. We can only say titles, names, portions of all that the Divine is. So… it did not matter what a name backwards is.
Well, I sat with this while but then, as I hope happens for all of you, I lived more. I learned more. I changed more. Now I began to read scripture such as Genesis where God doesn’t form a covenant, a promise, with just Noah and humans… but with *all flesh.* Specifically, over and over again, animals are named.
Animals are important enough for the Creator to make promises to. God cares enough about animals to specifically include them in the Rainbow Promise to never destroy all life on Earth again. Our Holy Mother, our Holy Father, has contracts and obligations, relationships, with non-humans.
It made me think about Genesis where we read how God created so, so, much life before humans. How God spent days upon days of God-time imagining and bringing forth birds, fish, dinosaurs and crabs, mice and cats, fungi and trees, grasses and lilies, algae and bacteria. Long before humans were made, God had a plethora of creations God cared about, loved, and guided into ever more complex and wonderful systems.
It made me think of Jesus pointing out to his disciples to stop worrying and fretting. Our Holy Father knows what we need. Our Holy Mother clothes the lilies, feeds the birds, and grants life.
God promises life. God grants life. If we seek to join the kin-dom of God, all which we need is provided.
If we seek to live in kinship with animals, with plants, with the soil and air, with this marvelous garden God has planted… we do not need to worry about tomorrow.
It is when we do not consider the lilies, when we do not see the birds, when we do not seek the kinship of God, that we fall out of harmony with the garden. It is then we worry and fret and toil and don’t add a single hour to our lives. It is in that disharmony we fall into trouble.
Seeking the kin-dom of God, the ultimate reign of God, and God’s righteousness, seeking that justice and peace for all peoples, animals, soils, airs, and waters – seeking that shalom — that heavenly state of living — that brings about all we need to live.
It made me think… yes. You know… sometimes, we need to see God in a dog. We need to see God in an elm. We need to see God in a creek, a cloud, a worm, a frog. On each being, each thing, are the fingerprints of our creator. Written into our shared molecules and DNA, our RNA and atoms, are the words of God. Spoken. Created. Cherished. And sent out to live and produce more life. Just as we see some aspects of a person in the art they create, so too we see aspects of God in God’s creation.
So… yes. In a dog are qualities of God. Like God, a dog forgives and loves again and again. Like a dog, the Divine eagerly hounds after us, excited for our attention and never giving up. Like a dog, our Holy Parent protects us, wishes the best for us, and wants to be our best friend.
It means we see qualities of God in cats, too. Like a purring cat, God can sooth our worries with just God’s presence. Like God, cats don’t *need* us. God existed before us and was fine. Most historians think cats chose us rather than we domesticated cats. God chooses us. God wants us. God has chosen to enter into our lives.
I like seeing our loving Creator in all of creation. I like seeing God’s fingerprints on stars and stones alike. I like knowing God so loves animals and so loves me.
We ask God’s blessing on animals today because they, too, are beloved of God. We ask blessings as a way to acknowledge we are siblings to our feathered and furred, scaled and slimy friends. We ask blessings because it is an honor to pray for one another – and it is an honor to be co-gardeners of this Earth God has made.
Amen.
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 