God's Creative and Beautiful Diversity

“God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’… God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so… God created humankind in God’s image, in the image of God, God created them.” Genesis  1:9-27

Dear siblings in Christ,
             As we are at the start of June, I am drawn to the first creation story within the book of Genesis. Within this creation story, God’s creative power is on full display. God is separating the land and sea, the day and night, and many other things but if we think further and bring our own experiences of God’s creation in the face of these many types of separations and divisions in which God created. Reading the whole of the story within Genesis 1, we can say that God entered the chaos of the formless void and created order, and even though this account is written in such a way to help easily understand God’s creative power in a binary, dichotomous, black and white, this and that type of thinking, it clearly is not the full story. Looking around the beautiful creation that is the natural world we know, we know this is not the full story of God’s creative power. We have light and dark, but we also have shadows and the beautiful plants and things that come from the shaded areas. We have night and day, but we also have dawn, dusk, and twilight. We have land and sea, but we also have beaches where they meet and we can experience the awe-inspiring beauty of sunrises and sunsets on full display in those places. We have both male and female and everyone in between all created in God’s own diverse image, and so on. All of these in between places like those of sunrises and sunsets give us tangible examples of just how God didn’t just create in the dichotomous, this or that way that is easy for us to understand but that God created beauty also in all of the in-betweens of all those separations. God’s best works that we all seem to collectively agree are the most beautiful are within these many in-betweens, so much so, that photographers will call these times the golden hour when they are able to capture the most vibrant pictures and colors during those times near dawn and dusk. God created these times of transitions within creation, and created all of the in-betweens of life and called all of it good.
              This reminder that God didn’t just create in binary, dichotomous ways but also created all of the in-betweens seems fitting for this month of June, when many take time to celebrate God’s great creation of all the diversity within us as human beings, as many take Pride in who exactly God created  all people to be within all of the possible in-betweens of the many vast human experiences. Every single human being, no matter who they are, each person is created in God’s own divine image. Just think of how expansively diverse God must be, that every single person is created in God’s image. And that is something for each person to be proud of. To be proud to figure out the person who God created them to be, and to be proud to be formed from God’s own image.  But yet there are still many who are unable to live fully into the person who God created them to be, due to many various reasons. But I pray that one day all people may be able to live into their truest self as God created them to be. And this June, I celebrate you all for living into the person God created and called you to be and celebrate all throughout the world who are able to do the same and pray that one day all people may be able to live abundantly as the person God created them each to be out of God’s own divine, expansive image.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Tamara Siburg