EPIPHANY 1-B, January 8, 2006

If we didn’t know any better, it might be easy to conclude that the world as we know it is going to hell in the proverbial handcart. The Middle East is a mess. Almost two thirds of the world lives in poverty conditions. Africa is ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. The economy leaves much to be desired in our own country. It almost seems as if chaos abounds the world over. Even in our own little corner of the world, there seems to be at times more chaos and confusion than order and some semblance of sense.

But the truth is, this is nothing new, not now and not in the history of the created universe. The image presented in today’s first reading from Genesis, the first words from the first chapter of the first book of the Bible implies that the world was in chaos until God decided to do something about it. The writer says God put order into the disorder that abounded and removed the chaos that existed. But I’m not so sure that is what really happened, not in the end, anyway.

Well, let me rephrase that statement. If we take the meaning and the message of the parable of creation seriously and if we look at the created order itself, there is more order than there is chaos. The sun rises everyday and sets every night. The seasons come and go on schedule. And while there are daily occasions of chaos around the world – floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and the like, for the most part most everywhere in the world there is order and not chaos.

The problem in the created order, according to the creation parable, came not on Day One when God separated the light from the darkness. Nor did in come on Day Two when God separated the earth from the heavens. Nor did it come on Day Three when God separated the water from the land and brought forth lush vegetation throughout the world and when God created the sun and the moon and the stars. Nor did the problem occur on Day Four when God created the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air. Nor did it occur on Day Five when God created the animals that roamed this earth.

No, the real problem occurred on Day Six when, according to the parable, God created human beings and the earth began to go to hell in a handcart,. Ever since then there has been chaos in the world. To prove that point, the writer of Genesis goes on to tell the stories of the men and women whom God created to live in the world God created. There is Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience, the killing of Abel by his brother Cain, the mess in the world before Noah and the Ark and the Flood and the even greater mess that followed, the Tower of Babel and the disobedience of the people and the disorder that followed – all recounted in just the first eleven chapters of the Bible.

Yes, there is chaos in the world, chaos in nature. But the greatest and continuing chaos is caused by God’s greatest work of creation: you and me. Now that should not seem surprising, even if we might not like to admit it. Let me share with you a humorous piece I found on the Net a while back. Consider these differences between men and women. It is easy to see why chaos seems to be a staple of human existence.

If Laura, Debra, Susan and Mary go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Debra, Susan and Mary. If Mike, Charlie, Bill and Joe go out to lunch, they will call each other Fathead, Pizza Boy, Shorty and Useless. When the bill arrives, Mike, Charlie, Bill and Joe will each throw in $10 even if the bill is $22.50, and none will admit he wants any change back. When the girls get the bill, out come the pocket calculators.

A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item she doesn’t want simply because it’s on sale. A man has six items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap and a towel from Holiday Inn. The average number of items in a typical woman’s bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man may dress up for weddings and funerals. Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night. And children: a woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends and favorite foods, and secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the home. All of this, of course, is grossly unfair to both genders. And the one who wrote it probably needed to get a life. But the point is chaos.

There is chaos in this world, some of it caused by the quirkiness of the natural order. There is not much we can do to control the forces and even folly of nature. But most of the chaos in the world is caused by the quirkiness and sinfulness of us human beings. That we can control. What that means, then, is that there is a way out of this chaos. That was and is God’s message not only in the creation parable itself but throughout the whole Old Testament as well. It is also the message of today’s Epistle and Gospel readings, and, of course, the whole of the New Testament as well. There is a way of out the chaos we continually create as men and women, as human beings, because of our sinfulness and selfishness. That way out is baptism and living out our baptismal promises and the fulfilling of our baptismal ministry.

That, of course, is not as easy as it sounds, as you and I very well know. It is not easy because men and women are different. Thank God for that. The world might be less chaotic if we were all alike, if we were all clones of one another; but it would not be a world you and I would want to inhabit. Our differences are what give life to us and life to our world, but they are also the reason why there is war and dissension and poverty and disease: sin and selfishness again.

Our baptism is what sets us apart from others. It is because of our baptism that we intentionally work at removing the sin and chaos not only from this world, but also, and more importantly, from our own lives. Today our liturgy reminds us about the created order and Jesus’ baptism and the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We are also reminded about our own baptism and our place in the world and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For it is only through the grace and strength God gives to us in and through the Holy Spirit that we can so live our lives as God would have us live them in the power of the Holy Spirit. If and when we do, we will reduce the chaos in and around us as we remove some of the sinfulness and selfishness that is part of us.