The creative word

http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/03January2010_RN.html

Rebecca's sermon for the 3rd of January. She had a great passage to work with, (John1) but brought many ideas to it.

It cut through me like a knife on Sunday. Pushing in the pressure points that release gnarled and knotted muscle. I am still not sure what to do with it though. But at least I've got it on the web now! I should read it again. Or should I just go and act on it?

Rebecca reminded me that the Word (logos) is also dabar; the creative word. I have found since returning from Jerusalem and Palestine last year, that talking about the experience allowed me to process it more strongly and understand more. Conversation, telling of story, created a bigger meaning (and hopefully allowed that meaning to be communicated!) We need to continue to tell those stories. Not just the Palestinian and also the Israeli story, but the Australian settler and indigenous stories, the Women in Black stories and our own stories. Hopefully with conversation, not simply a monologue. or monoblog...

So here is that paragraph from Rebecca Newland's sermon at St Philip's on 3rd January 2919:

The Greek word for Word is "logos" from which we get our word, logic.   In Greek philosophy at the time it referred to universal divine reason.  This divine reason was an eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus used the word logos to refer to a rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse as the "mind of God."  But the writer of John's Gospel was also well versed in Hebrew scripture and thought.  In Hebrew the word for "Word" is 'dabar'.  "Dabar" is not just a noun, the name for something.  Dabar is a verb and it means something that is active and creative.    So when God speaks at the beginning of Genesis, his words create – earth and heavens, stars and moons, animals and plants and humans. When John writes of Jesus as the Word he is describing Jesus as a creative, generative power.   One way to look at it this passage– and one more in keeping with John's idea – is that if God is the idea, them the word is what speaks the idea.   And this word creates.  If God is love then Jesus is loving and a loving that creates a reality.
http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/03January2010_RN.html