The Bible opens with a wonderful, big-picture view of God and the whole universe – the biggest picture view that we could imagine.
By God’s word, light and life come into being, and it is good.
My own love for big-picture stories like this comes from my background in physics.
I’ve always been in awe of the incredible way in which the whole universe hangs together from the cosmological to the quantum scales.
But I also love the way that the creation story in Genesis 1 immediately gives way to the creation story in Genesis 2, which is all much closer to home.
God walks around, makes a few friends (literally), and plants a garden that is both beautiful and a place of provision.
Not all of us are excited by the ‘big-picture’ stories, or look to find God there.
For most of us, the more significant stories are about encountering God in the domestic, local, personal stories of life and relationships.
I recently used a version of this contrast in a sermon at the retirement of someone who has provided significant leadership to the church in some of the ‘big picture’ roles for many years, recognising that the impacts on the smaller pictures were actually where the greatest significance was to be found.
This year’s meeting of the national council of the Church, the Assembly, will have concluded by the time that this article is being read.
The Assembly is considering a number of significant matters for the life and ordering of the Church.
As I write this, I don’t know what the Assembly will determine about those matters.
But what I do know is that the ‘big picture’ matters being considered by the Assembly have their greatest significance in the effect that they have locally, in personal stories of mission and ministry and in lives that are liberated and celebrated.
I enjoy engaging with big-picture conversations, and appreciate all of the prayers that are going into the discernment work of the Assembly, at the 2024 meeting and into the future.
In the meantime, I see examples of God’s story in lives of people in so many ways, celebrated locally: in the commissioning celebration of a new Director of Mission for Uniting deeply supported by her congregation, colleagues, and thoughtful inclusive liturgy; in the funeral of a faithful, humble theological leader who has impacted so many lives throughout the Synod; in a gathering of First and Second Peoples in Fanny Cochrane Smith’s church; in personal acts of service and worship that I see or, often, don’t see but hear about second- or third- hand by people whose lives have been touched; and in the baptism of a baby.
My own child is being baptised this weekend, as I write this article.
This is the littlest, most intimate story, where the love of the God of the whole universe is recognised as extending to this little child, who barely even knows it yet.
It reminds as that at the base of all we do as a Church is this foundation: We love, because God first loved us.
Rev David Fotheringham
Moderator
