I’m actually less and less certain that anyone I revere said anything I once thought they said. Beloved prayers, quotes, and bits of wisdom float around the web with abandon and find themselves attached to any number of prominent people.

Einstein, C.S. Lewis, and Rumi would be shocked by some of the things instagram thinks they said; which may be why Abraham Lincoln famously warned us not to believe everything we read on-line.

But seriously, a little digging is all it takes to confirm that St. Francis was not the author of his most famous prayer: “O Lord make me an instrument of your peace…”

Hemingway never wrote a six word story about baby shoes. (I’m still disappointed about that).

Nor did St. Teresa ever say, “Christ has no body now but yours….”

Heck, Sherlock Holmes never even said, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Not once. At least not in the books.   

But it would be nice if these well known people had said such nice things and we readily believe they said such nice things because those nice things we believe they said affirm all the nice things we already think about them.

There’s a certain logic to this phenomenon. They might not have uttered the actual quote, but something about the brilliance of the words and the brilliance of their lives make us wish that they had.

(Plus, we’ve misquoted them for so long and to such great effect that it would be really annoying to stop now. Who has the energy for that level of revisionism?)

On the flip side, however, there are a lot of things we wish prominent people hadn’t said that they really did say, especially prominent religious people.  And not for nothing, but the Bible has not helped. There are lots of things the Bible says that I really wish it didn’t say, in large part because it has given religious people all the ammunition they have needed to cause harm.

In fact, we can’t even get through the first chapter in the Bible without God - at least according to the author of Genesis - saying something I sometimes wish God had never said at all. Verse 26:

“Let us make humankind…”

We’ll get to the rest of the verse and that awful word “dominion” in just a moment, never fear, but even before that, I have to admit these first 4 words give me pause.

I mean, I don’t know. I’m happy to be here. I’m very happy you’re here. I’m particularly fond of Andrew and the kids. I will even acknowledge that as a species we’ve done some amazing things. But on balance, I gotta tell you: sometimes I wonder if God shouldn’t have stopped in the middle of day 6 after creating the wild animals, the cattle, and everything that creeps upon the ground.

God saw that it was good and frankly, given all the damage humankind has done, I wonder if creation might have been good enough as it was without adding us to the mix. Perhaps God should have quit while God was ahead. But no. God sent all the creepy crawlies slithering into the tall grass and then said:

"Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish …the birds …the cattle…all the wild animals … and … every creeping thing …

So God created humankind in his image,in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them. (Because apparently, at least according to a literal reading of scripture, God is non-binary. Paging Texas. But I digress).

God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; (not loving that either) and let them have dominion (there it is again in case you missed it the first time) over …every living thing that moves upon the earth."

I mean uggh. Just, uggh.

Here before us we have this beautiful poem about the creation of the world - the separation of light from darkness, land from sea, the birth of constellations and heavenly bodies, myriad fish and fowl, multitudes of mammals and vegetation – a beautiful poem that lays the whole glistening new born wonder of creation at our feet … to be subdued … to be dominated.

And it makes me sick.

And it makes me sad.

And it makes me angry…

because I know the harm we have done with those words.

I really wish God hadn’t said this because those words really are as harsh as they sound. I wish I could tell you that the word “subdue,” which in Hebrew is kabash has the same root as the word for stewardship or domesticate or that the word for dominion, which in Hebrew is rada, really means to raise up and tend. But no.

Kabash, well, have you ever heard someone say, “we’re going to put the kibosh on that.”

It’s not the same word at all, but it might as well be. Kabash literally means to subdue or subjugate, conquer or tame. And rada isn’t much better.  Rada means to tread (upon), rule (over), to dominate. According to Baptist Pastor Lee Canipe, “Radah appears nine times in the (Hebrew Bible,) almost always in reference to military action or political authority” ( https://christianethicstoday.com/wp/rethinking-dominion-in-genesis-127-28/).

God, at least according to the author of Genesis chapter 1, gave humanity all the wonders of creation to conquer, subdue, and dominate, and for far too many people that has been all the license they have needed to justify the use and abuse, the polluting and pillaging, the desecration and exploitation of the earth and of all her creatures; sometimes even the human ones.

So what do we do with this verse?

Well, we could just ignore it, but that approach only gets you so far. As one of my professors used to say, if you consistently skip over the the parts of the Bible you don’t like you’ll eventually find that you know more and more about less and less.

Not only that, I’m pretty sure if we skip over these verses we’ll find equally disturbing ones in Genesis chapter 2 and 3 and 4. Chapter 5 isn’t so bad because it’s all genealogy. But that genealogy lead us straight to Noah and the flood in chapter 6 and by the end of that story - all the cute animals notwithstanding - even God is repenting for some of the things God said and a whole lot of what God did.

Which is to say that there are far too many things said in the Bible that I wish were not in the Bible. So much so, that I fully understand why so many people have chosen to dispense with it entirely. It’s a dangerous book - there are no two ways about it - especially in the hands of those looking for an excuse to abuse power for our own selfish gain, (which honestly, at some point or another, is pretty much all of us).

But paradoxically, I find that it is also the best defense against that abuse if we’re willing to sit with it awhile longer and look at any verse or story in the wider context of the Bible as a whole.

So let me just say this: if your first reading of a scripture leads you to believe that God or the Bible is blessing your basest desire to control, hate, take, or harm, you might want to read it again, because chances are you are missing something.

As Ann Lamott once wrote: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

And just for the record, she didn’t actually say that. She’s quoting her priest friend, Tom. But she did write it - on page 22 of “Traveling Mercies” - and I think you can extrapolate from that … you can extrapolate and assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God wants all the same things for you that you want.

You’ve created God in your own image when God believes all the same things that you believe.

You’ve created God in your own image when you think God would vote for all the same people you plan to vote for, etc. etc. (Paging myself now).

And this is important, because if you look at these words about power and subjugation and domination in the context of the chapter and verse, you realize that we’re not meant to create God in our image, but to remember - which is why it is also said repeatedly - that we are created in God’s image.

We are created in God’s image and God expects us to act accordingly.

So take another look at this image we have of God in Genesis. Here in chapter 1, we have a God who is powerful enough to make all the beauty and wonder of creation and what is the first thing God does with it all? God gives it away.

God didn’t stop in the middle of day 6, because God didn’t consider the work complete until God had created someone with whom to share all of this goodness. Just let that sink in for a moment. God wants us to have all of this. But like any precious gift I can’t help but assume that means that God also wants us to take good care of it.

God created us in God’s image and then entrusted us, God’s mini-image bearers, with control, with responsibility, with the care and stewardship of this great, big, beautiful world.

Not only that, I think God left clues for us embedded within creation itself about how all this care is to be carried out.

I’m going to pluck out a few examples, but I’m sure if we sat with it together we could no doubt come up with many, many more. What I noticed first was that God sets the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night; unique heavenly bodies that nevertheless work in unison, complimenting each other even as they go about their task. We have nothing to offer the sun or the moon, and yet they both serve and govern all of the life on this planet.

What was it that Hafiz didn’t say:

"Even after all this time,

The sun never says to the Earth,

‘You owe me.’

Look what happens with a love like that,

It lights the whole sky."

(While it is frequently attributed to the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz (or sometimes Rumi), this exact translation is widely credited to Daniel Ladinsky’s contemporary interpretations of Hafiz's work. See here for more  https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/6/14/fake-hafez-how-a-supreme-persian-poet-of-love-was-erased)

Whether Hafiz said it or not - and I can assure you, he did not - the sentiment of the poem and the sentiment of these verses in Genesis are the same. Or how about this snippet of a poem by Matt Morberg I saw on Facebook just last night:

And still,

the moon clocks in.

No applause.

No benefits.

No note from management saying,

“Great work being ancient and luminous again.”

Just the moon,

working nights

like a single mother with no applause,

packing silver lunches

for every dark thing

that still has to rise.

Tell me that isn’t holy.

Tell me there is a better word

than sacred

for the way light keeps returning

with no guarantee

we will actually stop and take note.

These words about the sun and the moon are beautiful and true, and meant to engender in us that same spirit of self giving love…. For when we use our power to love unconditionally, we shine.

Notice as well, all the references to fruit bearing trees and their seeds…so many seeds. I think it’s a sign that we are meant to be fruitful and multiply just like them, to live not just abundantly but sustainably in such a way that our life seeds life for the next generation and the generation after that.

Notice how the fish stay in the sea and the birds take to the air, the cattle are domesticated while the wild things creep and crawl around the edges. I wonder if that isn’t an invitation to stay in our lane. Look at the order around your and how beautifully each life has been fashioned to function in this environment. And then look at yourself and remember who and what you are.

It’s as if all of creation is speaking for God and saying: “remember, my little image bearers, that you are even more fearfully and wonderfully made then the tiger or the eagle, the stars or the apple tree, because you have the very breath of God in you. Like me, you have the power to rule, shape, give, and take life. Use that power well. Use it …like the one who gave it to you.

Interestingly, Lee Canipe points out that the one time the word radah appears in the Hebrew Bible as a description of how God exercises dominion over the earth rather than how we do, is found in Psalm 72. It is a prayer for King Solomon, a prayer that he would rule the way God does:

1 Give the king your justice, O God,  …

2 May he judge your people with righteousness,   and your poor with justice. 3 May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,   and the hills, in righteousness.

4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,   give deliverance to the needy,   and crush the oppressor.

8 May he have dominion (radah!) from sea to sea,   and from the River to the ends of the earth. 9 May his foes bow down before him,   and his enemies lick the dust. 10 May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles   render him tribute,may the kings of Sheba and Seba   bring gifts. 11 May all kings fall down before him,   all nations give him service.

(Why? This is important. Because…like God)12 … he delivers the needy when they call,   the poor and those who have no helper. 13 He has pity on the weak and the needy,   and saves their lives … 14 From oppression and violence he redeems their life;   and precious is their blood in his sight.

“When used in connection with God, (and Solomon)” says Canipe, “the potentially violent connotations of radah suggest instead a more generous sort of kingship.

God, the psalmist writes, does not exploit or dominate or consume recklessly. (Nor does God approve of those who do.) God does not use His power to conquer or hurt, but rather to defend and heal (and those who rule in his name should do likewise).  God values what cannot be replaced. (God cares about and protects and provides for those who have nothing to give in return - the poor and the needy - and) God works to preserve (their) life, not to destroy it” (because in God’s eyes all life is precious) (Canipe actually misreads the psalm as describing God, rather than God’s servant/king Solomon, but I think the overall idea still holds and I’ve added to his words to make this work (https://christianethicstoday.com/wp/rethinking-dominion-in-genesis-127-28/).

God is dominant, the Dominus or Lord over all creation, and God has created and entrusted us to dominate this world the way God does, with generosity and care, using our power to give rather than take, raise up rather than crush, conserve rather than exploit or neglect. Imagine what the world would be like if we had really leaned into this understanding of power as Christians from the very beginning? Imagine what it could be like even still?

Regardless of their source, my friends, words matter and how we understand and use them matters even more. God created this world with words and the strange truth is that we do too. Our scripture is nothing but words, but how we use them is what give them their meaning and their power.

So may we use our words for good and God’s word with care. May our words and how we use them affirm all the nice things God thinks of us. And may we use God’s word to subdue all that is selfish and controlling in us, that life might flourish in and around us to the glory of the One whose image we are blessed to bear. Amen.