The beauty and resources of the created world are gifted to us, on loan, to aid humanity in our work of filling the earth and growing the human family. Along with these gifts comes the concurrent responsibility of making sure those good resources are equitably available “to everything that has the breath of life” within it.
April 26, 2026
A New Creation
Part 3: “The Creation”
(poem by James Weldon Johnson)
Genesis 1:28-31
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Poem recited by Margaret Easton
Genesis 1:28-31
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
The Creation Genesis 1:28-31
On the sixth day of Creation, humanity is brought forth along with all other living creatures. We don’t even get our own day – but we do receive a special blessing and responsibility: stewardship of all of God’s good work (verse 28). The beauty and resources of the created world are gifted to us, on loan, to aid humanity in our work of filling the earth and growing the human family. Along with these gifts comes the concurrent responsibility of making sure those good resources are equitably available “to everything that has the breath of life” within it (Gen 1:30).
In the Genesis 1 passage, God’s good nature is revealed as the earth brings forth the first life in the universe. The particular attribute of God as “giver” (natan in Hebrew) is demonstrated in the announcement of why vegetation (plant, seed, fruit) exists: “you shall have them as food” (Gen 1:29). It is in the divine, exhibited on the sixth day of creation, that humans are gifted with bounteous good food and the natural resources we need to thrive, a praise -worthy characteristics of God featured throughout scripture. But in the same breath, we hear the very special responsibility of humanity to assure that every beast, bird, and creeping thing (Gen 1:30) has access to what it needs to survive and thrive. We humans beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and are both challenged and made responsible to “image” God in the way that we steward earth’s resources.”
These words were shared as part of the commentary for our text this week. I share them now because they remind me of what a gift Creation really is to us as people of faith. They also remind me that too often we take for granted the stories of our faith which tell us of God’s goodness which is all around us and sometimes, we need to hear these stories in a new way.
Which is what we will be doing today… I want to say a special thank you to Margaret Easton who will be sharing with us the poem, “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson as the sermon this Sunday. Margaret is a storyteller in practice and brings such life to the stories she shares! Margaret, thank you for helping us hear the stories of our in a new way to remind us of God’s goodness which is all around us.
“The Creation”
by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
ND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely —
I’ll make me a world.”
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, “That’s good!”
Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, “That’s good!”
Then God himself stepped down —
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.
Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, “Bring forth! Bring forth!”
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, “That’s good!”
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, “I’m lonely still.”
Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, “I’ll make me a man!”
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;
Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
(poetryarchive)
See also: Theology Tuesday for Sunday, April 26, 2026 – The Creation Genesis 1:28-31.
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*(from sanctifiedart.org)
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