The planetary scientist Carl Sagan famously wrote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
Well, for an apple pie you need apples. You need flour, you need butter, made from milk, made by cows. You need at least one egg from a chicken – and you need sugar and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. None of this exists because of —- nothing. Doesn’t it exist as the result of a tremendously, wonderful intelligent Creator? Could it be that God, the creator, is rejoicing in Her/His extraordinary, beautiful universe and aflame with love for man and creation? We see the ripple effect of Love in our lives every single day and from this comes the responsibility to see God’s love resonating in every life.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.” (Psalm 24:1) How hard can it be to live and intentionally stay in this universe? To honor a divine intelligence as the supreme and unique cause of everything? How hard can it be honor the ten commandments and the sermon on the mount as the supreme law of the land? It has been famously said that we choose the world we live in. We can choose the world with the apple pie. On the same line we find this wonderful statement from Mary Baker Eddy: “God is the sum total of the universe.” (Miscellaneous Writings: 105)
We can expect it to be God’s harmonious day, and God’s alone, filled with ideas and backing up. We can defend the peace and protection of the compassion and responsibility that comes with being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, God’s world. I feel that it is this sense of wonder that characterized Christ Jesus’ life and inspired his days. He followed this sense of wonder in a time of occupation, corruption, brutality and lack of coherence within society. Jesus lived in God’s world and saw that everyone and everything – the lilies, the sparrows – is in it. He spent his days being amazed by the marvelous universe surrounding him, representing the intelligent and most caring design of the Creator. How hard can it be to defend this world if wrong assumptions and illusions put it under pressure? It is not hard to defend something we love. It is so moving to be included in the sum total of Good – supply, inspiration, health, home, all there.
So whether you are making apple pie or having apple pie today it all comes from God. As I am writing this blog post I am overlooking a pond, and I see a black Phoebe resting on some branch, and I feel that she agrees.
In the Bible we read: Did not my hand make all these things?’ (Acts 7: 50. NRSVUE)
