A Call To Be Creative

In A World That Calls Us To Be Careful

I love to preach and I equally love the process of creating a sermon. I often hide this love because talking about preaching is weird, especially after leaving “official” church ministry. This last Sunday, I shared a sermon about creativity with a church that is dear to my heart. And the whole experience has stirred something in me…I’m still giving words to what that is. For now, it inspires me to share that message here, something I’ve not done before at Wednesdays at the Well. I know sermons aren’t for everyone and I’m honored that you even consider scrolling below.

Read Psalm 146 here.

I starred in a cardboard instrument garage band when I was 8 years old. I played guitar. My best friend was CJ, who lived next door, he played drums. The other band members were three brothers who lived across the street. One played keyboard, another bass guitar, and one was on lead vocals. We were little kids with really big imaginations. It was fun and we took ourselves quite seriously. We created a whole concert and tried to sell tickets and invite others to attend.

Like with many great bands there was a split. Creative differences. I was a good United Methodist kid. CJ didn’t go to church. The brothers were Pentecostal. One day while rehearsing some Bruce Springsteen, the mother of the brothers came into the garage, warning us to be careful about secular music. I didn’t really understand what that meant. Not long after, CJ and I showed up for practice and one of the brothers said that unless we agreed to only play Christian music the band had to break up. CJ and I tried for a while to make this work. But things went downhill fast.

During all this, the brothers’ mother said something that I’ve never forgotten. I was pleading the case for us to be allowed to keep creating music of all genres and she said bluntly, “only God creates.” She said something similar about E.T. and why the movie was demonic. Referencing that iconic scene where E.T.’s glowing finger brings a dead flower back to life. “Only God creates,” she warned. “Be careful.”

I’ve been thinking about her words lately. How they capture this common human belief that it’s all on God. We reduce the world to good and evil. God is in complete control. We speak of God’s will and God’s plan perhaps as a way to comfort ourselves and also to justify our actions or lack thereof. We make God all powerful and render ourselves powerless.

Beresheit Bara Elohim, the first words of scripture, “in the beginning God created.” The first thing we learn about God is that God creates. A few verses later we learn that we are created in God’s image. If God’s image is creative so too is ours.

Creativity is easily reduced to the work of artists or the minds of children. We limit being creative to painting, drawing, sculpting, sketching, or maybe being a poet. We dismiss it. Downplay it. Mock it as being naïve or frivolous or just unimportant. We tell creators to get real jobs.

Creativity is using our imagination to produce; to transcend, to expand, to extend. Creating isn’t like making cookies from all the ingredients sitting in the cupboard. It’s magical and miraculous. To create is to bring something into existence that didn’t exist before.

What if we understood creativity as part of the human job description? What if we embrace and cultivate our unique creative gifts. If there is breath in your lungs there is creativity in your being.

Creativity extends beyond humans. Have you ever heard of elephant water holes? During droughts or dry seasons, elephants use their feet and trunks to dig water holes, providing needed water and other minerals for themselves and the herd. When they move on, they’ve created a well that provides sustenance to other species of animals in their hard times.

The psalm includes a warning. A be careful. “Do not trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no salvation.” Other translations say, “Do not put your trust in princes in whom there is no help.”

Why? Because when they are gone so too are their plans. Great plans or horrific plans, they are gone.

The wonder of the Psalms is that they are ancient and yet so very close. They speak to the human condition and show us how so much and yet so little has changed about society. The psalmists live in a world that mirrors ours. Where there is unbelievable beauty and unfathomable suffering among us. Where we have everything we need in abundance and yet many die from scarcity and lack of access. Where peace is right here and yet violence is sitting right there. Where there is this constant tension around the role and authority of leaders and the rights and responsibilities of the people being led.

As we don’t have princes in this country, I hear the psalmist warn, “don’t put your trust mayors, governors, presidents, congress, courts, political parties. When their breath departs their plans perish.”

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t care about who is in charge or who our rulers are, that we should just passively accept who and whatever comes our way. This is a message about trust. In whom do we trust? Where do we seek salvation? What do we do when we are afraid? How we help those most at risk and in danger?

We hear the warning and then without warning a beatitude gets blown at us. Beatitudes don’t belong here! That’s for later when Jesus is preaching his sermon on the Mount. Don’t talk to me about blessings right now.

Verse 5 reads, “not just blessed but HAPPY are those whose help and hope are in God.”

My first reaction to this is to pull back. To put up a wall. The world is falling apart and you want to talk to me about happy!?!

It was November of 2016—eight years ago—I was navigating the ‘end’ of my United Methodist journey. For months I had been carefully outing myself as lesbian and queer, having hard conversations and making impossible decisions. Ultimately, I chose life rather than staying in the closet. That included surrendering my provisional credentials and leaving the ordination process just before reaching the finish line. I lost my ministry, my community. My entire existence shifted. Everything I knew and trusted was seemingly gone.

There were many who said the better choice was to just to stay quiet, remain closeted, wait for things to change, be careful. One such person looked me in the eye and asked, “on scale of 1-10 just how happy are you?”

Happy? I am not happy at all. I’m trying to save my life. I can’t live while hating myself any longer. I’m trusting God not church leaders. My help comes from God not a denomination. My hope is in a God who calls not a board who ordains. That’s what I was telling myself and desperately clinging to.

And now the reason why. Why do we trust in God and why do we praise God all our days?

In a world of severe suffering and intense sorrow we praise God because God creates. God created heaven and earth, the seas and all that lives within it. God creates liberation, food, freedom, vision. God raises those who have been knocked down. God creates protection and comfort. And we are vital parts of God’s creative plan.

This is why we praise. To praise is to lift God up. To talk about what God has done for us. To appreciate and acknowledge God’s presence and work in our lives. To praise is to celebrate God who creates and true praise calls us to join God in the creative process. God cannot create without us.

In life and the Psalms, instructions come with warning. Be careful.

There’s lots of ways to say be careful.
Be careful the floor is slippery don’t fall.
Be careful the knife is sharp don’t cut your finger chopping potatoes for the pasties.

There’s also be careful, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

I heard this kind of be careful when I was in the process of coming out. I heard it while I was serving in ministry. Often when I spoke about racism or sexism or gun violence or universal healthcare; or when I shared about my experience visiting detained immigrants at the county jail; or when I testified about families in Detroit that went several winters without working furnaces because their basements were flooded. Just recently someone told me to be careful mentioning Palestinian children killed in Gaza in one of my poems.

These be carefuls weren’t about my safety, but others comfort. I’m guilty of this too. Prioritizing my comfort over other’s safety. Well, that doesn’t impact me, so I’m not gonna think about it. I’m not first on the list of people whose human rights are under attack, so I’ll wait and see what happens.

My bandmates and I fought a lot. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who’s in charge? Who goes first? We made fun of each other. We distrusted each other. We were skeptical of the other’s religion. They said I wasn’t a real Christians because my church didn’t have altar calls. I thought they were weird because they prayed in tongues. CJ and I went weeks once without talking because he said girls shouldn’t play basketball.

But you know when we all got along? When we were creating. When we were playing our hearts out on cardboard instruments in the garage. Sadly, it ended when adult told us to be careful about the music we chose rather than celebrating that we were choosing to create together.

If you said to me eight years ago, that I would survive that lonely humiliating valley, that I would come out and land not happily but joyfully on the other side, I would have said no way. What I did, initially as an act of survival, was actually a creative leap of faith. Today I’m doing what I once couldn’t even imagine. I’m being authentically me. I’m offering my words and stories and experiences and creativity in ways that weren’t even on my radar.  

Before I could praise I had to trust.
I had to really be sure where my help and hope come from.
Before I could live this life, I had to first the embrace the creativity to imagine it was even possible.

It’s easy to look at our lives, our families, our jobs, our church, our denomination, our country, our world and allow the voids to keep us quiet and careful. It’s much harder to not only look but also to listen and approach those voids with creativity. To say yes to joining God in the work of creating and bringing things into existence that don’t exist right now. How do we welcome creativity into our worship and fellowship, our meetings, our ministries, our mission, our outreach, our service, our budgets, our stewardship, our giving?

I’m most creative, not when I’m the happiest, but when I’m most attuned. When I experience a creative block, you know what always frees me? A walk in nature. Tuning myself to life around me. This doesn’t mean seeing life with rose colored glasses. It means paying attention, listening to learn not simply to respond. Opening myself to creative possibilities.

Audre Lorde said, “creativity is the language we use to communicate the urgency of our dreams for a better future.”

The creative spirit is upon us, urgently inviting us to be part of creating what doesn’t currently exist but what is more than possible if we commit to making it so.

In the face of oppression God calls us to liberation and justice. In the midst of hunger God calls us to not only feed others, but to challenge the elimination of programs that keep people—especially children—fed. In the threat of mass deportations God calls to welcome the stranger and the foreigner. In the increase of mass incarcerations God calls us to challenge the for-profit prison system. In times of restrictive bans God calls us to advocate for everyone’s access to healthcare and autonomy over their bodies. As queer people—particularly trans people—are scapegoated and dehumanized God calls us to rise up in defense of their lives and safety. As climate change escalates natural disasters God call us to care for and protect creation. As war and global violence rage on God calls us called to be peacemakers.

In a world that calls us to be careful, God is calling us to be creative.

I considered being careful today. I decided to be creative. Will you join me?

Water-fully Yours,
Rebecca & 10 Camels

*If you’d like to know more about bringing sermons and poetry to your church or faith community, visit 10camels.com to learn more and request a creative consultation.

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Our 2024 Advent Calendar, Creatively Waiting begins on Sunday, December 1st. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for daily deliveries of inspiring ideas and prompts. Wednesdays at the Well in December will explore the ways creativity impacts our waiting.