Many years ago my head teacher told me that the age of the computer was coming. This would free us up from having to do menial jobs so we would all have more leisure time and time to be creative. 
Yeah, right.
I have been known to say that this was the biggest lie I was ever told. But that would be unfair - he thought he was telling the truth and maybe he could have been right.
I've recently seen Ken Loach's film about working in the gig economy, 'Sorry We Missed You.' I wish it were inaccurate. 
This week - we look at Genesis 3 where God warns the first man that he will eat his food by the sweat of his brow. It seems that little has changed  since Genesis was written.  No technology can rescue us. Sometimes technology makes things worse.
​So what's the problem?  Genesis 3 says that it all went wrong because we wanted to be like God. We didn't want to live simply before him. We chose to grasp for more. And we still do, and it still keeps going wrong.
And what's the solution?  Well, there was a man who was in nature God but didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped ...

Genesis chapter 2 retells the creation story. Here we learn what it means to be human.
We are here to live. Life is an amazing gift from God to be lived to the full. Somehow the dust of the earth has become a living creature. It's crazy and it's wonderful - and it is us.
We are here for responsibility. We are here to tend the earth. not to exploit or to destroy it but to nurture it.  
We are here for relationship. It is not good that we should be alone. Genesis 2 tells us that  God solved this problem in an entertaining way. We'll think more about this on Sunday.
It is a privilege and a responsibility to be human. 
​More on Sunday ....

"I believe that God made the  world in six days. If I don't believe that I have no right to say that I believe any of the Bible."
"I tried to believe that God made the world in six days but I'm a scientist and I just couldn't do it. For a while it seemed that my faith was in jeopardy."
These are Just two of the things that people have said to me about the creation story in the first chapter of the Bible. 

Sixteen hundred years ago a man called Augustine was concerned that we would put people off faith by talking nonsense about scientific things. He thought that this was dangerous. I agree with him. My scientist friend almost lost her faith, until she discovered that there was another way to read the Bible. 

So what about those of us who do hold to a six day creation? Well, let me say this as gently as I can. Many Christian writers across the centuries have disagreed with you. This wasn't because they understood modern science; it was because they looked at Genesis 1 and they thought that it didn't look like a historical account. How, for example, are we meant to understand day and night existing before the sun and moon? 

The point of Genesis 1, I believe, is that it raises issues. How should we treat our environment? Should we be vegan?  What about gender issues? Why are we so stressed?  We will have a look at this chapter in Sunday..