The Earth Is The Lord’s
One of the neat
things I did with my daughter on the first day of my vacation was to watch 4.5
hours of DVD’s of Phyllis Tickle speaking at the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference
last June. Phyllis Tickle is a retired church historian. She was introduced by
Bishop Hagiya as the most “Joyous Christian” he had ever known. Phyllis Tickle
told of an experience when she was asked to speak on the Virgin Birth at a
rural church dinner. The youth were serving the dinner. Phyllis started
speaking as the youth were clearing the tables. As she spoke, one young man
started clearing the plates more and more slowly. Finally he sat down and
listened to the rest of her speech. After everything was finished, the young
man was the only person left in the room, so Phyllis asked him if there was
anything she could do for him. His
response was,
“I don’t
understand what they’re talking about.” (I’m guessing the adults were arguing
about whether or not the virgin birth is historically true). “It’s
so beautiful, it has to be true, whether it happened or not.”
Out of this experience, Phyllis formulated
the idea of “Actual, not factual.” She believes that we make a
huge
error in thinking we can take the words
of God Almighty and reduce them to human logic. “You Protestants want to work it to death so that it makes sense to you.
Get up and go into the sea and it will.
And if you hang around for about another 50 years, we can show you the
physics of how it happens.”It doesn’t make sense to regard the Bible as
literally true, historically true, or scientifically true. The mainline
denominations’ search for historical truth is experienced as a lack of
spirituality. The conservation churches’ insistence on literal truth turns
people away from Christianity altogether. The Bible is spiritually true! The creation story is actual, not factual!
The Bible is the story of God. It begins
with the creation story – the story of the good creation! The story places we
humans in God’s good, evolving world. We are created in the image of God. We
are the children of God.
But we did eat the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. We humans know what is good and evil but we prefer
to follow our own will rather than God’s will, and so the world has been marred
and scarred by human evil. Yet despite our self-will, our disobedience, God
remains steadfast in his love and caring for his children. Genesis is a story of sacred creation and reconciliation. We were
created to be in relationship with our Creator.
This world is such a beautiful place! I
find such joy, such peace in just seeing this beautiful world God has created –
the Steptoe’s of the Palouse, the road up to Lolo pass, Mount Rainier, the
lakes, the rivers, the ocean beaches. The
heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s
handwork. (Psalm 19:1) I treasure any opportunity to stop and focus on the
beauty of God’s good creation.
God is God Almighty. God is in charge
of this world and is always working to preserve and care for it. But God never works directly! God always works
through human beings. And often, God chooses quite imperfect human beings.
God’s favored ones always are both good and evil, competent and incompentent.
God owns the Earth, not man. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness
thereof, the world and those who dwell therein;(Psalm 24:1), so as responsible stewards we are not
free to do as we please with it.
We
have also been given dominion (rule) over it, and told to subdue it for our own
needs. 28 And 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."
(Genesis 1:28). But man was required to till and keep the garden, not plunder
it. The Lord God took the man and put him
in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15).
Some Christians reject any environmental
concern, saying that since God is in control overall, we should just let Him
look after it. But in Scripture, the sovereignty of God never allows us to
evade our responsibility. It may appeal to us to ‘leave the sky in God’s
hands’—but the Bible does not suggest that God is more in control of big things
than small things; not even a sparrow falls without the Father’s oversight
(Matthew 10:29).
Do you remember the character Pig-Pen in
the "Peanuts" cartoons? He was always covered with dirt and
grime. He was cute, but he was a walking
sludge heap, filthy and proud of it. He once told Charlie Brown, "I have affixed to me the dirt and dust of
countless ages. Who am I to disturb history?"
Pig-Pen's attitude reflects our current
approach to the environment. We've been trashing, soiling, even destroying the
wonders of nature for countless ages. Do we seem to be insisting, Why stop now? Oh, the skies may once have been clear and the waters
sparkling and
clean. But you can't have that and
progress, too.
Can you?
We humans are fouling our own nest. Apparently there’s an old saying, Only a shitepoke fouls its own nest. A
shitepoke is
The recent American Geophysical Union
position paper on global warming states: “Human-induced
climate change requires urgent action. Human activities are changing Earth’s
climate. Human-caused increases in greenhouse gases are responsible for most of
the observed global average surface warming of 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the
past 140 years. Because natural processes cannot quickly remove some of these
gases (notably carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere, our past, present and
future emissions will influence the climate system for millennia.” Most people have absolutely no idea what
this could mean. Get ready for hotter summers, more droughts, more torrential
downpours and, worst of all, rising sea levels. We are truly a species that
fouls its own nest. We waste time ignoring what world-wide scientists have,
repeatedly, told us about how bad our climate will become, ignore what we could
do to slow the warming (and save our great grandchildren from a very hot fate),
and continue to allow emissions of greenhouse gases (of which carbon dioxide is
one) instead of insisting that our politicians take steps to curtail such
emissions. You could laugh at Pig-Pen. He was just a comic strip character. But
the trashing of the environment is a deadly serious matter.
Caring for the environment is a moral
question! We humans do know what is good and evil. Surely we know that we don’t
have the right to rob another person of fresh water, unpolluted air or the
beauty of this world? ‘Thou shalt not
steal’ also applies to stealing another person’s access to fresh water or
clean air. I do realize the issues involved are complex, since uncaring
opposition to the use of fossil fuels can also rob someone of a livelihood.
Also, the boundaries of the debates change with time. Wind power, a clean,
renewable source of energy once the province of dreamers, is becoming
increasingly cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Still, the principle of Ecologically Sustainable Development has been
widely accepted by governments all over the world since the Earth Summit in Rio
in 1992. One of its main statements is that we shouldn’t destroy now the future
of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But recognizing that global warming is real, is very different from
taking responsibility for it!
So, how do we live as servants of
the earth? By each of us taking one
small personal action and one small social action to improve our care of God’s
creation this year, and another next year, and another the year after that. Choose
one small change you will make in your personal lifestyle – installing a solar
hot water heater; collecting rain water in barrels, lowering the heat or
raising the air conditioning temperature; eating meat one less day a week.
And choose one social concern – preventing
the Keystone pipeline, protecting national forest and wilderness areas;
preventing off shore oil drilling; insisting on clean coal production, saving
the polar bear, whale, sturgeon, salmon or one of any number of God’s creatures.
Choose one organization you will support. If each of us makes one small
personal change and supports one beneficial action group, it will make a
difference, it will be a step toward the preservation of God’s good creation.
