Standing by the Promise

Romans 8:18-25, Genesis 1:1-2:3

If your heart lifts as you look out from a fishing boat at the shores of the lake, if there is for you no thrill quite like a garden in bloom or the feel of earth on your fingers,

if the distant sight of the mountains draws your eyes to the grandeur of earth and your heart to the mystery of creation, you understand something of the mystical power of the land.

The connection is deep, for we are made from the dust, and to dust we all return.

Religious traditions the world over have sought to express the mystery of the world and its creation, the forces of the storm and the earthquake, the catastrophe of flood and the drying disaster of drought.

The very name ‘Genesis’ is instructive – it’s the story of our beginnings. We can’t look at it in depth but we have heard again the creation narrative of Genesis 1. In the primeval creation the threatening waters were gathered together, and dry land, a place to stand, appeared. If you read on to Chapter 3 you will see the complicating reality of human sin which results in the ground being cursed, and its fertility being subverted and human beings having to toil to grow food. I always thought this was a poetic statement about agricultural labour until I saw badly salt affected land or watched video of the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Russia: human sin still visits the land with a curse, and we are only beginning to understand something of the depth and seriousness of these realities.

In Genesis Chapter 7-8 “…all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Gen 7.11). In the great flood we witness the fragility of all that has been created before the awesome power of the Lord revealed in nature. And at the end of the story comes the rainbow, and the re-assurance from God that

“I will never again curse the ground because of humankind…

As long as the earth endures,

Seed time and harvest,

cold and heat

Summer and winter,

day and night,

Shall not cease.”

Here we have the broad structure of the Genesis view of land, the ground on which we stand:

Where do we stand in relation to that understanding of the land – of creation, curse and promise?

I want to explore with you this morning three paths, three ways of relating to this wonderful gift we have been given in the earth. This is necessarily a ‘Rolf Harris’ sermon, a painting on a wall with a great big house brush, but it’s an important foundation for our thinking about issues of environment. I want to explore three ways of relating to the environment. I will simply call them the environmentalist approach, the fundamentalist approach and the Christian approach.

 ‘The environment’ is one of the great social issues of the modern west. There are very few people who will admit themselves against the environment, even those with bumper stickers that say things like “Fertilise the bush – doze in a greenie” claim to want to care for the environment. It’s just that they want to do it in a different way. We all think of ourselves as environmentalists, its just that we come in various shades of green.

Some years ago I was invited to preach on the topic “Is God Green?”. Of course, I said ‘yes’. I now realize the far more interesting and difficult question is “but what shade of green?” There is a shade of green well known to renovators of period houses as ‘Brunswick Green’. It’s a dark, intense green usually used as a trim colour on old houses. Today I want to speak about those we might respectfully call ‘Brunswick Greenies’. By that I mean certain environmentalists of an intense conviction and outlook. These are people I respect but with whom I cannot agree. They have fought some marvelous battles and saved some wonderful areas and in their struggles I am an enthusiastic camp-follower and supporter, but the true Brunswick Greenie holds views that I cannot support.

The main point of contention is that the Brunswick Greenie puts his or her faith in the environment. The environment in its pristine and unaltered form is the foundation of human life and the source of any hope for a human future. Sometimes this finds  political expression – in that ‘the environment’ is the absolutely pre-eminent issue and other issues pale into insignificance beside it. Sometimes it comes to a theological or spiritual expression, such as those views that see the Earth as a living thing, the ‘Gaia hypothesis’, the earth as Goddess, or those indigenous spiritualities of many lands where the earth is seen as ‘our mother’, the source of all life.

This is a subtle point, and I can illustrate it best by looking to the hymn (BPW 28) we sang at the opening of this service, based on the words of Francis of Assisi. Verse 4 commences with “Dear mother earth, who day by day, unfolds rich blessings on our way…”. If St Francis can speak of ‘earth as mother’ why can’t our modern pagan sisters and brothers? The difference is that Francis still sees ‘mother earth’ (note no capital letters!) as a creature herself. She is not the source of creation or blessing, she is part of the created order. Francis calls on the earth, and ‘brother son’ and ‘sister moon’, our fellow creatures, to praise him. The hymn throughout points people to the transcendent Creator. The earth only has agency or independence in its capacity to praise God, the Creator.

The Brunswick Green view of the world cannot see quite so far. It cannot see a Creator, only a Gaia Goddess, or a ‘Mother Earth’ whose needs and interests then become paramount in their ethical system. They cannot accept that a Creator God has given dominion over every living thing to humankind. They discard the Creation mandate and object to the promise that earth has been given to us to manage and care for. That mandate, they say, has been the source of all the trouble: the subjugation of the earth is the destructive outworking of the Judeao-Christian legacy.

There is a more than a hint of truth in their allegation, and we will explore that in a moment. The Brunswick Green perspective is close to that of the Christian, but they are not the same

2. The Fundamentalist Approach

There is another way of looking at this that we might call the Fundamentalist approach. This approach takes very literally the word of God to “Fill the earth and subdue it!” The word ‘subdue’ (literally ‘to tread the wine press’) is read as a violent treading down of the earth, moulding it to human purposes, or at least the purpose of ‘the owner’ or some person privileged by our legal and economic systems to control the land. If the Brunswick Greenie wants the environment to never change, to be cared for so that it lasts forever, the fundamentalist approach to environment says that the future doesn’t really matter at all. Do what you want today and let tomorrow look after itself.

The fundamentalist option comes in various guises. There is a Christian Fundamentalist version. I have met young Christians who thinks that the world is rapidly becoming a polluted, resource-depleted unliveable disaster, and isn’t that great because it means Jesus will come back and snatch us up into the sky to avoid all the problems and live forever with Him. So it doesn’t matter what we do with the earth, in fact, if we ruin it really quickly it might just help God to act more quickly to save us all. The essence of the fundamentalist approach to issues of environment is that what we do doesn’t matter at all, because something is going to intervene to save us and set things right, either in the future, or in another place.

There are religious versions of this, such as the Christian views of ‘the Rapture’ or the outlook of the suicide bomber who blows up part of the creation today, or who sets oil wells ablaze to create chaos now, secure in the knowledge that he or she will be somewhere else in Paradise. There are economic and political versions of fundamentalism, such as the government policy that deliberately issues irrigation licenses in excess of capacity to foster economic growth, saying that the community can sort out the unsustainable mess we leave behind. And there are scientific versions of fundamentalism where we act today confident that the ingenuity of tomorrow will be able to fix any of the problems of current practice.

Let us not speak of other fundamentalisms – just our own Christian varieties. There are many Scriptural pictures of the end of History and one of them is what has come to be described as ‘the Rapture’ – people being caught up in the air to meet with the Lord. The problem with this doctrine is not the thing in itself – it is the accompanying outlook that says this is the only thing that matters, that all other issues and problems and opportunities are as nothing in the light of this expected future. If this is the end of human history, a flight (literally) from earth and its problems, why give a damn about the earth or its future?

The Brunswick Green outlook says that what we do today must be carefully determined by the needs of tomorrow. The fundamentalist outlook says it doesn’t mater what we do today because of the hope of a very different tomorrow. But the command from God to care for the earth now has not been rescinded by any promised future.

3.The Christian Approach

Biblical faithfulness cannot be identified with either of the positions I have already discussed. The Brunswick green view may see the environment as eternal but the Bible, declares that the environment is partial and transitory. It speaks of the earth perishing, like old clothes that God changes when they wear out (Psalm 102.26). The Bible talks of the sky being rolled up like a scroll (Isaiah 34.4) and affirms that

God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble,

Therefore, we will not fear though the earth should change,

Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,

Though its waters roar and foam,

Though the mountains tremble with its tumult (Ps 46).

The hope of the Christian believer sees beyond the environment, beyond the earth, to the eternal and trustworthy Creator. We see our ultimate security resting in God’s lordship of history, not the recurring cycles of nature or the continuation of a stable environment. Our hope is in the mysterious God of history whom we trust with the destiny of all living things.

The critical element of the Genesis text, the point that ultimately distinquishes what I have called the fundamentalist and Christian approach to the environment, is the meaning we take from the central commands to ‘fill the earth’, ‘subdue it’, and ‘have dominion’ over the fish birds and animals.

Scholars working on this language have seen parallels with Royal and Court languages in the ancient near east. The words translated ‘subdue’ (tread the wine press) is used to describe the action of a King: you will subdue your enemies, you will be able to establish control. This reference is not to a destructive ‘pushing down’ or ‘squeezing the life out of’ something. It is to ‘taking of kingly authority’, ‘accepting responsibility for’ the earth. Similarly, the injunction to ‘have dominion’ is not a reference to ‘domination’ but to have lordly authority over the fish, birds and animals. ‘Dominion’ is extended to living creatures (not plants)  because it implies relationship.

Central to this Biblical mandate are concepts like stewardship, management, care for the earth, not the pillaging and exploitation that some have taken it to mean. It sets humanity into relationship with the earth.

The depth of this relationship is seen in the Romans passage read for us. Unlike the environmental position which grounds human hope in the future of the environment, or the fundamentalist position which says human hope is all there is and the environment is doomed, Paul says that the hope of all creation is the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Paul speaks of the Creation being ‘subjected to futility’, being in ‘bondage to decay’ but having the hope of ‘obtaining the freedom of the glory of the children of God’.

Paradoxically, the Christian position holds a more positive hope for the future than either the environmentalist or the fundamentalist. If the sin of human beings once led to a curse, the destiny of the children of God now offers offer the earth a promise of hope. In his cosmic vision of the world Paul says the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now just as we who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly while we await for adoption, for ‘the redemption of our bodies’.

This is not easy material to interpret, and we are given little detail as to how this all works.  What is clear is that the mysterious power of resurrection touches not just redeemed humankind, but all of the created order. As those who have touched by that power of resurrection we are in the vanguard of what God is doing. What we do in the church – in worship, in prayer, in the mystery of new life where once there was deathliness and barrenness - something is happening that pre-figures what God is doing with the world.  I met last week with someone who responded to my invitation to come to church by saying “I’d like to, but I couldn’t come to church unless my dogs were able to come.” I thought for a moment as to whether that would work and as reminded of the episode of The Vicar of Dibley in which Geraldine the Vicar invites people to bring their animals to church and is inundated by the response. However, there is a sense, says Paul, that the church is an ark in which all living things somehow take ship with us into the future because the mystery of the life of the church holds promise for all creation.

We are about to enter into the Lord’s Supper. In some liturgical traditions the bread and wine are consecrated with a prayer that includes their description as “fruit of the earth and the work of human hands”. The flow of transformative action in this prayer is from ‘earth’ to ‘human action’ to ‘spiritual experience’. But what Paul hints at is that there is another process working in the reverse direction, that from ‘spiritual experience’ comes ‘human action’ and an ‘earth transformed’.

As we share in the wine and the bread, as we know the presence of God with us and even in us, let us offer ourselves to the Spirit of God, that we might attuned to wonderful hope of freedom and resurrection, not just for our own bodies, but for the whole of God’s creation.

Preached Canberra Baptist Church 6th November 2005 - Jim Barr