ver.: 01 June 2008
This page is a sustainable development (of words, at least). Choose from one of these :
What God created was deemed by God as 'good' (Genesis 1). Light, the earth, seas, trees, animals, and us -- all were created 'good', and all together were deemed 'very good'. This is what the loving God sees in the created realm. Its goodness. Even with all that has happened, even with layer upon layer of disturbance, disorder, disobedience, catastrophe. Even so, what God created, God owns. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof", as Psalm 24 says.
Those who see the earth as God's body, or as a pristine reality spoiled
only by human actions, misunderstand nature. Nature is a creation, not the
Creator. It is a disordered, messy creation which can be casually cruel
and merciless, unpredictable and unstable. Yes, there are cycles of life
which all of this takes place in, but these should be seen for what they
transparently are : they're another way that God uses to make good come out of bad. The
badness doesn't stop being bad just because something good came out of it;
it just becomes the soil from which God grows something new and good.
It's just as true in nature as it is in daily human living.
going up....
The Old Testament speaks of more than just a covenant with one nation
of humans (though it definitely does that). For instance, at the end of
the flood story, God makes a promise (Genesis
9:8-10), not just to Noah and his family, but to "every living
creature that is with you", birds and cats and dogs and even snakes, rats, lizards and snails. Revelation speaks of more than just a New Jerusalem with golden streets;
it pictures the whole of creation being re-born and made pure. The promise
is for a new heaven and a new earth -- a new creation. Resurrection isn't
just about us, it's the way God will bring all things to a new state of
existence, of which this is only a glimmer. If you think that Yellowstone
or the Alaskan mountains or the African plains are breathtaking, God's hardly
warmed up yet.
recycle to top
The created order praises God. Not just us, with our worship songs, or
even our lives. But all that exists, simply because God gave it existence,
sings (Ps 96:1) the greatness of God. The Psalms, especially, are full of
this. Psalm 148,
in particular, doesn't leave anything out of praise-giving. Not only earth,
sky, and all living creatures, but praise comes from even the cosmos beyond
earth - represented in the Psalm by the sun, moon, and stars, but you can
safely take that to include universes, pulsars, black holes, wormholes,
supernovas, and even other beings - if there are any. Does it always sing
praises? I think those who say it always does are hearing only what they want to
hear. But there's more than enough praise going around out there to learn
at least of God's majesty and power, and even a glimpse of God's love, through
that which God created (Acts
17:27). Learning other things takes more attention to the Scriptures.
beam me back to the index, Scotty...
We are a part of nature, nature is a part of us. One's ill takes part in the other's ill. The early prophets of the Old Testament had a special way to put it : "The earth mourns and withers" (Isaiah 24:4) "Therefore the land mourns" (Hosea 4:3) And what brings it to such grief? God's people acting as if they weren't God's people. Greed. Adultery. Murder. National pride. This is more than just a literary way of making nature seem like a person so that those who hear the prophecy can get the drift of how far they've sunk. This sadness is over more than just the sorry spactacle of evil. The nation's sins actually have consequences for nature. The attitudes which lead one to adultery or murder lead one to other selfishnesses. Greedy deeds take no account of what damage is done to the environment. When we sin, we reject God's ways. But God's ways take everything into account, and hold it all together for good. In ways that range from the in-your-face destruction of an H-Bomb to the subtle intricacies of trace chemical poisoning and heavy metal pollution, we defy God's ways in order to satisfy one or another sinful desire. It is not God's desire to have us cause the earth to mourn. God wants us to lead all that exists in a joyous hymn of praise. That will take a lot of remaking, but then Christians follow a resurrected Christ through the fresh, energizing breath of the Spirit, so such a remaking is not strange to the followers of Christ.
The same thing sustains nature that sustains us : the life-giving Breath
of God (Psalm 104:30) which made all things from the void (Genesis 1:2). In the
Genesis account of creation it is written: "The Spirit of God was moving
over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2). It is this same Spirit who
is the breath of life for all living things and particularly for man, made
in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:30; 2:7). Generally speaking, the
Spirit in Hebrew is called the "breath" or the "wind"
of Yahweh. It is this ruach who makes
everything alive, the "giver of life" who upholds and sustains
the universe in its existence and life (e.g. Psalm
104:29; Job 33:4).
moving around this page is a breeze, too
God's role as creator of all has another implication : God created the nations -- not just Israel, but all nations. All nations are thus under God's authority, not their own. Just as the 'fallen' human defies God and the 'fallen' created order doesn't always act as it should, the 'fallen' societies pretend they have noone to answer to. Nations need to pick up their part of healing this world, too, and the spiritually-attentive Christian belongs in the forefront of making the nations do so. This is especially tough when there are so many nations and so many reasons for some of them to tempt businesses into their nation by not enforcing environmental laws. Since Christians are all over the world, they can act together to bear witness about it ito the public.
The sin which most threatens life on earth is the will to power. Humans find out very early on that they are able to change that which is around them ('our environment'). It wasn't really Genevan Calvinism nor Greek philosophy that taught us that (despite what some creation spiritualists say). It was when each of us as a child first arranged the room so we could play in it, or first cleared out objects in a field for a soccer game with the other kids. Or when we first noticed that we could break a tree limb by pulling on it, and then use the resulting stick to draw figures into the ground or dig channels for the rainwater to flow to a nearby puddle. We experience over and over again, even as a little child, that we can shape the nature around us. The older (smarter, and stronger) we get, the more our day-to-day experience teaches us of the powers we have. It becomes a part of our identity and our sense of safe space. This is what Psalm 8 is about. It is part of what comes with being created in God's image; we have weak versions of the powers that God uses in a greater way. As we become adults, we then tend to accept philosophies which claim to explain that power and help us get more of it.
In the face of the reality of this power, talk of oneness with nature and with creation is by itself of no help. Nor does it help much to understand the limits of these powers, nor the sheer complexity of life and
existence. Most of today's people think we'll eventually solve that through
technology, a belief that assumes a lot about our abilities. Like any other sin,
there is only one help against the illusion and reality of this sense of
power over 'our environment', and that is Christ. Christ had all sorts of
power over all sorts of matters, but used it to serve. Christ called all of us humans to become aware
of what our power does to nature as well as to people. He calls us to turn
away from the sinful lust for power over other things or other people, the
sin of coveting as found in the Ten Commandments. Then, the Spirit makes
us able to free our sense of who we are from the desire to control everything
and make them serve our narrow purposes. Then, we can view ourselves as
bodily beings that are a part of a creation that is much bigger than we
are, a creation which is the ground we live on and the air we breathe and
the stuff we claim to 'own', all of which is created, like we are, by a loving God. It
becomes no longer 'our environment', but 'God's
world', in which we too belong. The powers we have been given are
that of a trustee, and we are responsible to use them in the way of the
crucified servant Jesus, not in the way of a crucifier-master. Created nature and created humans will all be finally healed when the Kingdom of God comes in full.
back to the Beginning
Another sin that puts us in conflict with nature is greed. We're not the only animal that hoards stuff, but we are the only animal that chases after having ever greater amounts of stuff, especially stuff that we don't really need. We use our powers to get and make what we want, and it doesn't matter to us much that it rips out a hillside or creates radioactive wastes. Many Christians have responded to this by way of 'simple living' -- sharply reducing the stuff that we own and use.
Christians did not create the idea. It's been around in some form as far back as recorded history goes. Ancient records are full of ascetics (people who are extreme about not having stuff). John the Baptist was part of a long history of Jewish ascetics. Jesus wasn't really much of an ascetic. While he himself had no real estate and no more property than his clothes, Jewish ceremonial wear, and maybe a scroll or two, he did not hesitate to accept and use what others provided for him, and sometimes this was a bona fide feast. He was constantly living at other peoples' homes as he traveled, and often took part in parties and celebrations -- as his critics loved to point out. But Jesus did not serve 'stuff'; it mattered to him only as far as it was used for goodness' sake. In fact, Jesus treated the desire for wealth as the biggest pretender to God's place on the throne of the human heart. He even gave it an idol's name : Mammon.
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Jesus' followers took on much the same attitude, at first. But as generations passed, they went two different ways. As Christianity became official, official Christianity dropped its concern about having too much stuff, started gathering an incredible amount of wealth for itself, and started blessing what some people did to gather more wealth. Meanwhile, in monasteries and convents, devout people committed themselves to having no goods. (Keep in mind that in those days the typical Christian had little wealth and even less freedom to chase after it. This was true of the general public before Christianity, and once it became the official religion, Christianity did little to change the picture.) Later on, the followers of Menno Simons rediscovered what the monks knew, that living simply made it much easier to focus on God. There was less to get in the way. Others, especially in Methodist and Holiness traditions, picked up on this same theme. |
Today, there are all sorts of Christians trying (fitfully) to re-establish
some limits to the constant craving for more stuff. They're discovering
that the benefits go beyond just those of spiritual focus and preserving
our limited natural resources. It's not just what you remove from your life,
it's what you add to it. The chase after goods makes you as fake
as the packaging; the way out of that is to add being truthful and
authentic in whatever you do. By giving a Christmas or birthday gift that
you make (maybe goods, maybe experiences), you add something more
of yourself to the relationship. When you add this way, you miss
the stuff much less. If more of us did that, we would not be so stuff-driven,
and we would be less driven to spray insecticides onto the farms, less
driven to gouge the land for coal or ore, less driven to pave over good
farmland or forest to put up condos or outlet centers. And we could then
be freer to pay attention to the Spirit's voice, calling us to see
the created world as God sees it, and to treasure it as God treasures it.
more on materialism
God gives the believers the gifts for strengthening, guidance, and healing. It may well be that, because we have been given the mind to learn how nature works, God has given us a responsibility to help nature where it falters, especially where we ourselves have broken it. (That alone is a lot of breakage to repair.) But let's go a step further : could it be that God provides gifts for the task? It makes sense: if God is redeeming all of creation, and we are a part of creation which is called to serve God's purposes, and the Spirit gives Christ's followers the gifts they need to serve as God wants them to, then it follows that the Spirit has given some people from among us the gift of healing the scars we have put upon the world we live in, and some people the inner wisdom as to how to prevent such scarring in the first place. Could that be you, or people in your church, or your fellow employees? Pray for it.
God gives life to nature. God is at work restoring it. Thank God we don't
have to depend on our puny efforts. Just as God calls us to be a part
of the divine task of restoring humanity, God calls us to the divine task
of restoring the health of the created world and restoring humanity's twisted relationship with the rest of that world. The only hope nature has is also the same hope
that human beings have : the risen Christ.
back to where the formless void ends and
the forms begin
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O heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty:
Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing
in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the
sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
--- Book of Common Prayer (US), p. 814
"When God created the first human beings, God led them
around the Garden of Eden and said, "Look at my works! See how beautiful
they are! For your sake I created them. Do not spoil and destroy My world;
for if you do, there will be no one to repair it."
--- Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah
Spirit of God in the clear running water,
blowing to greatness the trees on the hill,
Spirit of God in the finger of morning,
fill the earth,
bring it to birth,
and blow where you will.
Blow, blow, blow till I be
but breath of the Spirit blowing in me.
----- "Spirit Of God", v.1, by Sr. Miriam Therese Winter
© 1965, Medical Mission Sisters, adm. by Vanguard Music Corp. Used
with permission.
"Love all of God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love."
--- Fyodor Dostoyevski
How do you use your mind and your body to control the environment around you? What is the purpose behind it when you do it? (For instance, security, health, wealth. revenge, self-esteem, justice, love?)
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