A sermon by Brian T. Lynch
In this passage, Job is debating men who hold him in contempt because they believe Job’s misfortune is the result of sin. Job says he is “righteous and blameless,” while their wisdom (or knowledge) is flawed. He quotes to them a passage that speaks to God’s superior wisdom manifested throughout creation.
Job says, “… but ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
Something bothers me every Sunday. It arises twice during our church service, first during the call to confession, and again during our intercession prayers. I understand that as many as three living species go extinct every hour of worship. They aren’t just killed; they are eradicated forever due to our abuse and indifference toward nature. I carry a heavy burden of corporate guilt and personal guilt for not including them in our Sunday prayers and for not speaking out more.
Most people seem unaware of how much human actions are stressing other lifeforms on the planet. I'm not just talking about our carbon emissions and global warming, though that's significant. Relatively small changes in CO2 during the distant past have played a role in all five major extinction events in Earth’s history. CO2 levels are a ticking time bomb… or not, depending on who you listen to. But I am not just talking about global warming.
I am also talking about industrial farming, where hundreds of square miles of land are cleared for a single crop, leaving nothing alive that once lived there. And petrochemicals that farmers use to fertilize crops are polluting our water and indiscriminately killing all insects to eradicate just a few. I'm talking about the clearing of half the Amazon jungle by indigenous people who have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years, but now must clear the forests to make money to feed their families. There is also the spread of highly toxic "forever" chemicals that do not break down naturally in the environment but accumulate in soil, water, and living creatures, including you and me. There is also the loss of forests and habitat due to overdevelopment, and many other environmental threats that we have created, including the threat of nuclear destruction.
Our thoughtless disregard for nature - our “estrangement” from nature, as I have come to view it, is foreclosing on our grandchildren's future. We know this for sure because the actions of eight billion people have pushed Earth into the beginning of the next great extinction epoch. In biblical times, our population numbers made the idea that humans could harm the natural world unthinkable. Today, our population size makes the risk of damaging our planet inevitable.
From the dawn of civilization to the advent of the Industrial Revolution, our planet has experienced a long period of stability. The natural extinction rate was around 5 to 10 species per year. Since then, the extinction rate has risen to between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher. If the higher estimate is accurate, God forbid, we lose three living species per hour, including this hour of worship.
I think about this possibility every Sunday. I think about it every day, and wonder, where is the church?
More specifically, where does Christianity stand on the issue of a dying world?
Where do all of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions stand on the question of global salvation? I
Is it not a sin against God to cause mass extinction? Why are all the pulpits so silent on this spiritual issue?
And most disturbingly, how can any of us be sure of our spiritual salvation while we are estranged from God’s natural world?
Where do we begin to answer these questions? From a biblical perspective, we must begin at the beginning. It starts with God and His special relationship with his creation.
Genesis 1: 1-5
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day."
Telling the creation story to people thousands of years ago was a challenge. People back then had no access to the vast amount of information we have accumulated since. They certainly had no conception of just how large or old the universe is compared to the Earth. The first two sentences of Genesis reflect this. It states that the story primarily focuses on the creation of our Sun, Earth, and life. Yes, God created the heavens, but there is no description of that event. The story begins with the formless and empty darkness of the space where the solar system is today. To this purpose, verse 1-5 does a good job explaining it in terms we can all understand. It describes a sequence of creative events that parallel our modern understanding. For example, it says there was darkness, then there was light (the Sun), but no “day” until God separated light from darkness. This suggests the creation of objects that do not radiate light, such as moons and planets. This sequence parallels what we know today about the formation of the solar system. This separation of light and darkness on Earth creates evenings and mornings, and literally, the first day.
How long this sequence took is endlessly debatable, but such questions are not relevant. The creation story is not about how God created life on Earth, but why He created it. Genesis is about the relationships between God, His creation, and His chosen people. So, as we read the first two chapters of Genesis, we should pay attention to the trilateral relationships God establishes between His creation and His people.
If asked what God’s first biblical command is, many people would name the First Commandment written on the tablets given to Moses. That commandment, combined with the second, is undoubtedly the greatest commandment, as Jesus told us. But it isn’t God’s first command. Listen for His first command in this next reading from Genesis 1: 20-23.
And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the skies.” So, God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said be fruitful and increase in number and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the Earth.
God said, “… be fruitful and increase in number,” to fill the earth! This is God’s first commandment to all life on earth, long before the dawn of man. God’s first command imbued all living things with an imperative to persist, adapt, and evolve when necessary, filling every inhabitable space with an abundance of life. He commanded his creatures to become co-creators of life in an unfolding process of new generation. This remains an essential feature of our natural world. When God saw that this was good, He blessed and sanctified all life on our planet.
We must honor God’s continuing relationship to what we have come to call the “biosphere.” The term refers to that relatively thin layer of inhabitable space that encircles the globe. All living things exist within it, and nothing living exists outside of it. We must not interfere with God’s plan that all life be fruitful to fill the Earth.[K5] We must not, for example, hunt the white rhinoceros or the dodo bird to extinction, as we have already done.
There are some biblical references to support this interpretation of God’s relationship to the living world. Here are a few:
Psalms 96: 11-12 says: “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.”
Isaiah 55: “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; The mountains and hills will burst forth into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”
Romans 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.”
God loves and has blessed all he has created. His wisdom is woven into the fabric of the universe and is available for our discovery. Life on Earth was sanctified by God long before we arrived. What then is our relationship with this living planet?
We read in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, that God made man and woman in his own image so that we should, “… rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the livestock, and all the earth.” This is our first clue. God always intended for us to have a measure of control over life and all of nature on this planet. He gave us the gift of dominion, but it is not without restraint. It must not conflict with God’s universal plan for creation.
Then, after our creation, God blessed us and issued His second command, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” This command is identical to His first command to all living creatures, but for the last three words… “and Subdue it.”
From the very beginning, God intended that we should have dominion over what happens on Earth, a special gift that no other living creature was given. But the related word, subdue, may sound troublesome at first. It sounds more negative than it should. In a practical sense, subduing nature is something we do all the time. Our survival depends on our ability to harnass nature through creativity, science, technology, agriculture, medicine, and ingenuity to name a few examples.
We must honor God’s continuing relationship to what we have come to call the “biosphere.” The term refers to that relatively thin layer of inhabitable space that encircles the globe. All living things exist within it, and nothing living exists outside of it. We must not interfere with God’s plan that all life be fruitful to fill the Earth.[K5] We must not, for example, hunt the white rhinoceros or the dodo bird to extinction, as we have already done.
There are some biblical references to support this interpretation of God’s relationship to the living world. Here are a few:
Psalms 96: 11-12 says: “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.”
Isaiah 55: “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; The mountains and hills will burst forth into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”
Romans 1:20 says: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.”
God loves and has blessed all he has created. His wisdom is woven into the fabric of the universe and is available for our discovery. Life on Earth was sanctified by God long before we arrived. What then is our relationship with this living planet?
We read in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, that God made man and woman in his own image so that we should, “… rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the livestock, and all the earth.” This is our first clue. God always intended for us to have a measure of control over life and all of nature on this planet. He gave us the gift of dominion, but it is not without restraint. It must not conflict with God’s universal plan for creation.
Then, after our creation, God blessed us and issued His second command, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” This command is identical to His first command to all living creatures, but for the last three words… “and Subdue it.”
From the very beginning, God intended that we should have dominion over what happens on Earth, a special gift that no other living creature was given. But the related word, subdue, may sound troublesome at first. It sounds more negative than it should. In a practical sense, subduing nature is something we do all the time. Our survival depends on our ability to harnass nature through creativity, science, technology, agriculture, medicine, and ingenuity to name a few examples.
Having “dominion” over the Earth may be what God meant when He said we are made in His image. We We can take what is and make something new. No other creature can do that. It fits the biblical context in verse Genesis 1:26. We alone can study, understand, and alter nature, even our own human nature. This has been fundamental to our survival. And after the fall of man, as Genesis explains in Chapter three, we can use our dominion to both please or challenge God.
Next, verse 29 says, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit and seed in it; they will be yours for food." In the next verse God gives us all the beasts, birds, and creatures that move along the ground, making clear that plants and animals are for our sustenance, not just for any purpose.
Then, in verse 31, we read: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." The Earth and all people are blessed, and therefore holy. Planet Earth, along with the halo of life surrounding it, is holy and beautiful in God’s eyes. It is the pinnacle of God’s creation. It is our Eden, and we are its gardeners.
In Genesis 2, there are additional details to consider. Verse 4 says, "… and no shrubs of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plants of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground." This is both interesting and a significant clue to our relationship with the planet. It’s interesting because we now know there was no rain on Earth for the first half billion years after creation. The atmosphere was filled with water vapor too hot to condense into rain. So, no shrubs or plants could grow. How could people living 6,000 years ago suspect such a thing? And, there being “no man to work the ground,” clearly states God intended us to cultivate the earth long before Adam and Eve. Our human interventions are part of God’s plan.
Then, in verses 8 and 9, it says, “God planted a garden in the east as a place for man to live when he was formed… And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food." Notice that this preparation preceded us and would not be possible without all that came before. That is, it was possible once God’s creatures had been fruitful and filled the earth. The sequencing of events in Genesis is remarkable for paralleling what we know about the evolution of life on Earth.
After the garden was prepared, we read in verse 7, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
We were not made from nothing, as were the heavens, but from the dust of the Earth. And what is this dust? We know it consists of elements created in the supernova of long-dead stars, minerals from the formation and ongoing processes of the Earth, and organic chemicals from the remnants of long-dead plants and animals. We are made entirely from ingredients found only on Earth. We are not physically exotic in any way. I find this fact humbling.
In verse 15, we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Again, the relationship between man and nature is very clear. We are to work the land and use our special intellectual gifts to care for the Garden.
And then came the fall from grace. God commanded Adam, saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.” Genesis 2: 16-17
Then a “crafty serpent" said, “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In keeping with this relational perspective of Genesis, Chapter 3 is about our fall from grace. More specifically, it tells the story of how Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree to gain knowledge of both good and evil, as the serpent had promised. After eating the apple, we possessed both God’s gift of dominion over nature and added this new knowledge of alternatives to God’s will. This gave us the ability to make choices that can both please and displease God. We can use this power to care for or exploit the natural world. It was a defiant act - our original sin. It made us more god-like and capable of being rebellious. It resulted in our estrangement from God, as well as from the garden itself.
Estrangement is sin, which leads to death. In the middle of the Garden of Eden, there were two trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. God banished Adam and Eve from Eden after their disobedience, so they couldn’t partake of the Tree of Life and live forever.
For centuries, biblical scholars have debated whether Adam and Eve lost physical immortality or were condemned to spiritual death. The symbolism here may not be clear, but we certainly understand today that estrangement from God leads to spiritual death, while our estrangement from God’s natural world leads to physical death and the extinction of species.
What has become increasingly evident in just the last one hundred years is that our collective estrangement from nature threatens life on Earth, including human life. Through our burgeoning population and technological developments, we have acquired the power to destroy the biosphere and disrupt the circle of life. The evidence is all around us. We have yet to assume full responsibility or accept the moral and spiritual consequences of our actions.
This god-like power to destroy life represents an evil choice right out of the Genesis story. It is a choice that was never possible in past generations. Spiritual intervention, dating back to before the time of Jesus, primarily focused on the broken relationships between people and our estrangement from God. [KN15] It is what we discuss in Bible studies and hear about from the pulpit each Sunday. That is as it should be, but clearly the theology of personal salvation has to make room for a theology of global salvation. How can we gain the kingdom of Heaven while destroying life in this world? We can no longer ignore God’s earliest commandments and His command for us to be the caretakers of every living thing.
Our physical and spiritual connection with God’s creation, with our NATURAL WORLD, changed abruptly when the first atomic bomb, ironically named "Trinity," was detonated on July 16, 1945. From that moment forward, our species gained the ability to destroy life on Earth. And that god-like capacity has since expanded in many ways. We are eating from the forbidden fruit once again. We are recommitting original sin. Our nakedness is exposed as we hide our guilt from God behind fig leaves of denials and excuses.
We have one choice – Atonement. We must acknowledge what we have been doing and change. Restoration, reconciliation with creation, and sustainability are pathways we must choose! We are commanded from the very beginning to care for this world, this tiny blue orb of Eden among the vastness of space.
We must change. We trust God’s wisdom, not our own. Again, as Job once said:
“… but ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
Next, verse 29 says, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit and seed in it; they will be yours for food." In the next verse God gives us all the beasts, birds, and creatures that move along the ground, making clear that plants and animals are for our sustenance, not just for any purpose.
Then, in verse 31, we read: "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." The Earth and all people are blessed, and therefore holy. Planet Earth, along with the halo of life surrounding it, is holy and beautiful in God’s eyes. It is the pinnacle of God’s creation. It is our Eden, and we are its gardeners.
In Genesis 2, there are additional details to consider. Verse 4 says, "… and no shrubs of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plants of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground." This is both interesting and a significant clue to our relationship with the planet. It’s interesting because we now know there was no rain on Earth for the first half billion years after creation. The atmosphere was filled with water vapor too hot to condense into rain. So, no shrubs or plants could grow. How could people living 6,000 years ago suspect such a thing? And, there being “no man to work the ground,” clearly states God intended us to cultivate the earth long before Adam and Eve. Our human interventions are part of God’s plan.
Then, in verses 8 and 9, it says, “God planted a garden in the east as a place for man to live when he was formed… And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food." Notice that this preparation preceded us and would not be possible without all that came before. That is, it was possible once God’s creatures had been fruitful and filled the earth. The sequencing of events in Genesis is remarkable for paralleling what we know about the evolution of life on Earth.
After the garden was prepared, we read in verse 7, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
We were not made from nothing, as were the heavens, but from the dust of the Earth. And what is this dust? We know it consists of elements created in the supernova of long-dead stars, minerals from the formation and ongoing processes of the Earth, and organic chemicals from the remnants of long-dead plants and animals. We are made entirely from ingredients found only on Earth. We are not physically exotic in any way. I find this fact humbling.
In verse 15, we read, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Again, the relationship between man and nature is very clear. We are to work the land and use our special intellectual gifts to care for the Garden.
And then came the fall from grace. God commanded Adam, saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.” Genesis 2: 16-17
Then a “crafty serpent" said, “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In keeping with this relational perspective of Genesis, Chapter 3 is about our fall from grace. More specifically, it tells the story of how Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree to gain knowledge of both good and evil, as the serpent had promised. After eating the apple, we possessed both God’s gift of dominion over nature and added this new knowledge of alternatives to God’s will. This gave us the ability to make choices that can both please and displease God. We can use this power to care for or exploit the natural world. It was a defiant act - our original sin. It made us more god-like and capable of being rebellious. It resulted in our estrangement from God, as well as from the garden itself.
Estrangement is sin, which leads to death. In the middle of the Garden of Eden, there were two trees, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. God banished Adam and Eve from Eden after their disobedience, so they couldn’t partake of the Tree of Life and live forever.
For centuries, biblical scholars have debated whether Adam and Eve lost physical immortality or were condemned to spiritual death. The symbolism here may not be clear, but we certainly understand today that estrangement from God leads to spiritual death, while our estrangement from God’s natural world leads to physical death and the extinction of species.
What has become increasingly evident in just the last one hundred years is that our collective estrangement from nature threatens life on Earth, including human life. Through our burgeoning population and technological developments, we have acquired the power to destroy the biosphere and disrupt the circle of life. The evidence is all around us. We have yet to assume full responsibility or accept the moral and spiritual consequences of our actions.
This god-like power to destroy life represents an evil choice right out of the Genesis story. It is a choice that was never possible in past generations. Spiritual intervention, dating back to before the time of Jesus, primarily focused on the broken relationships between people and our estrangement from God. [KN15] It is what we discuss in Bible studies and hear about from the pulpit each Sunday. That is as it should be, but clearly the theology of personal salvation has to make room for a theology of global salvation. How can we gain the kingdom of Heaven while destroying life in this world? We can no longer ignore God’s earliest commandments and His command for us to be the caretakers of every living thing.
Our physical and spiritual connection with God’s creation, with our NATURAL WORLD, changed abruptly when the first atomic bomb, ironically named "Trinity," was detonated on July 16, 1945. From that moment forward, our species gained the ability to destroy life on Earth. And that god-like capacity has since expanded in many ways. We are eating from the forbidden fruit once again. We are recommitting original sin. Our nakedness is exposed as we hide our guilt from God behind fig leaves of denials and excuses.
We have one choice – Atonement. We must acknowledge what we have been doing and change. Restoration, reconciliation with creation, and sustainability are pathways we must choose! We are commanded from the very beginning to care for this world, this tiny blue orb of Eden among the vastness of space.
We must change. We trust God’s wisdom, not our own. Again, as Job once said:
“… but ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
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