God's Good Gifts
Here's my sermon for this past Sunday, which was designated "Earth Day Sunday". I think it's a bit too much advocacy, not enough God, but it was received well by the congregation, including several people who said we shouldn't just do this once a year. I got the statistics from www.storyofstuff.com and the ELCA's environmental advocacy sites.
When I was in seventh grade, the computer game “Sim City” was just beginning to be popular. At that time, the only version you could get was the one where you designed a city and reigned over it like some sort of god, fixing traffic problems and cleaning up after natural disasters.
My science teacher that year was very interested in environmental conservation, and thought that this game could serve as a good learning opportunity. So we were divided into groups of four and charged with designing our own cities, with the geography based roughly on the town in which we lived. But there was a catch - we were not only supposed to build an economically booming city, but one that also environmentally conscious.
After a week or two of research and work, my group sat down with our large sheet of paper, and began to map out our city. I argued for not putting the power plant next to the river, for leaving more forests standing, for not having a community built right next to the city dump - but I was overruled. And as we presented our cities to the class, my group was not the only one in which this happened. In the end, each group’s desire to have the most economically booming city outweighed the need for environmental awareness.
Now, almost twenty years later as we look at creation in crisis, I often think back to that experience. How many times today do we allow the quest for the almighty dollar outweigh our concern for God’s creation?
We didn’t hear the whole story of creation from Genesis this morning, but we know it anyway - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. This is it - the beginning of creation. Before this there was nothing, just a formless void and darkness of the deep.
But then God begins creating the heavens and the earth. For God’s first four days, God is busy setting things in their places. God brings order and organization to the chaos that existed before that - and the organizer in me says, “Yes!”. God recognizes creation’s goodness, and declares it “good”.
Then we get to God’s fifth day. God has created this wonderful earth and sea, night and day, sun and moon, and now God creates things to inhabit the good creation God has made. So God creates the fish and the birds, sees that they are good, blesses them, and commands them to “Be fruitful and multiply”.
But God’s creation is still not finished. On God’s sixth day, God creates the animals of the earth, and sees that they, too, are good. Then God creates humanity. And God blesses them, commanding them to also “Be fruitful and multiply”, but God also adds “…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…See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
God has not only created the earth and all its creatures - including humanity - but God has provided for the earth and all its creatures. Every part of God’s creation has its role to play; all of creation is a relationship, a whole where everything and everyone fulfills its place and functions within God’s good design.
So what is our role in God’s creation? In the times of the Old Testament, the term “steward” was linked with Israel’s king, who ruled the chosen people as God’s steward, and therefore was accountable to God. Our role is to be stewards of God’s creation, living reminders of the Creator who is the King of the universe. This understanding helps us to understand that we - beings created in the image of God - are commanded by God to subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear that, it sounds kind of negative. But we look again to the past. Israel’s king had covenantal responsibilities to care for those over whom he ruled. So having dominion over the earth doesn’t mean to exploit or destroy it; it means “to exercise care and responsibility for God’s domain”. We protect, sustain, and restore God’s creation until the kingdom of God comes, offering us not only salvation, but also the renewal of all creation.
That’s a pretty big task that we are charged with - keeping care of and watch over all of God’s good creation. So just how well are we doing?
In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left. Forty percent of our waterways have become undrinkable. Each person in the United States make 4 ½ pounds of garbage a day - twice what we made thirty years ago. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but we consume 30% of the world’s resources, and we create 30% of the world’s waste. If everyone on the earth consumed at U.S. rates, we would need three to five planets to sustain them.
And that’s not even mentioning the rest of the world. Every minute, 2000 trees are cut down in the Amazon alone, which is equal to seven football fields a minute! Around our planet, one billion people lack access to safe drinking water. In the past three decades, one third of our planet’s natural resources bases have been consumed.
This is what we’ve done with the good gifts that God has entrusted to us. Squandered them, abused them, misused them. Chief Seattle said, “This earth is precious to [God]. To harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator” . To harm the earth - God’s earth, entrusted to us by God - is to say to God, “We don’t care about your creation. We don’t care about the present generation’s needs. We don’t care about the future generations we should be working to protect; we only care about ourselves - our comfort, our needs, our wants. We don’t care about the commandment you have given us to care for the earth.” It is to say to God, “We don’t care about the good gifts you’ve given us, and we do not care about you”.
Because if we can’t take care of the good gifts that God has given us, if we disregard them and treat them carelessly, how can we say that we love God? We heap contempt and disrespect on God by misusing God’s good gifts to us.
So what exactly should we be doing with - and for - God’s creation? We should be caring for the non-living aspects - water, land, air. We should be mindful of what pollution we are pouring in our waterways, seeping into our grounds, and releasing into our air. We should be respecting these aspects of life that are so crucial to the survival of all of God’s good creation.
We should recognize our part in the great cycle of creation. Each of us has a part, a role to play in this cycle, and not one of us should be avoiding that duty, or abusing the power that God has given us. We should be good stewards of the earth - using only what we need, and making sure that all of creation has what it needs to continue to flourish.
We should recognize that we are called to work together locally and globally with others. We are called to stand with all the victims of fire, flood, earthquake, and other natural disasters - and that doesn’t just mean the human victims, either. It also means the animals that are displaced, the trees that are uprooted, the beaches that eroding away.
We should recognize that there is not one person or group of people who can lay absolute claim to the earth and all its resources - except God. We are to live with one another - humans, land creatures, birds, fish - sharing the bounty that God has provided for us.
Put simply, we are to love the earth as God loves us. Because even though we do not obey God, even though we abuse and misuse the earth, God continues to love us. God continues to give us the hope of the renewal to come.
The ELCA social statement “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice” was adopted in August 1993. The statement says in part: “We live within the covenant God makes with all living things, and are in relationship with them. The principle of participation means that they are entitled to be heard and to have their interests considered when decisions are made. Creation must be given voice, present generations and those to come…We pray, therefore, for the creativity and dedication to live more gently with the earth.”
Subduing and having dominion over God’s good creation is not a free license to abuse and exploit creation. It is a call to act as God’s hands and voice on earth to protect and preserve all of God’s good creation.
May God grant us the courage and the power to live out that calling on behalf of all of God’s good creation.
When I was in seventh grade, the computer game “Sim City” was just beginning to be popular. At that time, the only version you could get was the one where you designed a city and reigned over it like some sort of god, fixing traffic problems and cleaning up after natural disasters.
My science teacher that year was very interested in environmental conservation, and thought that this game could serve as a good learning opportunity. So we were divided into groups of four and charged with designing our own cities, with the geography based roughly on the town in which we lived. But there was a catch - we were not only supposed to build an economically booming city, but one that also environmentally conscious.
After a week or two of research and work, my group sat down with our large sheet of paper, and began to map out our city. I argued for not putting the power plant next to the river, for leaving more forests standing, for not having a community built right next to the city dump - but I was overruled. And as we presented our cities to the class, my group was not the only one in which this happened. In the end, each group’s desire to have the most economically booming city outweighed the need for environmental awareness.
Now, almost twenty years later as we look at creation in crisis, I often think back to that experience. How many times today do we allow the quest for the almighty dollar outweigh our concern for God’s creation?
We didn’t hear the whole story of creation from Genesis this morning, but we know it anyway - “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. This is it - the beginning of creation. Before this there was nothing, just a formless void and darkness of the deep.
But then God begins creating the heavens and the earth. For God’s first four days, God is busy setting things in their places. God brings order and organization to the chaos that existed before that - and the organizer in me says, “Yes!”. God recognizes creation’s goodness, and declares it “good”.
Then we get to God’s fifth day. God has created this wonderful earth and sea, night and day, sun and moon, and now God creates things to inhabit the good creation God has made. So God creates the fish and the birds, sees that they are good, blesses them, and commands them to “Be fruitful and multiply”.
But God’s creation is still not finished. On God’s sixth day, God creates the animals of the earth, and sees that they, too, are good. Then God creates humanity. And God blesses them, commanding them to also “Be fruitful and multiply”, but God also adds “…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…See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.”
God has not only created the earth and all its creatures - including humanity - but God has provided for the earth and all its creatures. Every part of God’s creation has its role to play; all of creation is a relationship, a whole where everything and everyone fulfills its place and functions within God’s good design.
So what is our role in God’s creation? In the times of the Old Testament, the term “steward” was linked with Israel’s king, who ruled the chosen people as God’s steward, and therefore was accountable to God. Our role is to be stewards of God’s creation, living reminders of the Creator who is the King of the universe. This understanding helps us to understand that we - beings created in the image of God - are commanded by God to subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear that, it sounds kind of negative. But we look again to the past. Israel’s king had covenantal responsibilities to care for those over whom he ruled. So having dominion over the earth doesn’t mean to exploit or destroy it; it means “to exercise care and responsibility for God’s domain”. We protect, sustain, and restore God’s creation until the kingdom of God comes, offering us not only salvation, but also the renewal of all creation.
That’s a pretty big task that we are charged with - keeping care of and watch over all of God’s good creation. So just how well are we doing?
In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left. Forty percent of our waterways have become undrinkable. Each person in the United States make 4 ½ pounds of garbage a day - twice what we made thirty years ago. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but we consume 30% of the world’s resources, and we create 30% of the world’s waste. If everyone on the earth consumed at U.S. rates, we would need three to five planets to sustain them.
And that’s not even mentioning the rest of the world. Every minute, 2000 trees are cut down in the Amazon alone, which is equal to seven football fields a minute! Around our planet, one billion people lack access to safe drinking water. In the past three decades, one third of our planet’s natural resources bases have been consumed.
This is what we’ve done with the good gifts that God has entrusted to us. Squandered them, abused them, misused them. Chief Seattle said, “This earth is precious to [God]. To harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator” . To harm the earth - God’s earth, entrusted to us by God - is to say to God, “We don’t care about your creation. We don’t care about the present generation’s needs. We don’t care about the future generations we should be working to protect; we only care about ourselves - our comfort, our needs, our wants. We don’t care about the commandment you have given us to care for the earth.” It is to say to God, “We don’t care about the good gifts you’ve given us, and we do not care about you”.
Because if we can’t take care of the good gifts that God has given us, if we disregard them and treat them carelessly, how can we say that we love God? We heap contempt and disrespect on God by misusing God’s good gifts to us.
So what exactly should we be doing with - and for - God’s creation? We should be caring for the non-living aspects - water, land, air. We should be mindful of what pollution we are pouring in our waterways, seeping into our grounds, and releasing into our air. We should be respecting these aspects of life that are so crucial to the survival of all of God’s good creation.
We should recognize our part in the great cycle of creation. Each of us has a part, a role to play in this cycle, and not one of us should be avoiding that duty, or abusing the power that God has given us. We should be good stewards of the earth - using only what we need, and making sure that all of creation has what it needs to continue to flourish.
We should recognize that we are called to work together locally and globally with others. We are called to stand with all the victims of fire, flood, earthquake, and other natural disasters - and that doesn’t just mean the human victims, either. It also means the animals that are displaced, the trees that are uprooted, the beaches that eroding away.
We should recognize that there is not one person or group of people who can lay absolute claim to the earth and all its resources - except God. We are to live with one another - humans, land creatures, birds, fish - sharing the bounty that God has provided for us.
Put simply, we are to love the earth as God loves us. Because even though we do not obey God, even though we abuse and misuse the earth, God continues to love us. God continues to give us the hope of the renewal to come.
The ELCA social statement “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice” was adopted in August 1993. The statement says in part: “We live within the covenant God makes with all living things, and are in relationship with them. The principle of participation means that they are entitled to be heard and to have their interests considered when decisions are made. Creation must be given voice, present generations and those to come…We pray, therefore, for the creativity and dedication to live more gently with the earth.”
Subduing and having dominion over God’s good creation is not a free license to abuse and exploit creation. It is a call to act as God’s hands and voice on earth to protect and preserve all of God’s good creation.
May God grant us the courage and the power to live out that calling on behalf of all of God’s good creation.