Summer has lingered longer than usual this year, so that we
are nearing the end of October, and only now we expect temperatures below
freezing! It is appropriate, then, that our summer series on peace lingers a
little longer as well. We spent time on peace with God, peace in the community,
and peace with our neighbours throughout the summer Sundays. The conference
material has one more section: Peace with creation; and we will take three more
Sundays before we leave this building to consider this final aspect of our
lives of peace.
Peace with Creation
The physical world around us in crisis: We know that. It is
not just the social-political scene that threatens to boil over, but the earth
itself is groaning with the fruits of human abuse. Bad fruit indeed. How are we
to relate to the created world? What is our responsibility regarding creation?
Genesis 2: 4-23
Genesis one to three give us a comprehensive picture of how
we are to relate to God, to each other, and to the physical world around us. We
could have done the whole summer series from these chapters! In chapter three,
set in the garden, God walks regularly in the garden, communing with the man
and the woman. We were made to be at peace with God, in communion with God,
regularly receiving strength to live by our interaction with God.
In chapter two, it is made clear that the man and the woman
are co-equals in the garden. God identifies the need that the man has for
relationship with a “helper as his partner”. The animal world is important in
human life, but animals do not constitute a full partner. So, God makes the
woman who is the full partner-helper. Chapter one makes the same point by
telling us that God made the human creature in God’s own image as male and
female: We need each other as fully equal partners who together live as God’s
images.
These two points – that God made us for relationship with
God and God made us for relationship with each other – undergirded the sermons
throughout the summer. Now we come to how we relate to the world God made.
Listen to the text. Verses 7, 9, and 19 suggest an important
reality. God forms the man from the dust of the earth; God causes the plants to
grow from the ground; God forms the animals out of the ground. That is to say,
humankind, animal kind, and plant kind all come from the earth. God made us all
from the same substance. The natural world includes all of life: We are one
with the physical world.
Note further. The man names the animals: This is a task of
bringing order into the world. Just as God orders the world in chapter one, the
man orders the garden in chapter two. Although we are one with the natural
world, we are also responsible for the natural world. Chapter one uses the
language of dominion, by which it indicates that we are stewards of creation,
acting on behalf of God. That relationship continues in chapter two.
So, we are one with the natural world, and we have a
responsibility to bring order to the world around us. These two points come
together in the image of God’s work in the story: In chapter two, God makes a
garden. God is a gardener, and we – acting as God’s representatives in this
world – can use the same role to describe our relationship with nature. We are
gardeners in God’s garden, the creation God has given us.
What Does this Mean?
At this point, wisdom would suggest that I step down and
invite Lois to take the pulpit and answer the question: What does a gardener
do? I won’t; I am no gardener, but I have watched her garden. Several thoughts
occur to me.
God is Creator and gardener. We are created and gardeners.
This reality places limits on our actions. We do not create the garden out of
nothing; we do not speak a word and the garden springs into being. We work with
what is already here, given to us by God.
Some people think that the physical problems of our planet
are not our responsibility. Some say that the action of the sun is responsible,
or some other factor has caused “global warming”. We think that our actions
cannot be that important. Genesis one and two both make the point that we are
just that important. We are part of creation, and God has given us the task of
managing creation. We cannot escape our responsibility.
Romans 8 connects us with the troubles of this world in a
remarkably direct fashion: “For the creation waits with eager
longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the
creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the
one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children
of God.” (Romans 8: 19 to 21) Paul’s primary point in that passage is to
observe the glory that waits for God’s suffering people, but his language
speaks directly to what I have been saying. The whole of creation is bound up
in our rebellion against God, and the whole of creation anticipates its own
redemption along with ours. We cannot escape our responsibility for creation.
We are God’s gardeners in this world.
Sometimes I see Lois staring out of the window. When I ask what
she’s doing, I find out she is planning next steps in her garden. Which plant
might be better in a new spot; whether to water this evening or wait until
tomorrow; which plant needs to be cut back. The planning and the work never
end. The work of caring for our planet also never ends. We have been shaping
the planet for thousands of years, and in the past two hundred years that
shaping process has accelerated. Instead of shaping God’s garden in positive
ways, we have engaged in destructive processes that damage creation.
Whether we think of the proliferation of plastics that
permeate both land and sea, or the damage of pollution in our waterways, or the
rise of what we call greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we live with the
destructive results of human activity. Some scientists call the age that we
live in “the Anthropocene epoch” – that is, the geologic age shaped primarily
by the activity of human beings, you and me.
But we are gardeners in God’s garden. We are to be pulling
out weeds, not sowing them. God wants us to shape positively and increase the
beauty around us. Of course, there will be times when piles of dirt litter the
garden. I see that often enough at our own house. But the mess is generally a
step in pursuit of greater beauty.
John 20
The gospel reading from John 20 reinforces what I have been
saying – that we are God’s representatives on earth, doing what God would do.
At the beginning of the gospel, Jesus is described as the Word who is one with
God, sent into the world for humankind. John 3:16 – so well-known – says it
clearly, “God loved the world so much that God sent his only begotten Son.”
John makes the point repeatedly: Jesus was sent into the world to save the
world.
At the end of his gospel account, then, John extends this
sending through the words of Jesus: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”
That sending of the disciples applies to us as well. We also are sent into the
world to do what Jesus did, which includes caring for creation.
Twenty some years ago, I heard George Verwer speak at
Providence. Verwer founded an organization called “Operation Mobilization.” He
had a passion for telling people about Jesus and how Jesus can meet the needs
of the world. When he came to Providence, he spoke from the parable of the Good
Samaritan and asked, “Who would we find lying beside the road today, of we walk
down the roads of our world?”
He named 1) Children at risk; 2) Abused women; 3) The
extreme poor; 4) People with HIV/AIDS; 5) People without clean water; 6) The
unborn; and 7) The environment (see Verwer’s blog in an updated version from
2015, “Seven Global Scourges”: http://authenticmission.blogspot.com/2015/05/seven-global-scourges-by-george-verwer.html?m=1)
I don’t know that these same seven remain at the top of the list of needs
today, but hear what he was saying about creation. Caring for the creation is a
basic part of the Christian’s mission in the world today.
Sometimes we think that Christian mission meets inviting
people to faith. Certainly it does, but it also means acting as God’s
representatives in all of the needs of life. And the crisis of creation that we
face is a basic point at which Christ’s representatives have the responsibility
to act.
We are God’s gardeners in God’s garden. I invite you to
listen as George Klassen helps us hear more of what we can do. I invite you to
join us in the adult Sunday School class and take some time to consider
practical steps we can take as we care for God’s good creation.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
22 October 2023
Focus Statement: Peacemakers join God in caring for
the earth.
Texts: Genesis 2: 4 to 23; John 20: 19 to 23.
