Dear Friends,
I was amazed the other day to realize that Earth Day is celebrating its 50th anniversary today. I vividly remember the first Earth Day, now such a regular part of our year that it seems like it was always on our calendars. We’ve watched with alarm as our climate changes with unanticipated speed, and Earth Day has become more important than ever. It’s observed annually in churches around the world as a day of gratitude to God for the gift of creation and as a call to protect and preserve the environment. I think it’s observed daily by all the gardeners and farmers in our little church, and I thank God for being in the company of such a group.
That said, I’d like to share a few thoughts on this Earth Day, and I welcome yours in response. In the creation stories found in the first two chapters of Genesis, God forms the cosmos, which, of course, includes the majesty of the whole creation. We now understand that to be the great galaxies and the tiniest parts of the atom, even all those bothersome mosquitoes and gnats. We are meant to cherish them all (though Nan might not agree right now, with spring inevitably bringing too many curious spiders into our house…).
As you reflect on Earth Day, recall the two creation stories in Genesis 1:1-2:25. In the first chapter, God gives us dominion over all that God had created. (Genesis 1:26) This is the verse that has generated so much discussion, debate, and argument in recent decades.
We seem to be able to find reasons to create divisions over just about everything, sadly, and care for the earth has been a contentious issue since long before the first Earth Day rally 50 years ago. Using these first two chapters in Genesis, some argue that since God has given us dominion over all the world, the world is entirely ours, and we’re authorized by God to use and even abuse it for our own self-interest. A corollary for many is that all-powerful God will magically heal what has been damaged. There are others who blame the church itself for the rise and perpetuation of such attitudes.
To these “dominion critics,” I respond that they aren’t reading the Bible with the care it demands. Yes, God gives us dominion, but that is far from all that God gives. Read Genesis 1:26 again, the entire long sentence that makes up that verse. There, God certainly does say, “let them [humankind] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” And in verse 28, God goes on, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over…every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
It’s easy to get caught up in these long lists of living things. But pay more attention to the beginning of verse 26. It’s deceptively simple, but it’s far more powerful than the lists. It changes the very notion of dominion itself, of the meaning of God’s gift of our dominion over all the earth. God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”
This is the powerful, radical notion: we are created in the image of God. And, just in case we missed it (as we too often do), it’s repeated again as the entirety of verse 27: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
So, what does it mean to be created in the image of God, in God’s likeness? We all try to envision God, and I suspect many of us imagine God to be much like us. Great artists’ images of God are nearly always profoundly human representations. It’s easier for us to think that God resembles us physically, but nowhere in the Bible is there even a remote hint of God’s physical appearance. God is the burning bush, a whisper from above; God is Yahweh, the mysterious “I am who I am.”
What we are able to know from the scriptures are the attributes of God. God is the one who is just, merciful, loving. God may discipline us, especially in the Old Testament stories; even Jesus rebukes his disciples. God’s discipline, however, is a part of God’s love. God is the nurturer, the parent all of us wish we could be or that we could have had. And those attributes (which are actually far more complex and varied than I can get into in this Occasional Note) comprise the true image of God from whom we were created. Only when we claim and exhibit those Godly attributes may we lay claim to the dominion of God’s creation as God intends for us.
Voltaire, the French philosopher, wrote, “In the beginning God created man in his own image, and man has been trying to repay the favor ever since.” Voltaire was, of course, being quite sarcastic; he was saying it was we who created God in our image. But actually, it is our mandate to “return the favor” by living in God’s image – to rise to that immense challenge – in these times of threat to our only home, the planet itself.
The impact of humankind on God’s creation has radically altered it to such a degree that our rare, life-sustaining climate is changing in unpredictable and ultimately life-threatening ways. In creating us in God’s image, God also gives us free will. God will not magically heal the earth; that is our responsibility, and if I may be so bold, I believe that responsibility is God’s intention for us as part of the free will God has given us. We must change our lifestyles in order for God’s life-giving creation to continue to create and recreate life. By exercising our free will to protect and preserve the earth, we are also, paradoxically, doing God’s will for us and for the creation.
And that is the essence of today, Earth Day. We are meant to celebrate and nurture the earth, not to abuse it. Unlike the naysayers and nonbelievers who twist the words of the Bible to point the finger of blame at us (but not, of course, at themselves), we do believe we’ve been given the gift of dominion over our precious planet. But our dominion means protection, not exploitation. Our dominion comes with the responsibility and love that is true guardianship. We are meant to be caretakers, stewards. We are meant to reflect God’s love for us in creating us and our earthly home, to nurture it and ourselves with the fierce protectiveness of a parent, and to sustain it in order to enjoy its bounty and ensure that our children, and theirs, will be able to do so as well.
Let us pray together this prayer from the Book of Common Worship,
Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth, you made us co-workers in your creation. Give us wisdom and reverence to use the resources of nature, so that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you for your bounty; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.