11 18 11 The Earthcare Commandment



Because God chose the Hebrew people, a tribal people, to be the ones through whom the Bible would come, the scriptures

are filled with a strong sense of relationship. Tribal peoples are particularly aware of the importance of our relationship with God, and our relationships between people and all of God’s creatures.

This awareness of the relatedness of things is quite different than the awarenesses that most naturally flow through Western culture since the Enlightenment. We westerners are more comfortable thinking about our own liberty and individuality, and the importance of thinking our own thoughts. The power and pervasiveness of “relatedness” is secondary. But to understand the message intended to come through scripture, we must remember that God specifically chose to send the scripture through the Hebrew people—a tribal people. With this in mind, there are some significant messages that we westerners may have missed.


Reclaiming the Task of Dominion

For instance, in the six days of creation God created the human creature male and female and gave them dominion over all the earth and its creatures (Genesis 1:24). In the biblical/relational view of this, God has dominion and instructs the humans to exercise that dominion on God’s behalf, that is, as God’s stewards. The biblical witness of God is that God delights in creation (see Genesis 1:31) and provides life and sustenance for all creation (e.g. Psalm 104). Indeed, in Jesus Christ we see that God comes to God’s beloved creation and exercises dominion by becoming a servant, providing for the needs of God’s creation. For humans to exercise dominion on God’s behalf, then, is for us to understand that our relationship with all of creation is to serve and protect—the same motto that we ask our police and emergency responders to live by.


There has been much talk decrying the biblical use of the word “dominion” to describe the task of the humans in the world. From the perspective of the 21st century, however, humans really have no choice. We have such a huge impact on our environment that we absolutely must recognize that we are exercising dominion, whether for good for ill. As Christians, who understand that sin will creep into any potential we have for doing good, we know that hiding from this necessary task will only lend itself to even more damage. Rather, we need to be very proactive in caring for this earth placed in our care.


The Earthcare Commandment

Matthew Sleeth of the Blessed Earth organization (http://www.blessedearth.org/) calls Genesis 2:15 the first commandment from God. In the Genesis 2 account of God’s creation of heaven and earth God creates the human creature, breathes spirit-life into it and places it in God’s beloved creation “to work it and to take care of it.” The a deeper look into the meaning of “to work it” leads to an understanding more like “to gain sustenance from it.” Perhaps this is a less confusing description for 21st Century human of what our role is as humans within the whole of God’s creation. We are to live in it and thrive, to be sure, but our primary task as a part of creation is to care for these related beings, which God loves so much, and who also give us life.


With this in mind, we need to make some drastic changes in how we humans live on this planet. We need to open our eyes to the damage that humanity is causing to the whole web of relationships and wake up. It is well past time to begin thinking of better ways to live.


I will pick up this thought in my blog on Monday. This needs a little work for a couple of reasons. For one thing, we did speak of the Christian faith perspective at the One People One Earth conference, but we spoke just as much, and maybe more, about practical things that people can do. So far, I have taken time to clarify what I fear much of western Christianity has been ignoring in our own spiritual roots, and so I haven’t had time, yet, to go into the practical aspects. I want to do that.


Also, Fr. Thomas Weise is wonderful at sparking the listener’s imagination on what regular folks can do. I want to try to do justice, at least a little, to some of the vision he shared at last week’s event.


But Cindee and I have also found that we are sometimes at a disadvantage in talking about the practical things people can do, because they all see our bioshelter home and think—wow! I can’t do that. We don’t actually expect the world to live in homes just like ours. But we do see wonderful things happening in regular homes and lives all around us. I look forward to sharing more about that.

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