The Earth is the Lord’s
What has most shaped your view of the earth and all the creatures, life, and resources it contains? What people, experiences, teaching, and beliefs helped form the view you now hold? People have very different views from utilitarian: “What can I get out of it to benefit myself?” to a view of creation as sacred.
October 19, 2014
Psalm 24:1-2, The Earth is the Lord’s
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
[powerpress]
My view began with my mother who was always pointing out birds and animals, flowers and trees, the sunlight, the sky, the moon and stars, whales, you name it. We’d go blueberry picking in the summer and apple picking in the fall. On television we’d watch The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau which had amazing underwater photography and stressed the importance of conservation. We also watched Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler. They went to the far corners of the world and studied wild animals in their natural habitats. As a kid I thought it was funny that Marlin Perkins was the big name, but he always seemed to be safely comfortable in a TV studio while Jim was off somewhere wrestling an angry Water Buffalo or something.
I also learned when I was very young the Biblical view that the earth is the Lord’s and that it was to be treated well, with care, and with the understanding that it didn’t belong to us. We belong to it for a time and then we pass it on to the next generation, hopefully better than we found it. All these experiences were part of shaping my view of the earth as was my first job which was picking up litter, which I’ve mentioned before, along with perhaps the most effective TV ad about littering that featured a native American with the tear running down his face – people my age and older know the one I mean – gave me a strongly negative feeling about litter that has stayed with me the rest of my life.
There are also a lot of cool sounds in nature. I shared on Facebook recently that one of things I look forward to in the fall and spring in Brewster is the passing through of large flocks of Grackels. They’re like blackbirds only they have glossy-iridescent bodies and their bluish heads shimmer in the sunlight. This time of year you see them walking on lawns or gathering in noisy groups in the tree tops. Since they like to feed on the ground, I throw some bird seed off the deck in our backyard in the late afternoon because they often come through late in the day; perhaps looking for food before heading further south during the night. So the other day when I could hear them coming I went out and sat quietly in the corner of our deck. In a few minutes as they came closer it started raining acorns as they moved through the tops of the oak trees in our backyard. It was such a cool sound with the acorns thumping all over the ground and the birds making a huge ruckus. It was so quiet after they moved on. When I go to Maine as I did last month, I still love to hear the sound of the frogs as we walk by what I used to call the pollywog pond. This time of year I savor hearing the wind in the trees because I know soon the leaves will be gone and I won’t hear that sound again until late April. If we listen closely in life, we might be surprised by what we hear.
That is also the case in today’s Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who! which begins: “On the fifteenth of May, in the Jungle of Nool,
In the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool,
He was splashing…enjoying the jungle’s great joys…
When Horton the elephant heard a small noise.
So Horton stopped splashing. He looked toward the sound.
“That’s funny,” thought Horton. “There’s no one around.”
Then he heard it again! Just a very faint yelp
As if some tiny person were calling for help.
“I’ll help you,” said Horton. “But who are you? Where?”
He looked and he looked. He could see nothing there
But a small speck of dust blowing past through the air.
“I say!” Murmured Horton. “I’ve never heard tell
Of a small speck of dust that is able to yell.
So you know what I think? …Why, I think that there must
Be someone on top of that small speck of dust!
Some sort of creature of very small size,
Too small to be seen by an elephant’s eyes…
some poor little person who’s shaking with fear
That he’ll blow in the pool! He has no way to steer!
I’ll just have to save him. Because, after all,
A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Horton Hears a Who! is the second Dr. Seuss story featuring that large, loving, and lovable elephant Horton. You remember him from Horton Hatches the Egg and the sermon in September on being faithful 100%. In this story, Horton, who always seems to function as sort of a God figure, hears a sound that none of the other animals can hear. Their ears are not sensitive enough to hear the cries of the Whos in Whoville. The Who’s entire world – with Whos of all ages and houses, streets, churches, and grocery stores – exists on a tiny speck of dust. Horton carefully places the speck of dust that houses the Whos’ entire world onto a soft clover for safekeeping. The other animals think Horton is crazy. They not only make fun of him and insult him but an eagle carries off the clover with the Whos and drops it into a field with millions of others so Horton can’t find it. Horton, ever faithful, searches each clover for his friends until he finds them on the three millionth flower! Horton’s relief is short-lived because the other animals are tired of his behavior so they try to tie him up and threaten to boil the speck of dust with the Whos on it in oil. Horton is desperate so he pleads with the Whos to make the loudest sound they can so that everyone else can hear them and will believe Horton that they exist. The Whos try, but it’s not enough. Only Horton’s ears are sensitive enough to hear them and he and the Whos are in great danger, which is where we’ll leave them for a while.
In reading Horton Hears A Who! at some moments we may identify with the Whos; like them we may feel that no one is listening or hearing our cries or even noticing our presence. Other times, we may identify more with Horton in our efforts to hear the cries of a groaning world and come to its aid. Romans 8:18-25 states that all of creation is groaning and moaning for redemption.
The Bible’s teaching is very clear that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth and life itself is a gift from God. Today’s scripture from Psalm 24 states: “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.” Many scriptures from the story of Creation in the first chapters of Genesis to many Psalms including Psalms 8, 19, 29, 104, 139 and passages from Isaiah, Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians make it clear that the earth is the Lord’s and we are God’s people or the sheep of his pasture. We are to be God’s caretakers, stewards, God’s gardener’s, if you will. Humanity was placed in the center of Creation to care for it. We don’t own the world, but as God’s caretakers we’re to hear and respond to the world’s cries.
It’s very unfortunate that caring for creation is something that Christians have not done as well we should. Because of our view of God as Creator and the earth belonging to the Lord, Christians have a Biblical mandate that too often has been ignored. Caring for creation is not a political issue, it’s not a conservative or liberal issue, it’s about obeying and being faithful to Biblical teaching. The American Baptists came out with a statement about caring for creation 25 years ago and even the Southern Baptists have produced a four part statement about our responsibility to care for the earth and its people, creatures, and resources responsibly. The conclusion of Southern Baptist document states: “We realize that simply affirming our God-given responsibility to care for the earth will likely produce no tangible or effective results. Therefore, we pledge to find ways to curb ecological degradation through promoting biblical stewardship habits and increasing awareness in our homes, businesses where we find influence, relationships with others and in our local churches. Many of our churches do not actively preach, promote or practice biblical creation care. We urge churches to begin doing so.”
Failing to practice caring for creation is often a reflection of ignorance, greed, selfishness, apathy, or indifference. As far back as the prophet Isaiah we hear these words from Isaiah 24:5-6: “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.6 Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left.” The images Isaiah uses are visible in many places around the world today because our irresponsibility as creatures is harming God’s creation. The creation that God made is the “golden goose” that has allowed life and prosperity to flourish, yet we’re killing the golden goose. When human beings break the covenant that God made with us to care for God’s good creation we all suffer, some more than others.
Now some people don’t believe in a Creator, so they don’t feel any responsibility to care for creation. However, Mick Mooney, author of An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospels, writes about why, even if one doesn’t believe the Bible, it makes sense to believe in a Creator. “The whole cosmos in their perfectly functioning glory. Where did it all come from? From nowhere? Are we to believe it is all the result of one mind-boggling chance? To believe this is to accept the odds given to it. One scientific estimate puts the chance of random creation at one in 10 to the power of 40,000. That’s 1 in 10 + 40,000 zeros on the end. Is it realistic to accept these odds as the most rational explanation we have regarding the creation of the universe?
The observable universe is estimated to be more than 93 billion light years in length (to put this in perspective, the moon, for example, is less than two light seconds away from earth). It is perfectly balanced. Everything within it works in perfect union with each other. Within this universe we have our planet, unique in all the universe (so far as we know). On our planet, we have the most fascinating variety of animal, foods, smells, tastes, and visual spectacles, from the tiniest insect to the great whales and every living thing in-between. While I can still stare out at the stars and galaxies all those millions of light years away, whose light is powerful enough to still reach my eyes regardless of the gulf between us, I can do nothing else but believe there is a Creator behind it all.”
The church confesses that God is the maker of heaven and earth and of all things within them. This conviction about origins has great implications for the way we view the world around us. We care for this world, we see beauty in it, we recognize God’s glory expressed in it, we aim to protect it, and we grieve when it is abused and damaged. The church also confesses that God has created all human beings in God’s own image. Male and female, old and young, strong and weak (as Horton would say, “no matter how small”)—all carry the stamp of God’s image as moral, ethical, and spiritual beings called into a unique covenant relationship with their creator. This conviction leads us to view each human being as having God-given dignity and being worthy of respect, care, and honor.
These convictions have implications for our worship. As a worshiping community we give praise and thanks for the creation; express grief and pain at the abuse, pollution, and corruption of what God has created; and offer prayers for God’s blessing on the seasons and on our faithful use of provisions God makes available through the creation. In our worship we also affirm human efforts to carry out God’s command to exercise obedient supervision over all God has created; to seek wisdom and discipline in our work of being caretakers.
In certain seasons this worship takes on a special urgency. At times during the church year we have opportunity to affirm the value of life and to support and encourage those who are burdened with the weaknesses of life in a fallen world. In spring we ask for God’s blessing on a growing season. In fall we give thanks for harvest times. And in times of national and world crisis and concern, like now, we call on God for help and direction. Huey Lewis and the News have a song, Small World that says,
“Some people take and then they never give Gotta learn to give and take
Now we can fight one another Like they do on TV
Or we can help one another The way it’s supposed to be
If we all give a little It could really mean a lot
It’s a small, small world But it’s the only one we’ve got.”
If you want to think more selfishly consider the sign in the window of the Chatham Candy Manor that says, “Save the earth it’s our only source of chocolate.”
At the end of Horton Hears a Who it turns out there was one very, very small shirker named Jo-Jo who wasn’t doing his part to help save his people and his world – he wasn’t making a sound, he was just bouncing a Yo-Yo up and down. The mayor grabbed him and climbed to the top of the highest tower and said, “This is your town’s darkest hour! The time for all Whos who have blood that is red to come to the aid of their country. We’ve got to make noises in greater amounts! So open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts.” Then the lad cleared his throat and shouted out, “Yopp!” Thankfully that small extra Yopp put it over and all the animals could hear the Whos and vowed to protect them also. “They proved they are persons , no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the smallest of all.”
Just as Horton heard the cries of the Whos, and God hears our cries, we also are to hear the cries of creation and to fulfill our God-given task to be responsible caretakers of God’s good creation. Last Sunday there was an article in The Boston Globe about the increase in people vacationing on family farms. “People can’t go back to grandma and grandpa’s farm any more, so Bob and I become grandma and grandpa for a lot of families,” said Beth Kennett, who, with her husband, runs Liberty Hill Farm and Inn in Rochester, Vermont, and who last year was named innkeeper of the year by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. “It’s also a kind of antidote to the whole Disney thing, or an escape for parents who see their kids on video games all day. Swinging on a tire swing and feeding baby calves is a completely different universe than where they live,” Kennett said. In the days when life was more rural, there was a sense of taking care of the family farm because your hope was that you’d be passing it on to your children and they’d pass it on to their children so you were managing the land and its resources not just for yourself but for future generations. We need to have that kind of perspective for the whole earth. As has been said, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” We want to leave them a healthy, beautiful place to live, better than we found it. “It’s a small, small world But it’s the only one we’ve got.”
Prayer: God, our creator, thank you for all that you have made, and help us remember every day always to take care of your world for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Blessing: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” Revelation 4:11
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
- What has most shaped your view of the earth and all the creatures, life, and resources it contains?
- What does the Bible teach us about the earth and the heavens and all living things?
- What is our responsibility to the world, our fellow human beings, and other creatures, “no matter how small?”
- In the Bible, we’re told repeatedly that we are God’s stewards (managers or caretakers) and we are participants in God’s plan of redemption for all of creation as Paul states in Romans 8. How does our identity as God’s stewards and our role in God’s redemptive plan impact how we care for creation?
- How might looking at the earth like a family farm impact our perspective?
- What choices can we make on a daily basis to be better stewards of God’s earth?