God is Green
by tim on Oct.08, 2007, under Sermon, Theology
God’s delight
In the 18th and 19th Centuries it was quite fashionable to view God as being a watchmaker who, having brought about a magnificent creation, wound it up and left it to work according to its own principles.1 That is, he invented the world, he put in place the laws of physics, chemistry, biology and everything else that makes it ‘tick’… and then he left it to its own devices.
But this is a long way from the God that the Bible presents to us. Jesus tells us that he knows when each sparrow falls,2 that no raven goes unfed nor lily unclothed.3 Is this a description of a God who is disconnected and uninvolved? Does this sound like a God who does not care about the fate of his creation?
Check out God’s words to Job:
Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
“Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone-while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?4
And again:
“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
Do you count the months till they bear?
Do you know the time they give birth?They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
they leave and do not return.“Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied his ropes?I gave him the wasteland as his home,
the salt flats as his habitat.He laughs at the commotion in the town;
he does not hear a driver’s shout.He ranges the hills for his pasture
and searches for any green thing.5
God’s solution to Job’s problems is not a stinging rebuke for his lack of faith; nor is it a reasoned argument about why he needs to suffer. God calls on Job to look up and to look around at the world that God has created, a world which itself points back to God; the Creation that reminds us of the Creator. The Apostle Paul puts it like this: “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”6
God delights in his world, great and small. We are invited to enjoy the creation and to delight in it as God does. Again and again, God invites Job to consider, to wonder, to rejoice and to reflect on the splendour of what he has created.
The trouble is that we have become consumers rather than lovers; our delight has turned to greed, our service to exploitation.
Created to protect and serve
Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”7
Adam and Eve were created to “work [the Garden] and take care of it” – to protect and to serve. In return, they were given the run of the place, and God provided “trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”
The Garden centred around the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not the man and his wife, perhaps to remind Adam and Eve that the garden was not theirs: God’s plan was one of interdependence, of relationship; that is what makes what follows even more tragic.
First Eve and then Adam reach out and take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only tree which God had put off-limits, and in doing so sought to place themselves at the centre of the garden.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.8
This is the first recorded example of humankind exploiting the environment for their own benefit, rather than working to enjoy it and protect it; sadly it is but the first of many.
The consequences were catastrophic, not only for Adam and Eve, not just for the human race, but for the whole of creation:
To Adam [God] said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”9
God’s creation has been corrupted. Not for nothing does the Apostle Paul write, “[w]e know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”10 However, just a paragraph earlier, he writes, “[t]he creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”11 Christians look forward to the day when God’s new creation dawns, when he will make all things new.12
Some Christians take this to extremes, though, claiming that the degradation of this world is OK, because it means that that day of new creation will come all the quicker. This is (literally) rubbish! If God grieves over each sparrow that falls and each lily that dies, can you imagine how offended he is by our wilful and persistent destruction of the world that he has entrusted to our care?
No, Christians should be leading the charge towards protecting and serving our environment.
This is easy to say; but how can we do this? Where do we start?
Tending the Garden
There are many things that can be said here, but let me highlight a few of the common ones that we can all do in order to preserve this world that God has entrusted to our care.
Broadly speaking, Jack Johnson has the right idea when he says “we gotta learn to reduce, reuse, recycle” – in that order. Recycling is good… but reusing is better. Reusing is good… but reduction is better!
Appliances
- Refrigerator: The single household appliance that uses the most energy is the refrigerator. So let me ask, do you really need that second fridge? If you only use the second one when you’re having a party, why not consider turning it off and unplugging it the rest of the time? Do you need one that big?
- Lights: The next biggest energy consumer is electric lighting. Some simple ways of reducing the amount of energy you use:
- Use compact fluorescents – traditional incandescent bulbs waste about 90% of their energy as heat.
- Turn off the lights when you’re out of the room for more than 60 seconds.
- Televisions: The third biggest power user is the television. Even when they’re not on, most televisions are still drawing power in order to be able to turn on in response to a remote. Consider turning them off at the wall. Other ways to save power here are to watch less (!) and to not fall asleep with them on!!
- Audio equipment: The U.S. Government has published statistics that show that Americans spend more money to power audio equipment when they’re off than when on! Again, consider turning off at the wall.
- Computers: Turn off when not in use. Laptops use about half the power of desktops.
- Microwaves: Whilst microwaves draw a large current, they do so only for a short time. Don’t be shy about using them to precook food – in that way you can cut down on using larger (less efficient) appliances like ovens.
Transport
If you drive a car, make sure the tyres are inflated correctly. Having under-inflated tyres will reduce your fuel efficiency by up to 10% !
On the subject of fuels, ethanol based-fuels are better for the environment (less emissions), but have impacts in other areas. This is because much ethanol used for fuel is derived from corn, a staple food around the world, and so an increase in demand for corn can have a devastating effect on the global poor, so think carefully.
The new seatbelt
Many years ago seatbelts in cars were unheard of; then they were an optional extra; required by law; and, finally, so common-place that to not wear one makes us feel as though something is wrong.
We need to promote the same kind of mentality regarding the environment. This will involve a transformational change… and there is only one who has ever been good at transformational change – God. Ultimately we need to realise that any solution that relies entirely upon our own efforts is doomed to fail. Our natural sinfulness will lead us to take short-cuts, to seek our own advantage, to leave it for someone else to deal with. If we want to see our world changed for the better, if we want to see God’s creation restored to the point where God once again declares it ‘Very Good,’ then we must first seek transformation of ourselves. We must once again become God’s caretakers, his gardeners, people who delight in and protect the world God has entrusted to our care rather than consuming and exploiting it; and this kind of transformation can come only through the saving work of Jesus. Jesus’ sacrifice, his blood, his death on the Cross on our behalf, is the only means by which we can be recreated – reborn – as the people God wants us to be.