Sermon to the Birds
Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Basilique Assise, Legend of St Francis, Sermon to the Birds. (Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons License)
Oct. 3, 2024
What are other issues that bedevil us, or create opportunities for us? And what could be said from a nonpartisan theological / Christian perspective? For today, let’s reflect on climate. Then next week, we’ll move toward the economy, and then guns and war.
{Parenthetically, as climate has dealt a catastrophic blow to the southeastern US… click here to review ways you can make a difference.}
So: Climate – from a theological, spiritual perspective? We are to be conservatives, all of us. In Genesis 1-2, God creates a fabulous world, and charges humanity with taking care of the place; we are to conserve what God created. And yet, God put it there to be used, enjoyed, and carefully consumed while being conserved! Let’s unpack Christopher Watkin’s wisdom: “Adam and Eve were not given carte blanche to exploit creation, but neither are they merely to conserve it, much less to worship it.”
The master class in conserving God’s beautiful world was taught by St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is Oct. 4). He saw sun, moon, crawling and flying creatures as his brothers and sisters. He didn’t want to step on a spider, as it was one more voice in the grand chorus of nature’s praise of God the Creator and Sustainer. He preached to birds and fish, encouraging them also to praise God and be grateful to God for all God provided.
Francis did not fret for a minute about the way we fear climate change – that our worldly abode will be damaged (but I bet he would were he alive today!). It was all about admiring God’s handiwork, praising God through it and for it, and sensing his responsibility to be a tender caretaker, a curator, a docent in the great museum of God’s splendid earth. You conserve what God has made. If zeal for big profits is doing irreparable damage to God’s good world, we shudder, and try to stop it.
Yet, we balance this default / baseline spiritual disposition with the clear fact that God created animals and plants to serve as food and fuel. God is also glorified when humans use their God-given brains to warm their homes and eat healthy and provide food for those facing droughts or famine. Much wisdom is required for humanity to use while still tenderly caring for what God has given, not just for us, but for future generations, and always for the glory of God.
It’s really all about “dominion.” On the last day of creation, God creates human beings – us! – and clarifies their purpose down here: “to have dominion over the earth and its creatures” (Genesis 1:26-28). That’s the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version. But the New International Version (which I usually really admire) surprisingly slides over to “rule over” and “subdue.” But the Hebrew in question isn’t to boss or use or control. It implies care, seeing to it that the other flourishes. As Walter Brueggemann put it, we are to take care of God’s world, not take over God’s world.
And in Genesis 2:15 we read that God put Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden “to till it and tend to it.” It’s a matter of Stewardship, one of Jesus’ favorite images. The steward of the farm takes care of it on behalf of its owner; the good steward protects it and insures its flourishing. We are stewards of God’s good earth, not its owners. We take excellent, tender care of the place entrusted to us, remembering it’s entrusted, and here for not just us but all of us, and all the other creatures too! For as Francis taught us, all the people, and all the living things are our brothers and sisters in God’s beautiful family.
Rev. James C. Howell
Myers Park UMC Photo
The Rev. James C. Howell is senior pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. This post is republished with permission from the author's blog.