Psalm 24
1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; 2 for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
3 Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
5 They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob.
7 Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. 10 Who is he, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty—he is the King of glory.
The church is easily divided. We can divide over our favorite college team, are you a Hokie fan or a UVa fan? We divide over politics, to build a wall, or not to build a wall. And yes, we find ourselves divided over issues of theology. But one thing that I hope we are not divided over is whether or not we are called to care for the world God created. I know very politically conservative people who love to camp, hunt, and fish. I know very politically progressive people who like to hike, garden, and ride bicycles. And who doesn’t like going to the beach? Well, I don’t but that doesn’t mean that I want to see the beach destroyed.
The point that I’m trying to make is that caring for creation has become a partisan, political issue, and I think that is a shame. I’ve never met a person who wanted to see the world deteriorate, or for their grandchildren to not be able to breathe the air surrounding them. So let’s not make it a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. Instead, what I want to remind you today is that caring for creation is, or at least it should be, a Christian thing.
You’ll notice that I’m going to use different language than what you might hear on television or the radio. I’m not going to talk about environmentalism. Environmentalism isn’t a bad thing, but as a follower of the God revealed in the Bible, I want to instead talk about creation care. Today I want to highlight three reasons why Christians should be working to improve and restore the creation that God once called “very good.” We do so as stewards, as witness to God, and for the greater good of humanity. Let’s start with an argument from the point of stewardship.
In find it interesting to go all the way back to the beginning. I’m talking about going all the way back to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis teaches us that God created the heavens and the earth, all the birds of the sky, the fish in the water, the plants in the soil, and the creatures on the land. At the end of the day, God pronounces them good. Then, on the sixth day, God creates human beings and pronounces all of creation, not only good, but very good. And a part of what God pronounced to be very good was a hierarchy within creation. Only human beings are said to be created in God’s own image. And God placed the human beings over the animals, the plants, and the soil itself. The NIV says that humans were to “rule” God’s creation. The KJV says to have “dominion” over creation. In our 21st century vernacular, we might say that God ordered human beings to be stewards over all that he had made.
The interesting thing to me about all of this is that this is not the result of the fall. We know that Adam was forced to till the soil and deal with thorns as a punishment for his sin. But in both chapters preceding the fall, God tells the human beings to care for creation. Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
Our first mandate as human beings is to care for what God has created.
We were never given the land to do whatever we want with it. Look at our text from this morning: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” Or, as the hymn we sang earlier reminds us, this is our Father’s world. We are watching it for him, but make no mistake, it is still God’s!
In Romans 8 there is an interesting section where Paul writes about creation groaning. In verses 20-22 he writes, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
It is hard to say exactly what Paul is speaking of. He didn’t know about climate change, single-use plastics, or shrinking polar ice caps. But he recognizes that creation was not as it should be, even in the 1st century. He compared it to our bodies, which ache and can be broken. So what are we to do? Sit around and complain? No, Paul says we are more than conquerors. Our bodies will be made whole again, and so will this world. God will heal us, and God will heal creation.
This is what Richard Bauckham has called our “ultimate hope.” Our ultimate hope is for the new heaven and new earth where there will be no pain, suffering, death, or decay. But we also have what Bauckham calls “proximate hope.” Proximate hope is the hope for something better in the present or near future. We have proximate hope when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick. And we have proximate hope when we care for creation, when we perform that first mandate given to humanity in the Garden of Eden to be stewards of what God has created.
We don’t look at a starving person and say, “Well, one day, when Jesus comes back, you’ll have plenty to eat.” No, we feed the hungry. We don’t see a sick person and say, “You will be made well when you die and go to heaven.” No, we provide the best care we can for them now. And we don’t look at the polluted waterways and skies and say, “God will make all things new.” No, we seek to make things right now, as best as we can. We have our limits, and we do believe that one day God will make all things new, all things right. That’s our ultimate hope. But our proximate hope is that followers of Jesus can make a difference here and now as well. We do it out of love for God, love for our neighbors, and as a witness to the world of the kingdom of God that is at hand.
This brings me to my second point. We care for creation as a proclamation.
Psalm 19 begins by saying, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
Creation itself tells us about God. I always feel the need to warn people that God and nature are not one and the same. We do not worship creation, we worship the Creator. And creation cannot completely reveal who God is, Jesus did that. But even Paul, in Romans 1:20, tells us that God can be known through creation: “For 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 people are without excuse.”
If we got on 81 south and drove to the bottom of Virginia, we would find Mount Rogers, the tallest mountain in the Commonwealth. Mount Rogers is 5,729 feet above sea level. I’ve never seen Mount Rogers in person, but the pictures that I’ve seen look a lot like what we see around our area. The views are breathtaking and beautiful, with massive rocks jutting this way and that. And compared to the Rocky Mountains, they are tiny. Remember that Pikes Peak is over 14,000 feet above sea level.
What does Mount Rogers tell us about God? Let me ask you this, how many mountains have you made? The biggest mountain I ever made was with the mashed potatoes at our last carry-in meal. We can look at creation and surmise that our God is powerful and creative, artistic even.
I’ve said before that the more I learn about science, the stronger my belief in a Creator becomes. I once heard a pastor say that we strengthen our belief in God by thinking bigger and thinking smaller. By thinking bigger, he is calling us to consider the heavens, just as we were encouraged to do in Psalm 19. The earth is approximately 93 million miles away from the sun, and Pluto is about 7.5 billion miles away from the sun. Our solar system is a part of the galaxy known as the Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light years wide. The Milky Way is one of the smaller galaxies, and with the Hubble Telescope, scientists estimate that there are about 100 billion galaxies. Our God made that.
But we also go smaller. We all know that everything is made up of atoms. And atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Do you know what makes up most of an atom? Empty space. Let’s give this some context, we all know how big a penny is. The size of a single hydrogen atom compared to the size of a penny is roughly equivalent to the comparison between that same penny and the moon. Our God made that.
The heavens proclaim the glory of God, but when we pollute the skies and the waters, how clearly is that proclamation made? This year marks the 50th anniversary of the burning of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. This wasn’t the first time the Cuyahoga caught fire, but it did help lead to what is now known as the Clean Water Act. At the time of the fire, the river had no discernable life in it because of the pollution. Not even slugs. In my opinion, the loss of biodiversity takes away from our proclamation of God as our artistic Creator. With the loss of the beauty and diversity of creation, we lose a bit of our understanding of how awesome our God is.
Let’s move quickly to my final point for creation care: the greater good.
Some of you may recall the country music group, Alabama. Back in 1990, almost thirty years ago, Alabama released the title track to their album, “Pass It on Down.” This song was about caring for creation. The lyrics include: Let’s leave some blue up above us,/lets leave some green on the ground./It’s only ours to borrow,/let’s save some for tomorrow./Leave it and pass it on down.
This isn’t a partisan message from Alabama. This isn’t some hippie, liberal, message. Alabama often used images of rebel flags on their albums and official posters. 30 years ago, Alabama was singing about passing on a world where we can swim in the streams, drink the water, and enjoy the great outdoors. Alabama was thinking about the next generation.
In enjoy the beauty of God’s creation, and I don’t think it is wrong to want to preserve it so that I can enjoy it. But I also realize that in my remaining 40-50 years on this planet, I probably won’t have to suffer too much because of the environmental condition. I may have to buy water at the store or wear more sunscreen, but we have mountains that will keep any rising ocean waters from consuming my property. I don’t rely on predictable weather patterns for my business. But others do.
We have had some weird weather lately. I wish I had taken a screenshot of my weather app, which showed temperatures in the 70’s on Tuesday, and a possibility of snow this weekend. We have been up and down, hot and cold. In many parts of the world this was also the rainiest year on record. There is a lot of debate about how much of our climate change is the result of human meddling, but there isn’t much debate about the fact that things have changed.
Hurricanes, floods, and desertification are causing many people to pick up what they have and look for a better living situation. I’ve heard that climate refugees are going to be one of the greatest humanitarian issues facing future generations. And it seems to be affecting people we know and care about as well.
I am writing this on February 8, 2019. My family in Ohio still has corn standing in the field, which is usually all harvested by Thanksgiving. It was a wet spring, which means the corn was planted late. It was a wet fall, which means they couldn’t get the combine through the mud. So the corn sits in the field, rotting, losing valuable feed for the livestock.
I came across this quote from Gus Speth, who teaches at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Speth writes, “I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
We can do all of the assessments and scientific calculations that we want. The real concern, according to Speth, is selfishness, greed, and apathy. We Christians have something to say about that.
It takes a little more work to sort our trash, or to use reusable containers rather than disposable one. Carpooling takes some prior consideration. Walking or riding a bike can be inconvenient. But every little bit helps. I despise terms like “going green” because they are so binary, as if you are either helping the environment or hurting it. Instead, we make incremental changes in our lives, our habits, and our practices because we are only stewards of God’s creation, God’s creation proclaims his glory, and we are all depending on that creation for our wellbeing.
I want to end with some thoughts that I came across in an article about gardening. I’ve kept a vegetable garden for the last decade or so, sometimes with more success than others. In this article, Tina Osterhouse writes, “Although planting a garden might seem like an insignificant act, it offers us something deep and enduring: a reminder of God’s sovereignty over the earth and a practical, incarnational way to participate in his created order.” Osterhouse reminds me of what I have said here before, I’ve never met an atheist farmer.
She goes on to say why gardening is a step in the right way to healing not only the world, but also our own souls. Quoting Osterhouse directly: “First, in a culture driven by immediacy and instant gratification, gardening forces us to cultivate patience.”
Patience. Is there anyone here who wouldn’t benefit from developing a little more patience? We have the world available to us at the touch of a button or the swipe of a smart phone. But when you plant a seed, you wait. You water the seed, and you wait. You fertilize, weed, and you wait. To garden is to cultivate patience.
“Second, gardening reminds us of our finitude and fallibility.”
Finitude: all created things come to an end. Fallibility: all created things have faults and make mistakes. I’ve seen some of your gardens, and you put me to shame. I can’t grow a tomato to save my life. Peppers, I got that. Zucchini, no problem. But tomatoes are a bit of an enigma for me. And in the fall, when that first killing frost hits, even my zucchini plants stop growing. Gardening reminds us that for everything there is a season, and we aren’t always in control.
“Third, in a world that continues to stun us with harsh cruelty and chaos on every side, gardening offers us beauty and simplicity.”
I have spent a lot of time this sermon contrasting deterioration with beauty. By planting something we have the opportunity to add to the beauty of creation. Whether you are planting cucumbers or chrysanthemums, you can make the harsh and ugliness of this world a little bit better.
We are called to be stewards of God’s creation, the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The heavens declare the glory of God. Love your neighbor as yourself. Creation care isn’t a political issue, it is a Christian responsibility. I pray that you will join me as we make incremental changes to bring proximal hope to this world as we await our ultimate hope in our Lord, Jesus Christ.
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