The scriptures referred
to are Genesis 2:18-24.
I love
to watch science documentaries about the beginnings of the universe.
Each time I watch one I learn something new. Because even though by
now I know the broad outlines of the history, each retelling gives
new details that the previous ones didn't. It may be because science
has uncovered things the makers of the past documentaries didn't
know. But sometimes it is a matter of what they want to focus on. By
putting emphasis on, say, black holes and dark matter and galaxies they may overlook details necessary to understand how life on earth
became possible. Focus on the steps needed to prepare for life and they will skip over other things not strictly necessary to tell that
story. I recently saw a documentary that actually got the story of
creation off to a galloping start with the Big Bang and covered the
first important thresholds that led to the universe we have and then
rewound the events to look at some of them in greater detail in order
to focus on the elements important to the story of our earth.
Genesis
does the same thing. The first chapter covers the grand story of the
creation of everything on earth. The second chapter rewinds and gives
us previously skipped details on the creation of humanity. Genesis 1
is the outline of the whole process; Genesis 2 takes a closer look at
what the author thought was the part pertinent to the overall theme
of the Bible: the relationship between God and human beings.
This
is emphatically not a scientific account. Science, as we know it, did
not exist as a discipline at the time of its writing. In fact science
is a very recent thing. Until you have universal standards of
measurement and the formulation of the scientific method and the
ability to replicate the experiments of others, all you have is
little more than the accumulation of observations by amateur
enthusiasts. So you can't fault the Bible for not having everything
written in modern scientific terms anymore than you can fault ancient
peoples for not recording the exact time of the day down to the
minute that major events happened. Before the invention of the clock, how
could they? And before the invention of biology and geology and
astrophysics, how could the writers of the Torah give us a scientific
account of creation?
Besides,
the Bible is interested, not in the exact mechanism by which things
were created, but their significance and purpose. If you want to know
what a person is physically made of, ask a chemist. What the Bible is
concerned with is establishing that we were created in the image of
God. It is the moral and spiritual dimension of human beings that is
the focus of the scriptures.
That
said, Genesis 2 shows God doing something very odd. God creates the
man and then, realizing that man needs a helper and partner, God
brings all the previously created animals to the man. The man names
them but they are do not exactly correspond to him. They are not of
his species. So God causes Adam to fall asleep, takes a rib, closes
up the flesh and makes Eve. (Which, for those of you who simply must
see science in Genesis, means God is pro-anesthesia, pro-organ
donation, pro-surgery and pro-genetic manipulation.)
The
woman is the man's suitable helper, or, as Richard Eliot Freeman
translates the Hebrew here, “a corresponding strength.” The woman
is, in other words, fully the equal of the man. Any other
interpretation makes nonsense of the narrative purpose. The animals
are not equal to man; the woman is. Subordination of women is the
result of sin, the Bible says, not God's intention. That's why when
we are restored in Christ, there is, as Paul says, “no longer male
or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians
3:28) (Again for those of you framing things in modern terms, God is
pro-equality of the sexes.)
But
the reason I wanted to look at this passage is because this is the
feast day of St. Francis when we focus on nature and animals, things
that concerned the little friar. And there is a point lost here. No,
none of the animals are the equal of a human being. But why would God
even present them to the man? Because, as those with pets know, they
can be good companions nevertheless. And the message is that we
should not regard our fellow creatures as mere things to be
mistreated. In fact Proverbs 12:10 says, “A righteous man has
regard for the life of his animal...” Lots of rules concerning the
welfare of animals are found in the Bible. If you see a donkey lying
on the road under its burden, even if it belongs to your enemy, you
must set it free. (Exodus 23:5) You are not to muzzle an ox while it
is treading the grain so it can eat. (Deuteronomy 25:4) God's
attitude towards animals is seen in the fact that one of the reasons
he doesn't want to destroy Nineveh is that there are many animals
there. (Jonah 4:11)
Some
people don't see this in the Bible because of language in Genesis
1:28: “God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and
multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the
ground.'” The note for this verse in the NET Bible points out that
the Hebrew word translated “subdue” can mean in other contexts
“enslave” or “conquer.” In one passage in Esther it is used
of Haman, the villain of that book, to mean “sexually assault!”
(Esther 7:8) But the same note says that obviously God is not saying that
man should be in an adversarial relationship with the earth
(especially since he has pronounced everything good). The verb means
“to bring under one's control for one's advantage” and could be
paraphrased as “to harness its potential and use its resources for
your benefit.” And some people say the Bible is therefore saying it
is OK to exploit and despoil the world and its creatures in any way
we want.
But
they forget a few facts. First God made us in his image. And even if
all we had to understand this concept was the first chapter of Genesis,
we must conclude that God is at the very least creative and
life-giving and takes delight in what he has made. So that would mean
that humans, made in his image, should rule over the earth in that
same spirit. A wise ruler doesn't destroy his kingdom or his
subjects.
Also
in Genesis 2:5, the prologue to the creation of humans, says, “Now
no shrub of the field had yet grown on earth, and no plant of the
field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on
the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.” So God
goes ahead and plants an orchard in Eden. In other words it looks as
if man is meant to be the gardener of the earth, again in imitation
of God. And a gardener doesn't ruin his garden. He weeds it and does
everything he can for the benefit of the garden.
Nor
are we to rule the earth and its creatures with unlimited authority.
God is our king. We humans were to rule as vice-regents, not
absolute monarchs. We are answerable to God for what we do. The world
and its creatures belong to God. We are to be stewards of the earth.
And in fact, after the moral fall of humanity, it says in Genesis
6:11, “The earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was
filled with violence.” This is given as the justification for the
flood. We have misused the power granted us to subdue the earth and
rule it. We have been bad rulers, bad gardeners, and bad stewards of
the earth God has given us to take care of for him. So God decides to
start afresh.
There
is another reason why we cannot do whatever we want with the earth
and for this I must thank Margaret Atwood, the author of The
Handmaid's Tale. I was listening to q, a Canadian talk
show from the CBC, and she was talking about the connection between
the environment and the command to love one's neighbor. She pointed
out that loving one's neighbor meant being concerned about the air he
breathed and the water he drank and the food he ate. In other words,
we can't very well say we love our neighbor and then let him breathe
polluted air or drink polluted (or flammable) water or eat polluted
or poisonous food. You wouldn't want to be subjected to that yourself
and Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as we do ourselves. Loving
our neighbor means we must keep habitable the environment in which he
(and we) must live.
There
are, of course, entirely pragmatic reasons for being good stewards of
this earth. We now understand how interconnected everything is.
Should bee colonies continue to collapse, it will affect as much as
one third of the crops in the US, including “almonds, peaches,
apples, pears, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries,
watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, and strawberries” which are pollinated by bees. (source here) If the glaciers, polar ice caps and sea
ice continue to melt, we will see increased erosion of our coasts,
higher storm surge flooding, changes in the quality of surface and
groundwater, and loss of coastal property. If each year keeps getting
hotter than the last, we will see more fires, more droughts,
decreasing crop yields and more food insecurity.
You
know that problem they are having in Europe because of Syrian
refugees? That, and the Syrian civil war, started in part because of
the worst drought ever recorded in Syria which “resulted in a
widespread crop failure, increase in food prices and a mass migration
of farming families to urban centers.” (source here) This helped fuel
the already present political problems of the country and encouraged
other groups from outside Syria to try to start a revolution along
the lines of the Arab Spring movement. As history shows, people will
put up with decades of political oppression. But threaten their
ability to feed themselves and their children and they will revolt.
It doesn't take a Nostradamus to see that increasingly hotter years
and more widespread and longer droughts, and fires like we are seeing
in drought-stricken California, where much of our food is grown, are
going to lead to political instability, more refugees and more chaos.
I
remember being taught in school about the balance of nature. Say the
population of wolves in an area keeps increasing. Eventually the
number of their prey, let's say deer in this instance, will decrease
because the wolves are eating too many of them. At some point there
aren't enough deer to feed all the wolves and they start starving.
When the wolf population gets down far enough that they aren't
killing most of the deer, the population of deer will begin to rise
again. My point is that we are smarter than either wolves or deer. We
know about the balance of nature and can work out the carrying
capacity this earth has for our species. If we don't achieve the
balance by peaceful and rational means, the impact on the environment
of an estimated 9 billion people by mid-century will do it for us.
Decreasing land mass due to rising sea levels, widespread food
insecurity due to droughts and fires, dust bowls as we saw in this
country in the 1930s, mass movement of refugees and the political
unrest and wars that result from all this will start culling the herd
of human beings. These are the easily foreseeable consequences if we
don't get serious about these problems and start putting real
solutions into action.
Of
course it would be better if we did these things not merely out of
self-protection but out of love for our neighbor, our fellow
creatures and this marvelous earth God gave us. And in that spirit I
would like to end with the Canticle of the Creatures composed
by God's troubadour, St. Francis of Assisi.
Most
High, all-powerful, good Lord,
All
praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.
To You
alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no
mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.
Be
praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially
my lord Brother Sun,
who
brings the day and through whom you give us light.
And he
is beautiful and radiant in all splendor!
Of
You, Most High, he bears a likeness.
Be
praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the
heavens You have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
Be
praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air
and
clouds and storms, and every kind of weather,
through
which You give Your creatures sustenance.
Be
praised, my Lord, through Sister Water;
she is
very useful and humble and precious and pure.
Be
praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through
whom You light the night,
and he
is beautiful and cheerful and robust and strong.
Be
praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who
feeds us and rules us,
and
produces various fruits with colorful flowers and herbs.
Be
praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of You;
through
those who endure infirmities and tribulation.
Blessed
are those who endure in peace
for by
You, Most High, they will be crowned.
Be
praised, my Lord, through our sister Bodily Death,
from
whom no living person can escape.
Woe to
those who die in mortal sin.
Happy
are they whom she finds doing Your most holy will.
The
second death can do no harm to them.
Praise
and bless my Lord and give thanks
and
serve Him with great humility.
Amen.
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