Garden

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 1, 2, and 6.

I was listening to an interview with Antonio Banderas and he was talking about how he began his career after the death of Francisco Franco and his oppressive rule of Spain. There was a new freedom in the arts to explore things that had been suppressed. So when Banderas started making films in Hollywood, he was surprised by an odd contradiction in the Land of the Free. Certain depictions of sex were controversial in mainstream movies, as he discovered playing Tom Hanks' lover in the Oscar-winning Philadelphia. However, violence of any kind was permitted.

Actually there is one kind of violence that you rarely see depicted in our movies and fiction: violence against animals. I was struck by this when reading a James Bond novel (not one of Ian Fleming's). Bond is breaking into the bad guy's lair when he is confronted by two vicious guard dogs. Were they human guards, 007 would have shot or garroted them or snapped their necks. Instead he uses a weapon that shoots a sleeping gas to harmlessly knock out the dogs! This idea that henchmen are fair play but animals are not is also on display in the first Johnny English film. In this parody of the superspy genre, Rowan Atkinson's wannabe secret agent similarly faces two snarling Dobermen as he assaults the villain's headquarters. But in his case, he pulls out two steaks, throws them in opposite directions for the dogs to go after and is thus freed from having to subdue them physically.

Science has confirmed that our empathy for animals is higher than for humans, or at least, for grown humans. When subjects in an experiment were given fictitious newspaper accounts about an attack with a baseball bat, those in which the victim was an adult elicited less empathy than if the victim were, from most empathy to least, an infant, naturally, but then a puppy, and next a 6 year old dog. Age only made a difference in empathy for humans, but not for dogs. The researchers thought it was the relative helplessness of the victim that caused the disparity.

In the Bible, King David reacted strongly to a parable involving the death of a lamb (2 Samuel 12:1-5) and one of the reasons God gave for wanting Nineveh spared from judgment was his concern for the domestic animals there (Jonah 4:11). And why not? They are part of his creation and he pronounced them good. In fact in Genesis 2, seeing that man should not be alone, God creates all the animals and brings them to the man as potential companions, before he creates Eve. (Genesis 2:18-20)

Unfortunately some people have seized upon a different part of the creation accounts and used it as justification to do whatever they want with our fellow inhabitants of this earth. “And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.' And God created man in His image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth.'” (Genesis 1:26-28, JPS)

“Rule” and “master”: the language used sounds like God is giving us absolute power over the earth and all life. But it also says that humanity is created in God's image and God is shown here to be creative and appreciative towards all he made. So God cannot be saying, “Destroy and harm what I have made.” In fact, the reason given for the great flood is “The earth was ruined in God's sight and the earth was full of violence.” (Genesis 6:11) So, no, God is not turning the earth over to mankind and saying “Anything goes.” Going back to the creation accounts, it becomes obvious that man was supposed to be the gardener in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:5) We're in charge in so far as we are stewards of this planet. God is the final authority.

The news is full of changes in the natural world. The polar ice is melting and thus so is the habitat of polar bears. The fires in the Amazon are destroying the habitat of 400 mammal, 300 reptile, 400 amphibian and 3000 fish species, fully a tenth of all the known species in the world. The number of birds in North America has declined by 3 billion, almost a third of what we used to have. Many scientists are worried that we are triggering the 6^th mass extinction in history. We are allowing in real life what we almost never permit in movies: the suffering and killing of animals.

So if we are charged with taking care of this world for God, and we have an inbuilt empathy for our fellow creatures, I have to ask this question. Are we doing all we can?

Let me tell you what the Keys Deanery is doing. We are challenging the Episcopal churches in this diocese to do something concrete to fight our climate crisis, something in line with being God's gardeners. In 2018, the world produced an estimated 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide, one of the primary greenhouse gases. That's the equivalent of 6 semi-trucks full of coal per person on earth. And, as we know, trees absorb and use carbon dioxide to grow. In fact, according to engineer Yatit Thakker, whose work I am using for reference [here], a 2 ton tree can remove 7 tons of carbon dioxide a year. He figures it would take 5 billion trees to handle our current emissions. Of course, those emissions will continue to grow at the present rate and so he proposes every person plant a tree per year for every year they have lived and will live.

That's not going to happen. But if everyone of the 2.2 billion people in the world who claim to be Christians planted just 2 trees a year, that would just about do it. It's unlikely that everyone would. But the movement has to start somewhere. The Deanery of the Keys has introduced a resolution to our Convention this month challenging every church to plant 500 trees per year for the next 10 years. That would be 380,000 trees. Now we can't plant them all on our church properties but we don't have to. We can use charities like the National Forest Foundation, which will plant one native tree for every dollar you donate. [here] Or Trees for the Future which provides seeds and tools for families in sub-Saharan Africa to plant trees. [here] Both of these non-profits are rated highly by Charity Navigator, which evaluates charities on their transparency and how much of their donations actually go to the works they promote.

Our resolution may or may not be accepted. The number of the trees daunts some churches. But we live in the Keys, a chain of islands that may be underwater in the next 100 years if we don't start doing serious work now on reducing global temperatures. And so in our convocation this week, the representatives of the Keys churches have determined to do it regardless if it passes. And we hope that the example of our 5 churches in the smallest deanery in the diocese will inspire others. After all Jesus started with just 12 ordinary people and look what they managed to do.

God created the world and pronounced it good. He created animals as our companions. He created us, endowed us with intelligence, reason and skills and put us in charge of caring for his creation, to care for it as gardeners do. He can't be happy to see the gardeners have dug up great swaths of the garden looking for riches, or set millions of acres on fire to clear the land, or polluted the waters with industrial waste, sickening and killing animals as well as our fellow humans. We are made in God's image and scripture tells us God is love. (1 John 4:8) That love extends to all he has created. St. Francis knew that. And he reflected that love not only with his lips but with his life. And we can as well.