Dear friends in Christ at Peace and Grue,
Today just happens to be Earth Day, a day to “PRAISE GOD ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW.” This second line of the doxology professes the message of Psalm 96: “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming to judge the earth (vs. 11-13).”
Today this joyful psalm is diminished and muted. Earth no longer seems glad. We trample and destroy its green pastures. The sea became our dumping grounds, their leviathans pressed to the brink. House is added to house and field to field, until there is room for no one but you and you are left alone (see Isa. 5:8). Discontented and driven, we pursue all we can get, as we live out the message proclaimed by disciples of the first Adam: “Seek first yourself-and everything will be added to you.”
What does the church have to say about this self-inflicted abuse of creation? What is the role of the disciples of the New Adam in this time of creation’s degradation? Herman Daly raises three questions for our consideration: First, how does the world work? In modern times, this question has been relegated to universities. They are the generators of knowledge. This pursuit of knowledge is rigorous and disciplined. It objectifies the world and is good at determining what we can do, but not so good at determining what we should do, which leads to the second question.
What is right? There was a time when universities had a major stake in this question too. A time when universities taught moral philosophy as the capstone course for every student, advocating avoidance of greed while professing the ethical wisdom of the ages, but no more. Modernism claims that the route to knowledge is science and technology. Modernism reduces morality to the survival of the fittest. Modernism sees us primarily as consumers, while integrity, harmony, and the good are reduced to sentimentality, which has no place in the “real world.” Values-and so also the church which modern society seen as the caretaker of values-have been made largely irrelevant in these modern times, which leads us to the final question.
What must we do? We do what the market dictates is the common response. In my day that meant “get a job” or better yet “get a good job.” A good job is one that pays “good money,” one that is one done to further my private advantage. From a Christian perspective, “what must we do” is a question of vocation not occupation. It is a question of faithful obedience and grateful stewardship. While the world wishes the church would confine itself to being a mere observer, the church’s vocation is to understand creation, know what is right, and to act, heal, and restore, even as we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.”
In this time of unprecedented knowledge, unprecedented ability to mobilize people, and unprecedented degradation of creation, we believe creation remains God’s possession and that God still trusts us with its care. For this trust we give our Creator thanks as we seek to respond in faithful obedience and thankful stewardship as our joyful vocation. Yes Earth Day is over, it has come and gone for another year, yet as disciples of Christ we sing, “PRAISE GOD ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW.”
“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).
Pastor Dan