The Challenge of Caring for God s Creation

The Challenge of Caring for God s Creation

Around your table share examples of people you have seen who have been models of the Biblical mandate for creation care. If you can t think of any examples, why do you think you struggle to identify them?

God cares for all of creation (even that part which is not useful for us) We are to join with creation and worship the creator for His creation. We are to avoid both the deification of nature and the exploitation of nature. Instead we should seek to cooperate with God in the Care of Creation.

Genesis 1:28 - God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. 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.

"Humans have a moral responsibility to rise above a mere animal existence and make self-conscious choices for the benefit of all of creation. This is where our study of Genesis might help us avoid our sinful tendency to grasp at unlimited power and possessions. Since we are part and parcel of the rest of creation, we can learn from the rest of creation that as natural predators we should limit our desires to inhabit a limited niche, respecting the niche of other creatures and taking only what we actually need.

The dominion mandates in Genesis 1 and the service mandate in Genesis 2 not only assure humans a place in creation, but they limit that place to what furthers God's benevolent rule and enhances God's power of blessing to all of creation. In short, when humans do not limit their predatory acts toward the rest of creation then they violate God's creation mandates for all of the creation." Braaten

Genesis 7:14 - They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. Genesis 9:16-17 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. 17 So God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.

Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. 2 There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. 3 Because of this the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea are swept away.

19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Matthew 22 36 Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? 37 Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 25 40 The King will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

... Environmental disasters could put 3.1 billion people into extreme poverty by 2050. While environmental threats such as climate change, deforestation, air and water pollution, and natural disasters affect everyone, they hurt poor countries and poor communities most... 2013 UN Human Development Report

1. Describe the Sabbath that is prescribed for the land. Does its purpose appear to be ecological, spiritual, or both? 2. Describe the year of Jubilee. What connection is suggested for between land ownership and land use? 3. What connection is suggested in this passage between obedience to God s commands and God s provision and protection for humanity? 4. What are the consequences for disobedience in this passage? Do you see those more as the natural consequences of sin, or specific punishments of God? 5. What is suggested at the end of the passage about the relationship between exile and the need for the land to enjoy a Sabbath? 6. Given that we allegedly live in a post-agricultural and post-industrial society with advanced fertilizers, are there principles for creation care that can be drawn from this passage?

1. Accelerating Population Growth More people means greater demand on resources. 2. Depletion of the World s Resources 3. Waste Disposal 4. Climate Change

Land Degradation Deforestation Species Extinction Water Degradation Global Toxification The Alteration of the Atmosphere Human and Cultural Degradation

http://www.susps.org/overview/numbers.html

http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp2008/fig_1.htm

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/world_footprint/

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/pdf/2008/general%20energy%20charts%2 0and%20Info/Energy%201%20-%20US%20Consumption%20v.%20GDP%201845-

http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/emissions/emis_morefigs/

http://nashvillecitypaper.com/files/cityp aper/imagecache/story_floated/images/ mountain-top-coal-mining.jpg http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal /007/04_tn.jpg

To be convinced of the sanctity of the world, and to be mindful of a human vocation to responsible membership in such a world, must always have been a burden. But it is a burden that falls with greatest weight on us humans of the industrial age who have been and are, by any measure, the humans most guilty of desecrating the world and of destroying creation. And we ought to be a little terrified to realize that, for the most part and at least for the time being, we are helplessly guilty. It seems as though industrial humanity has brought about phase two of original sin. We all are now complicit in the murder of creation.

We certainly do know how to apply better measures to our conduct and our work. We know how to do far better than we are doing. But we don t know how to extricate ourselves from our complicity very surely or very soon. How could we live without degrading our soils, slaughtering our forests, polluting our streams, poisoning the air and the rain? How could we live without the ozone hole and the hypoxic zones? How could we live without endangering species, including our own? How could we live without the war economy and the holocaust of the fossil fuels? To the offer of more abundant life, we have responded with choosing the economics of extinction.

If we take the Gospels seriously, we are left, in our dire predicament, facing an utterly humbling question: How must we live and work so as not to be estranged from God s presence in his work and in all his creatures? The answer, we may say, is given in Jesus teaching about love. But that answer raises another question that plunges us into the abyss of our ignorance, which is both human and peculiarly modern: How are we to make of that love an economic practice? That question calls for many answers, and we don t know most of them. It is a question that those humans who want to answer it will be living and working with for a long time -- if they are allowed a longtime. Meanwhile, may heaven guard us from those who think they already have the answers.

Learn more about the Natural World and Environmental Challenges Think Small What small changes can we make in our habits that cumulatively make a difference. Think Big How can we change major decisions on purchases to be more sustainable (next car, house, vacation, etc.) Simplify, Simplify, Simplify (More in 3 weeks)

Evangelical Environmental Network CreationCare.org Blessed Earth: Blessedearth.org Tearfund: Tearfund.org A Rocha: Arocha-usa.org

Please, I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment. Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world! But to be protectors, we also have to keep watch over ourselves!