CHAPTER 4: HUMAN HUMAN In responding to human suffering, Christians follow Jesus example and work to heal both spiritual and physical disease. Acknowledging that human suffering is often connected to an unhealthy habitat, Christians work to bring the good news of God s kingdom and the biblical hope of restoration to both people and the places in which they live. Desperately attempting to survive and overcome poverty in their harsh and barren environment, rural farmers unintentionally destroy their land. But there is hope. The community is learning to work with the design of God s Creation instead of against it. They recognize God s desire to restore and redeem all of Creation. Because of the community s new perspective and efforts to care for and protect the environment, both the land and the people experience healing. INTRODUCTION Within the environmental movement, the word wilderness is often associated with images of pristine forests, expansive mountain ranges, and untouched frontier. Accompanied by a sense of rugged individualism, this notion of wilderness emphasizes retreat from human civilization and movement towards adventure in the great outdoors. Usually these places are characterized by healthy ecosystems and abundant plant and animal life. This positive concept of wilderness motivates organizations to fight for legislation to preserve such places for biodiversity and recreational enjoyment. While it is important to protect these types of wilderness areas, it is also important to recognize that viewing nature as a place of escape evidences an economically privileged living situation. For much of 29
our planet s human population, wilderness is the harsh reality of daily struggle for survival in environmentally degraded places. The term desertification refers to the process by which land that was once fertile becomes dry, arid, and unproductive. As humans resort to acts like slash-and-burn agriculture and deforestation, deserts gradually replace forests and more human communities struggle to survive in degraded environments. The kinds of wildernesses that result from deforestation and desertification are not healthy, neither as ecological habitats nor as places that can sustain human life. While we may tend to think of wilderness as inspiring or romantic, we must keep in mind that, for many of our sisters and brothers, wilderness can be ominous. Impoverished people and poor land are fundamentally connected: environmental destruction results in unhealthy economies, and poverty forces communities to depend on unhealthy land practices like slash-and-burn agriculture. Indeed, it is a sad fact that the poorest of human communities often struggle to survive in the worst of environments. These wilderness areas are characterized by negative conditions famine, drought, overpopulation, poor soil quality, unsanitary water sources, deforestation and are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, mudslides and tropical storms. For these communities, the wilderness is not a place to escape to, but something to escape from, and yet it is also their habitat and home. Having previously examined the importance of healthy Human-Habitat relationship, a Christian response to human suffering must address the restoration of the habitat on which our most needy brothers and sisters depend. In examining this final stewardship relationship and our response to the suffering of fellow human beings, we will examine Christ s ministry of spiritual and physical healing in order to better understand what it means to bring the good news of God s kingdom to the poor and oppressed. In order to sustain ministry that brings hope to both humans and their habitats, we will end our study of stewardship relationships with the biblical vision of restored wilderness. CHRIST S MINISTRY OF HEALING Your faith has healed you. (Luke 8:48) 30
Jesus called his first disciples to leave their livelihoods and follow me. At the end of His ministry on Earth, Jesus gave these disciples authority to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). Christians refer to this command as the Great Commission. A disciple is simply one who follows. In identifying themselves as followers of Christ, Christians seek to model their lives after that of Jesus. In order to best respond to Christ s command to make disciples, we must understand the nature of Christ and his ministry. In describing the earthly work of Christ, we can use the word holism to refer to the belief that the spiritual and the physical are not separate, but interrelated. Jesus incarnation symbolizes this holism: Jesus is simultaneously fully spiritual as God and fully physical as human. Christ s ministry of healing was holistic in that it addressed the whole person, emphasizing both spiritual and physical healing. In Luke s gospel account, Jesus begins His ministry by identifying Himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah s prophecy concerning the One who brings good news: He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord s favor (4:18-19). These become a central theme of Jesus ministry, which focuses on healing the body as well as the soul, releasing those who believe in Him from both physical and spiritual bondage. Indeed, this is what Christians call the good news : Christ offers healing in all areas of life. As disciples of Christ, we respond to the Great Commission by working to bring this good news of healing to all people in all nations. Read Matthew 4:23-25. What activities are involved in Jesus ministry? Read Mark 2:1-12. What does Jesus tell the paralytic? How does the man experience Christ s holistic healing? Read Mark 1:32-34. Who is impacted by Christ s healing? THE LEAST OF THESE The poor go about their labor of foraging food. (Job 24:5) As He taught about God s kingdom and healed people of their physical and spiritual diseases, Jesus emphasized the importance of caring for the most vulnerable among our human communities. In Je- 31
sus words, our call as Christians is to care for the least of these (Matthew 25:40). Who are the least of these in our world today? Whom does Christ call us to serve in holistic healing? Just as in Jesus day, these are the poor and oppressed among our human brothers and sisters. Simply identifying our fellow humans who are most suffering is not enough, however. In order to offer the healing of Christ to these brothers and sisters, we must understand not just that they suffer, but why they suffer. When we identify the least of these among our human communities today, we discover that human suffering is tied to the suffering of Creation. If we take seriously Christ s model of proclaiming good news to the poor, we must acknowledge that economic poverty and impoverished land cannot be separated. We who live in economically prosperous nations have the ability to shield ourselves, to a great extent, from the consequences of environmental degradation, but impoverished communities have little such buffer. While we can choose where to buy our homes, many are forced to live in crowded slums where disease spreads through unsanitary water sources. While we can shop for our food from the stocked shelves of tidy grocery stores, many are forced to eat whatever they can salvage from the city dump. As our environment continues to suffer from deforestation, pollution, global warming, desertification, and more tropical storms, these communities continue to be the least of these not just because of their economic depravation, but also because of their vulnerability to poor habitat conditions. Engaging in activities that contribute to environmental healing, then, is part of a proper response to Christ s call to care for those of our brothers and sisters who suffer the most. Read Isaiah 61:1-2. To whom has Jesus, in fulfilling this prophesy, come to preach the good news? Read Matthew 25:34-46. In this passage, Jesus describes what it will be like when God comes to take His throne as King. How does a good steward serve others in a way that honors and pleases this King? What physical needs does Jesus mention? Read Job 24:1-12. What images of poverty does the writer draw on in this passage? How is poverty linked with the environment? What word is used to describe the wilderness in verse 5? As Christians, what is our responsibility to people 32
who suffer because of poor habitat conditions? WILDERNESS RESTORED I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. (Isaiah 41:18) In the Old Testament, the wilderness is usually a place of exile and isolation, and those traveling through the wilderness experience hunger and thirst. The biblical notion of wilderness is similar to the reality in which our poorest human communities currently struggle to survive. Thus, the biblical vision of restored wilderness offers hope for environmentally degraded habitats places that have become wastelands in the twenty-first century. Throughout the Bible, restoration of barren wilderness into fertile land parallels the restoration of spiritual relationship made possible through Christ. Just as all things, including the natural world, suffer as a result of human sin, all things are promised transformation as a result of Christ s restorative work. The ground of Eden is cursed in Genesis, but the tree of life appears again in Revelation, bearing fruit year-round. After wandering in the arid desert for forty years, the Israelites enter the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8). Furthermore, God promises to relieve the suffering of the poor and needy (Isaiah 41:17) by causing rivers to flow through dry land and by planting trees in the desert. We can hope for this healing of habitat because it is, as we learned from exploring the relationship between Creator and Creation, part of God s covenant with the work of His hands. Therefore, as Christians, we proclaim the good news of Christ s healing to all of Creation to creation s suffering creatures and to their suffering habitats. Engaging in actions that help to heal the land and reverse ecologically-destructive patterns like deforestation is part of proclaiming the good news of Christ. The hope that motivates such action is not simply wishful thinking about the future, but the confident expectation that God will fulfill the promises He has made to Creation. As the prophet Isaiah joyfully exclaims, How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation (52:7). Yes, we serve a good God who loves His Creation and has promised to heal all of its wounds. How lovely indeed are the feet of 33
those who bring this good news of healing to the mountains and to their inhabitants! Read Isaiah 41:17-20. What does the healthy land symbolize? How are the needs of people met by their habitats in these visions? Read Revelation 22:1-5. What elements of Creation are represented here in this final vision of God s kingdom? What role does Creation have in the work of healing? IN ACTION Identify suffering communities around you. What is contributing to their suffering? How can you respond to both their physical and spiritual suffering? Participate in a project together that is focused on meeting physical needs: build a house with Habitat for Humanity, or volunteer to serve meals at a local homeless shelter. Think about becoming a partner with Plant With Purpose and participating in our Sponsor a Village program! 34