Friends
The Bath Road gets very congested on a Sunday because of the Taplow car boot sale, and I drive up through Burnham and down via Cliveden if I am preaching at Cookham Rise. It is a magnificent route to take at this time of year when the trees are almost all the colours of the rainbow. It is hard to see such beauty and not believe that there is a creative hand at work behind it.
However, it is also true that without the creative hand of humanity cutting the road through the woodland, I would not have been able to witness God’s wonderful paint palate on Sunday; it would have been hidden away in impenetrable forest. God allows us to shape the world in which we live, to be a part of the creative process. We see this in the first account of Creation in Genesis 1:26-28 when God gives humankind dominion over animals and plants. It's important to understand that the Jewish word used here is a word that is usually translated as authority, and which is used to suggest authority like God’s – i.e. a loving care that wants what is best. The word used in Genesis 2 which is translated as “till” (as in “tilling the soil”) is more usually translated as “serve”. We were created with authority over the land, the plants and the animals to be exercised as loving service, not as grabbing everything that we could for our own satisfaction.
On days like today, I realise how blessed we are to be given such a task, to be asked to work alongside God for the good of all creation. Yet at this time in the history of the world, it feels at best a difficult job and at worst impossible that the planet can come out of the trajectory we are now on. Scientists tell us that we are hurtling towards increased numbers of extreme weather events, and changes in climate are causing constant migration for people who can no longer feed themselves on land that has kept them for generations. What does it mean I wonder, to be God’s gardeners in this environment, in this age?
It seems to me that when we read the Bible, it is full of stories of ordinary people. Some do extraordinary things but there are also ordinary people who disappear from the story. They presumably go on to do ordinary things. But if they do them well, they too must add to the joy of those around them and the glory of God. Let us seek through the ordinary living of our lives to take up our task to care for the earth, the plants and the animals with renewed energy, knowing that in so doing, we are following God’s earliest commands to us.
God bless,
Vicci