I was in college when someone came up with the idea of having an “Earth Day.” It was a call to pay more attention to creation than had been given since the beginning of the industrial age. As a result, rivers, streams, and the air we breathe are certainly much cleaner now than fifty years ago! Anyone who drove through the smog around Gary’s steel mills will agree. Once, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it actually caught on fire. Much has changed, and litter cleanup, bottle deposits, and recycling are now expected rather than hoped for. That came to mind as I review our recent trip to Alaska, where we were surrounded by the immensity of the natural beauty of God’s creation. So much that we saw looks as it did hundreds and thousands of years ago, untouched by civilization or what we call progress.
Genesis proclaims this came about when God created the heavens and the earth. We don’t know how God did it but everything around us is the creation of God. In reviewing God’s plan in Genesis for the harmony and relationships of his creation, there is much to remember. Sin is the brokenness that has disturbed what God has intended. Whether we speak of murder or pollution, we understand each is a misuse of God’s gifts and insensitivity to the love that has made all things be. As Christians, we understand Genesis is a reminder of God’s purpose and plan and begins the revelation of all God has done to get us back on track. In the miracle of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, God has not only remedied our guilt and earthly death but also shared a model of how we are to live with God and neighbor as objects of our respect, love, care, and servanthood. God’s plan is about loving relationships. It is about restoring creation.
Practical concern for our care of the earth initiated many of the ecological efforts and issues that continue today. But the first real Earth Day was when God created this planet. Creation was not a random, unfocused, arbitrary series of events but the orderly plan of a loving God. Too often, we allow selfishness to be more important than a faithful response to God and stewardship of his gifts. Too often, we act as if everything on earth is under our control rather than realizing it is a gift from the Creator. When we keep water clean to celebrate and protect a gift from God, it has more value than simply responding out of fear of what chemicals have been added. Rather than reacting only from self-interest, we should respond to any of God’s gifts by seeing them for what they really are. The proper response to any gift is to thankfully use it for its intended purpose. That both allows a gift to be useful but also honors the giver in a selfless way. There is a difference between doing something because the law demands it and doing so out of love for what God has given.
One Christmas my son saved until he could buy me a very special gift. It was a ceiling rack for pots and pans to hang over the kitchen island. My first reaction was to remark that our ceiling was too low for it to be practical. In doing so, I ignored his love and hurt his feelings when my first reaction should have been loving thanks. We could have then talked later about replacing the gift with a rack that would fit. But I had polluted the river of our love and had littered the kitchen with the insensitivity of my reaction. Over the years I have learned many lessons, but this was one of the toughest for me to forget. More embarrassing than that moment of ingratitude is to realize how easily and often we disrespect any of God’s gifts of creation. Whether taking them for granted or using them selfishly, we often fail to glorify God and the loving gifts he has created. Many native peoples who lived in America for centuries before our ancestors showed up were more attuned to that balance than many of the Christians who settled here. When Lakota Sioux, for instance, killed a buffalo, every part of the animal had a use to keep them alive. Nothing was wasted. And they thanked the Creator God for such a gift and felt they were honoring the gift in how it was used. Anyone who has to live off the land understands the miraculous gift it truly is.
We can easily become selfish and forget gifts are gifts. They are not rights. They are never deserved. Otherwise, we will not use the word gift. And what God has created, planting us in the middle of it, is certainly a great gift of his! That certainly changes our perspective and what it means to give God glory. One day Jesus spoke to the people who worried and sought more control over life. He told them the wealth and beauty of Solomon’s creations couldn’t hold a candle to the beauty of a simple lily of the field.
If we seek to live with love for God and neighbor, the need for laws fades away. The gift of creation is not for us to control and manipulate but for care for and steward as our act of worship and sharing. Water, air, land, animal, and people are not my rewards but God’s gifts for the good of his entire world. It is not my air to breathe, my water to drink, my life to live, but God’s life that fills my lungs. Life on the earth is a gift given in love and worthy of the love of the Giver. We are called to a unique approach to living, and the result is our opportunity to be a light to the rest of the world. Consider how different each day can become if we treat everything as the gift that it is, not because of social pressure but because God has been so good to create and share in the first place!