Creation is a tremendous mystery. You can begin to understand what a wonderful mystery creation is when you get asked a question like ’Where did God come from?’ Now an obvious answer to that question is ’well, God didn’t come from anywhere, he has always been here.’ Then you read the opening words from Genesis:
’In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said ’Let there be light’ ...’
That leads to a straight forward follow-up question ’When God said ’Let there be light’ who was he talking to?’ Maybe it was angels working for him; or maybe he was talking to himself. So much mystery, so many questions in just those first few words of the Bible. And there are another 35 verses still to come.
I doubt if we’ll ever get to the heart of the great mystery that is creation. But I’ve always loved the story of creation, whatever you believe about it, whether you believe that the world was created literally as it is set out in Genesis, or whether you see Genesis as a story, a poem, doesn’t matter. There’s a pattern to it:
God said let it be
God made it
God gave it a name
God saw that it was good
The story is full of great images – bright lights in the sky, great waters of the deep, plants and trees, swimming creatures of the deep, swarming creatures of the air, wild animals and finally, people – male and female, made iin God’s image and likeness, whatever that means.
The whole creation – wonderful, mysterious, majestic, glorious – even down to the tiniest of animals and insects, birds and fish. It reminds me of a poem about a goldfish:
What is the point of a goldfish
What is it exactly to do
They’re not very fast
And don’t often last
And they don’t go well in a stew.
Would they like to shout ’boo’ to the postmen?
And bark at the sparrows outside
Or swallow the cat
thus becoming quite fat
and know what’s it’s like to be wide.
All creatures are special, you, me , goldfish, even the spider that appears in the bathroom sink and makes you shout with fear. The world God made in all its beauty and glory is special. But what have we done to it? What impact has humanity had on it? How has human greed and selfishness, human desire for growth and development had on the delicate balance of nature that God created.
Our theme for harvest this year is creation and its protection. And the windows around the church have been decorated by various groups to cover the days of creation. And the front sums up all the days of creation.
But why should we be bothered about the world God made? Why should we be bothered about the beauty and splendour of creation? Why should we be bothered about the environment and protecting the world? Why should we be bothered about the future of this world that God has given to us? Let me try to explain why.
Creation is given to us as a Scared Trust
We read in Genesis 1 ’God said ’Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’
As human beings God didn’t create us to be equals with him in creation, nor did he create us to be exploiters of creation. When God created human beings he made us to rule over creation. It’s important that we understand what God meant when he said ’rule’ over creation. We need to understand our place in creation. We’re not the same as the rest of creation, nor are we completely separate from it.
We often think that human beings are unique, having been formed by God, received his breath of life. But the same words are used for animal life as for human beings. What is true is that humans alone bear the image of God and therefore have the consequences. Humans were created not to exploit creation, not to have dominion over it in an autocratic sense but to have a responsibility, under God to preserve, sustain creation and enable it to continue and develop.
Creation belongs to God and has been given to us on sacred trust to care for. That relationship between God and us, that call to care, puts a responsibility on each of us to take the environment seriously.
Creations Reveals God
Secondly, the creation that God has given to us to care for reveals something of his glory and nature and character. We have thought in our series of services on Sunday mornings on the unveiling of God, of how God reveals himself to us. One of the ways we thought about was through creation. And one of our all age services focussed on the wonder of creation.
Every part of creation shouts aloud the goodness, majesty, splendour of God.
Simple leaf, look at the beauty and intricacy of it, the way it is put together, the way it works, the cycles of the seasons of death and new birth
take the wonderful beauty of a snowflake, the miniature way in which it reflects God’s patience and creative power and creative mind, the cycle of water from rain, to ground, to streams and rivers, to seas, to sky, to rain
take Snowdonia and its rugged beauty, the barrenness and splendour and power seen there
take the woods and the forests, walk through them and experience the splendour of the suns ray shining through and glinting of early dew, or the bark or leaves on the trees
look at the crops in the fields at harvest time, the corn waving in the breeze, the potatoes, green vegetables, fruit on laden trees ready to be picked and understand something of the goodness and bounty of God.
As we gaze on creation, as we look at every part of it, we experience the presence, the love, the beauty, the splendour, the glory of God. If God has chosen to reveal himself to us through creation then it puts a responsibility on us, on his people, to enable that beauty and splendour to continue.
Creation Abused
God gave us creation in sacred trust and through it we see glimpses of his glory and beauty. But, sadly, we have misused our responsibility, we have been misguided in the way in which we have treated the wonderful world we live in. We have abused the trust God has placed in us. Let me give you some facts and figures.
Every day between 1 and 3 species of plants or animals are lost for ever, they become extinct.
We throw away an enormous amount of plastic every day
we are putting more carbon dioxide into the air than ever with the fuels we burn. The over-deforesting of trees (which consume CO2 and turn it into oxygen) increases the problem. In the last 30 years over 25% of the earth’s forests have been cleared. Around 125 sqr miles of tropical rainforest is cleared every year.
Over the last 25 years every month has got warmer. If you take the average temperature for the last 25 whole years, 9 out of the last 10 have been warmer than average. In the 1980’s there were only 8 days in the whole decade where the temperature reached 30C. In the 1990’s there were 45 days; and already this decade that figure has been exceeded.
In the UK as a whole, on average there were 2 weeks of snow a year. Now it is 3 days.
Yes, people have different views on global warming and on CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases but, whatever you think about them there is no doubt that we, human beings are responsible for much of the changes taking place on the planet, in God’s creation.
I couldn’t believe it the other day, and thought it was a joke but I don’t think it is, I read about the most advanced dairy unit in Europe. The cows, 200 of them, are kept indoors all the time to avoid them catching any disease, so they don’t have to walk to get milked and are not disturbed by ramblers.
These cows are kept in a large barn which has a continuous scraper on the floor mucking them out all day long. They simply lift their feet as it passes. They have a place to go where there is hay then they are giving birth.
There are feeding troughs around the barn where they go when they want to eat. But they don;t go to any feeding trough. There are transponders on the neck of each cow which electronically activate the right feeding place for that cow.
When the cow feels it’s milking time the cow goes to the special stall where advanced computer technology is used. The transponder tells the computer which cow it is and it remembers the cow and sets up the machinery tailored to that particular cow. The machinery remembers the shape and size of the cows udders. Another piece of machinery attaches itself to the udders and starts to milk the cow.
Whilst being milked the cow is weighed and a special feed mix is given to the cow to keep it occupied. The computer works out how much milk the cow is producing and adjusts the feed. The idea is, that with the right information you can ensure maximum yield of milk per cow, so the need for fewer cows.
When finished the information is sent to a lab where the information is analysed and where they can tell if the cow hasn’t been eating much, or hasn’t been milked.
I was quite shocked by this. Now call me too traditional, reactionary, if you want but I thought cows were really meant to be in fields eating grass. I never thought that a cow could spend its whole life never feeling the sun. When we thank God for the harvest what are we thanking him for? When I thank God for the milk for my porridge does God say – how on earth can you thank me for milk that your drink that comes from a cow that has never eaten a blade of grass or seen sunlight?
When we thank God for our food does God say – how on earth can you thank me for chicken or turkey you eat that has spent its whole life, short as it is cooped up in crammed conditions with no natural light and being fed growth enhancing additions to its food?
I’m sure there comes a time when the harvest we produce are testimony to the ingenuity of humankind but are abhorent to God and take our care of creation too far.
What can we do to ensure harvests continue?
So, God made the world and gave it to us on sacred trust. God placed us on this earth to care for it. However we have messed things up, we have abused the trust God has placed in us. What can we do?
Well, we can work to restore creation, to replenish what God has given and we have ruined. You know that, if every person in the UK planted just 1 tree then millions of pounds of greenhouse gases would be removed each year.
A lot is talked about carbon footprint. It’s a measure of the impact of human activities on the environment in the amount of greenhouse gases produced in units of carbon dioxide. In order to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide given out we can
use green energy from renewable sources
turn off lights and other equipment when not in use
turn down the central heating by just 1 or 2 degrees
turn washing machine temperatures down
fill the kettle with just enough water for what we need
use energy saving light bulbs
and much more
Another thing we can do is to look at our own carbon footprint and try to reduce it or offset it. It’s easy to calculate your own carbon footprint. For Janet and myself the direct carbon footprint is 8.85 tonnes per year, which is good as the UK average is 12.03. If you add the indirect figure this rises for us to about 20 tonnes per year whilst the UK average is 24.
Schemes exist to offset the carbon footprint enabling people to pay money into schemes that will reduce the carbon dioxide by the amount of your carbon footprint. I looked and found that schemes included – reforestation of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, and for 8.85 tones it would cost around £64. For £73 could pay into clean energy fund. By looking at things like this we can help to restore and renew the goodness of God’s creation.
We can recycle of course and I, for one, think that the Council’s recycling scheme is great and should be expanded. We can also look at buying products made from recycled materials. They may cost on average 5% more to buy but they save between 60 and 100% of the environmental costs.
We can try to cut down on the amount of junk mail that comes through our doors by removing our names from mailing lists and joining the postal preference service.
Hope for the Future
So where is all this taking us? It all seems so negative. Is there any hope? I believe that there is and I believe that the hope comes from the example of the changing seasons and of Jesus and in our taking of our role as stewards of creation more seriously than we do now.
Each year the seasons role on one into the other. Each year seed is sown and crops are nurtured and they grow and are harvested. Each year, in spring we watch with great delight the buds start to grow on the trees, we gaze as summer comes and the buds turn into leaves and flowers and we see them in all their glory. In Autumn things seem to take a turn for the worse. In autumn the leaves turn those wonderful shades of red and brown and orange and yellow, they die, fall from the trees to the ground and are trampled underfoot. Then comes winter when all is barren, all is cold, all is dead. But then, as if miraculously, spring comes along again and the buds re-appear and the cycle continues. It is, in a sense, a resurrection.
And with Jesus, he was born, he lived and showed us how to live and respect the world. He died horribly on the cross. But on the 3rd day he rose again from the dead. What seemed dead was alive through the mighty power of God. What seemed hopeless was transformed. And the disciples, those who were with Jesus were transformed through this resurrection power. And creation can go through this same process. If we take our responsibility seriously to care for God’s creation, God’s creation not ours, the the world in which we live can be transformed from death to life, given new hope. What seems today like a never-ending decline, can see new life and new hope, a resurrection.
