Sermon

A Free Earth

September 22, 2024
Luke 4:16-21; Romans 8:20-21
Speaker:

Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made. (Romans 1:20)

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr quotes this passage from Romans 1 and then says – “The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The first Bible is the Bible of nature. One really wonders how we missed that… Nature can only be respected, enjoyed, and looked at with admiration and awe. Don’t dare put the second Bible (the written text) in the hands of people who have not sat lovingly at the feet of the first Bible. (creation) They will invariably manipulate, mangle, and murder the written text.”

That is quite an indictment by Richard Rohr. I try not to manipulate, mangle and murder the written text. And this worship series during the Season of Creation does confront me with the ways I don’t always prioritize the earth and creatures. I realize in a new way that I am a product of studying the second bible, the written text. I am trained to care for the humans, and the meaning we make of life. And as a human living in this capitalist country in the twentieth-first century, unfortunately there is still strong encouragement to use the earth and creation in whatever ways we can to build up ourselves, to build our wealth, to make life comfortable and efficient.

So let’s be counter-cultural and try to read the text today with creation in mind. What do we learn about freedom when we read the biblical text as if the land, creation, the earth, are characters in the story. Or what if the good news is not only for the people but for the earth as well? As we heard in Romans – in hope that the creation, herself, will be set free from her own spirit of slavery to decay and brought into glorious freedom, alongside the freedom of their human kin. Can we read the “second bible,” the written word, with the “first bible,” creation, in mind? What freedom do we find if we read not only with creation in mind but at the forefront?

The familiar passage from Luke 4 today seems a hard one to start with. How do we read through the lens of the land, and creation when there is no mention of land, of earth or creation in the passage? Jesus is not even standing on the land; he is in a building, in the synagogue. But we remember Luke’s birth narrative, with Jesus born amidst creation: his first crib an animal’s feed trough, his first visitors the very earthy shepherds. And Luke writes that Jesus arrives in the synagogue shortly after he has been in the wilderness, with creation, for forty days.

Often when we picture Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness we imagine him alone, with only his devilish thoughts to torment and tempt him. And that is what it sounds like in Luke. The writer of Luke includes details of the temptations, complete with the devil and Jesus quoting scripture to each other. But Mark’s gospel tells it differently. There are no details about the temptations, instead Mark (1:13) simply writes: (Jesus) was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. Perhaps Jesus was not so alone in the wilderness after all.

 So what happens if we read this passage from Luke remembering that Jesus just had an intense experience of living in, and living with, creation? As Jesus reads Isaiah in the synagogue, does he remember the rocks and sand, the trees and scrubby grasses, the lizards and coyotes and insects? Does Jesus bring that forty day experience with him to the synagogue? I wonder if Jesus has the earth and creation in mind as he reads from the scroll of Isaiah. (Isaiah 61:1-2)

The Spirit of our God is upon me:

because the Most High has anointed me

to bring Good News to those who are poor.

God has sent me to proclaim liberty

to those held captive,

recovery of sight to those who are blind,

and release to those in prison –

to proclaim the year of our God’s favor.

Jesus proclaims Good News to those who are poor. Reading through a lens of creation, might those who are poor include the land that has been robbed of nutrients by decades of monoculture? Could this include poor wild animals that barely have habitat anymore because we have built homes, roads and data centers over their woods and streams? Could those who are poor include the wetlands that are depleted and drained, because humans consider wetlands a wasteland? What Good News does God’s Spirit have for these who are poor?

Jesus continues reading: God has sent me to proclaim liberty to those held captive. How is creation held captive? Is the land held captive by giant agribusiness and greedy corporations extracting every last ounce of value? What about the creatures that are literally held captive in factory farms or in zoos? Or fish and whales who now live with disruptive sonar and giant wind turbines creating vibrations that reverberate through the ocean causing disorientation.

Expanding the text this way, to include freedom and Good News for creation is disconcerting. Is this really what Paul means when he writes creation, herself, will be set free from her own spirit of slavery to decay and brought into glorious freedom, alongside the freedom of their human kin.

 That seems in contradiction to what we read in Genesis, that God gives humans dominion. In Genesis 1 we read:

Then God said,

Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness,

and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea

and over the birds of the air and

over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth

and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

I don’t read anything of freedom here. Just a list of things that humans are to have dominion over. Humans are the ones in charge, God said so. (At this point we might want to remember Richard Rohr’s warning that if we do not lovingly sit at the feet of the first bible – creation – we will “manipulate, mangle and murder” the second bible, the written text.)

Questions begin to arise in my mind, do translators – or those who pay the translators – sometimes have an agenda? Why this dominion and power over language? Is it just the inadequacy of the English language? Or might there be other ways to translate the word we read as “dominion?” The Hebrew word used here is radah. It can be translated “dominion;” it can also be translated “root.”

Pastor Dawn Hutchings says that though radah has been translated as dominion for centuries, the Hebrew word, “radah” can also mean “a point high up on the root of a plant.” The radah is the “center of the plant’s strength.” The radah is connected to the plant, is part of the plant and anchors it against high winds and other dangers. What if humans are not to have dominion over the rest of creation but are to be the strong protective root of the rest of creation.

Hutchings rewrites the text this way:

“Let them (the humans) be radah of the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, the wild animals, and everything that crawls on the ground.” Let them be the centre of strength of the fish in the sea, the centre of strength of the birds of the air, the centre of strength for the cattle, the centre of strength for the wild animals, and the centre of strength of everything that crawls on the land.”

How might a reading like this this bring us into the Romans 8 vision of glorious freedom – creation, creatures and humans together?

But back to Luke and Isaiah. Jesus continues reading:

God has sent me to proclaim…

recovery of sight to those who are blind,

and release to those in prison.

The writer of Luke takes some liberties here with the Isaiah passage. Recovery of sight to the blind is not in Isaiah 61. Maybe Luke finds it an important addition between the two phrases those who are held captive and release to those in prison.

Reading with the earth in mind, we might ask, who are the ones who are blind? Who are the ones who cannot see that the earth is held captive, is under the “dominion” of the humans or even held by the “strong center root” of humans? When we refuse to see the needs of the earth, the brilliance of the way creation works, when we are blind to the ways that extraction and plunder cause poverty and extinction for all of creation, are we the ones who cannot see? Have we stopped reading the first bible?

For us good hearted and empathetic people, it is not unusual to feel imprisoned in the trap of compassion fatigue and overwhelm. The climate crisis is a trap so huge and so horrible with fires, famines, floods, extinctions, and extractions that there seems to be no way out of the deep pit. But my friends, returning to the first bible, sitting with creation, finding a connection, is a way toward freedom. Being in the presence of creation, breathing deep and slowing down enough to listen to what the first bible is saying is one way out of this prison of our own making.

If the first bible does not feel immediately available or accessible, if a written book is more your speed, I recommend reading or listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer read her bestselling book Braiding Sweetgrass. Dr Wall Kimmerer weaves indigenous wisdom with what we can learn from plants, along with the science she teaches her students. She points toward how connection and appreciation are freeing when we find ourselves caught in crisis and calamity. The urgency doesn’t dissipate when we start to find the connection, but we are no longer in total blindness. Recovery of sight to those who are blind and release from prison seem possible. We begin to see light and a way out of the prison of overwhelming fear when we lean into observation, appreciation and maybe even action.

Jesus finishes reading the Isaiah passage by proclaiming the year of God’s favor. Then, Rolling up the scroll, Jesus gives it back to the attendant and sits down. The eyes of all in the synagogue fix on him. Then he says to them, “Today in your hearing, this scripture passage is fulfilled.” And the people are amazed.

 I wonder how we might live into fulfilling this scripture passage, finding ways to bring Good News and freedom to the earth, to the water, to creation, to the creatures, to the humans.

I wonder how we might have such a connection to the first bible, creation, that it can become a reciprocal relationship. What might it look like to interact with the earth with such awareness, care and respect that we in turn receive blessing from creation? This would truly be life giving freedom.

May the Spirit of God empower us, embolden us and humble us as we live in hope that the creation, herself will be… brought into glorious freedom, alongside the freedom of their human kin.