The Earth Is Full of Your Creatures
Scripture: Psalm 104:1-4, 24-31
Rev. Nathan Hill
I was listening to a presentation from a theologian and researcher from South Africa who introduced two proverbs as ones that might define some disconnect we experience around how we treat our lives, our sense of balance, and even our care for Creation.
"My friends who love me grow on me like moss." This is an African proverb that refers to the medicinal quality of moss, how moss can grow on rocks in surprising ways. Moss is a sign of life. In other words, we attract what we need to survive and thrive.
"A rolling stone gathers no moss." This is more of a Western proverb, where the band Rolling Stones got their name. A rolling stone does not stay in one place for long - therefore, moss can never grow on it. There is no support network. There isn't much life-giving around it.
Which proverb captures how you think about how you care for yourself and how we are called to care for Creation?
I think most of us agree - yes, we are dependent on Creation around us - for the air we breathe, the water we drink, the fruit of the land, and frankly being rooted via the ongoing powering effects of gravity. How often do you give thanks for gravity? Anyone?
But there is this twisted idea that we human beings are somehow above or better than Creation. Our mission as human beings, in this way of thinking, is to dominate and conquer our surroundings - to dominate and manipulate our lives, our bodies, our world for maximize wealth and fame. To dominate the planet, to rip from it the resources we need to survive, even if that means destroying habitats or creatures for oil and profit and power.
My friend Dave Bell, from the Council on Indigenous Ministries, did some deep digging at this narrative of disconnectedness. In a long work of history that weaves in Greek philosophy, church theology, American history, Indigenous spirituality, and more, he goes all the way back to philosopher Aristotle, who ruminated on what makes human beings different than animals. He believed it was our soul, a soul that gave us the ability to reason. And later, theologians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, in Christian-centered philosophy, affirmed that all of Creation has souls - animals, even plants - but that humanity's souls, because we could reason and choose to draw close to God, are set above plants and animals. Our soul has more value. Our soul brings us closer to God's realm.
This idea had unintended or intended consequences, perhaps, because it did not take long for this reasoning to undergird the creation of slavery – because Europeans who wanted wealth and power wanted to justify why it was okay to enslave certain groups of human beings, so they reasoned that some human beings are closer to animals. Here is where racism enters human history. This frame of thinking feeds into practices that saw land, minerals, plants, animals as something to be exploited ruthlessly for a profit - because human beings were closer to God and more valued and given permission by God to go to the ends of the earth and spread Jesus' mission by all means necessary. So if we needed that gold, that marble, that oil to build cathedrals to God's glory, then it is justified.
Meanwhile, a persistent thread woven through the witness of scripture that affirms the beauty and sacredness of all Creation. In fact, I find precious little support that this fragile planet, cosmos, all living things, plants or animals, are less than… or only exist to be used and abused. All are gifts and reflections of a primordial love at the center of all existence, a love that blesses and creates and sustains, a love that provides what we need to survive and thrive in our diversity and uniqueness.
We hear it in the story of Genesis - not a scientific story - but a story of an Artist, an Author, a Weaver, a Playful Divine Playwright, who creates a diverse, beautiful, complex, stunning landscape that mesmerizes us whether we are people of faith or not.
One of my favorite sermons I heard years ago by a theologian and pastor who is trans reminds me that we should think beyond the binaries we first hear in the Creation story. Yes, God creates land and sea, separating the two. But God also creates the beautiful complexity of the in between - the sea shores, the mist, the fog, the lava, the thin atmosphere above, the top soil below. Even those in between spaces are so vital to a flourishing life.
In Psalm 104, we hear another Creation epic - God laying out all of existence on foundations full of love and praise and beauty, where every living thing has its place and purpose, where there is balance and joy and wonder all wrapped together.
The Psalmist though acknowledges that Creation has space for everything:
O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
The Psalmist affirms that the Earth is not full of only some of God's creatures - but all of God's creatures, creatures that reflect the fullness and beauty of the Creator.
All creatures, great and small – the old hymn sings.
From the annoying mosquito, which according to modern day facts is the most deadly creature on the face of the planet, to the mighty elephant, who can be gentle and grieves the death of its pack.
As the Psalmist goes on to say, all of us depend on a power beyond us. None of us choose to enter into, as Prince says, this thing called life. But all of us - from each breath, from each cycle of the seasons, from each drought to rainfall, from wildfires to quakes, from birth to death - we look to this force and mystery that we name as Creator.
Even Jesus, in the Gospel stories according to the early church, used the images of seasons, farming, soil and water, fish and wheat, lilies of the field to unravel the wondrous abundance and love of God for all people and all creatures.
Our invitation then is to challenge ourselves, our theology, our narratives to give up the subtle but twisted ways of thinking of ourselves and our society and our economic output as above Creation, as in opposition to Creation - but instead embrace our relationship and dependency with Creation for our flourishing and our survival.
Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian, argues that covenant always involves people, God, and land. When we are called to be in covenant with God, in relationship, in promise, in agreement, we are also called to tend to the land which is the gift that sustains us and our neighbors, a land that should also thrive in partnership and care.
Indigenous author Nick Estes, in his great book Our History is the Future, invites us to live into the spiritual ethic of the Lakota people, who see the wildlife and plant life around us kinfolk, as family. That invites us to use these blessed resources in a way that honors them, their life, their purpose to nourish us – but also forbids us from depleting them for profit and greed and cruelty alone.
In an age when AI data centers want to suck up gallons and gallons of waters so computers can do our thinking for us, what does it mean to be in covenant with a land that is thirsty?
When US government entities want to remove protections of the less than 50 whales specific to the Gulf of Mexico because oil extraction is considered a national security interest, what does it mean to see those whales as our neighbors, as our family, as our relatives?
I am not a hippy tree hugger - living things have a place to feed us, nourish us, and are given by God. But that also doesn't mean we get to exploit them. That also doesn't mean we ignore that they are part of this interconnected Creation that we are called to tend and caretake and know is our home too. When this planet thrives, we thrive too.
And more so, to know that we are valued, that our lives are worthy and gifts, that the earth is full of God's creatures – and none of us - and no living thing - should have to prove our worth, because our worth is intrinsic to who we are.
In our study group on Thursday, Jim Rosenquist reminded us of a famous poem by William Carlos Williams - because there is something about poetry that AI will never get and reminds us of the sacred of even the small things, even a few words. The Red Wheel Barrow goes:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
