This sermon was preached for a Stewardship Preaching class
Setting from Revised Common Lectionary
New Years Day, ABC[1]
Ecclesiastes 3:1–13
Psalm 8:1-9
Revelation 21:1–6a
Matthew 25:31–46
Psalm 8
1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! [2]
Today is a new day, a new year and we are a called people by God, through Jesus. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is a new day, a new year for us in our forgiveness of our sins through God’s grace. If we take this seriously, then we too are to take seriously the call of God for us to care for all of creation in verse 6 today of our Psalm.
Humans are given dominion, control over the works of God’s hands. Dominion however, I believe can be so misunderstood and abused in our context today. Instead of dominion, one possibility for a translation of this would to be, having rule but I want us to consider for our context today the word, charge.
When you hear charge, hopefully you also hear, or at least now you hear, to be put in charge, charge of God’s creation. This is not our creation but God’s who calls us to be in charge of it. If we are to be in charge of God’s creation, then it is really not all about us, is it? Douglas Hall suggests that “being” in the Bible is dualistic in nature of “with-being, being-with” this allows us to step back……no, compels us to step back and consider how do our actions or inactions effect us in creation and how do these actions or inactions effect creation.[3]
I want to share with you a video today, in this narrated video, for those that know the difference between an Elk or a Deer by site, you may notice that the narrator uses the word deer when elks appear. This is simply because the narrator is British and the British word for elk is red deer or simply deer.
There are some that would suggest that the data that supports this video although accurate was looked at through lenses that allowed the authors to see this cause and effect. [5] They would argue that there are many factors as to what has caused the changes, not just the wolves.[6]
More to the point however is that humans removed the wolf causing the imbalance that existed for years at Yellowstone. Using reason, that God has given us, we take action, inaction; evaluate what we have been charged with. We are called to care for all that God created. This does not mean just sitting around and letting whatever happens, happen. We make decisions based upon our calling. Failure to do so can be catastrophic. We are after at the top of the food chain and our actions or inactions can have a direct impact upon the trophic cascade.
Ellen Davis speaks about food production in her book but the following quote from her book can be applied to the entire eco system.
…judgments and practices …bear directly on the health of the earth and living creatures, on the emotional, economic, and physical well-being of families and communities, and ultimately on their survival.[7]
From the New Century Version Bible, Psalm 8, verses 4-8
4 But why are people even important to you?
Why do you take care of human beings?
5 You made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You put them in charge of everything you made.
You put all things under their control:
7 all the sheep, the cattle,
and the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky,
the fish in the sea,
and everything that lives under water.
9 Lord our Lord,
your name is the most wonderful name in all the earth![8]
Freed from the effects of sin, in Jesus, we are left in charge of creation. Called and compelled to respond to God’s call to care for all that God has created. The Word/Logos/Son of the Father was and is part of creation. Thus the Son takes part in our life, the Son who is incarnate as Jesus Christ.
We received life from the Father and in the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are given new life in the Son, through the Father and Son’s actions towards us, taking charge they provided the necessary balance that, we as sinful humans cannot do on our own but need, in order that we would be reconciled. This action on the part of God is a continual act through Christ, not one that sits and lets happen what happens.
In the end, Jesus will come back and all creation will be made right. God ultimately has the impact upon the trophic cascade, in us for the sake of Jesus.
So, if we are compelled brothers and sisters, let us be compelled. Compelled to take charge of creation for what has been, what is and what will be done for us, all of creation, and for the sake of the one who died, who was buried but was raised, so that we may have enteral life.
[1] Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009).
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ps 8:1–9.
[3] Richard Bauckham, Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation, Sarum Theological Lectures (Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2010), 127–128.
[4] Sustainable Human, “How Wolves Change Rivers – YouTube,” February 13, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q&list=FLym9RQdUiPq5haO-3XY2nPQ.
[5] Richard Conniff, “Maybe Wolves Don’t Change Rivers, After All « Strange Behaviors,” March 10, 2014, http://strangebehaviors.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/maybe-wolves-dont-change-rivers-after-all/.
[6] Arthur D. Middleton et al., “Linking Anti-Predator Behaviour to Prey Demography Reveals Limited Risk Effects of an Actively Hunting Large Carnivore.,” Ecology Letters 16, no. 8 (August 2013): 1–9.
[7] Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, sec. 33.
[8] The Everyday Bible: New Century Version (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005), Ps 8:4–9.