To Serve and Preserve: A matter of context.
Context matters. That’s one of those lessons we’re taught in high school English and literature classes. If you quote a sentence or phrase without considering the context in which it was used, then the intended meaning of that phrase can become skewed, altered, even reversed, or lost completely. Context is important. Always. The surrounding literary content or dialogue is necessary for understanding the meaning or intent of what is spoken or read. Even changing the position of a phrase within the correct context can sometimes alter- change the way we hear it, and what we think it means. Context is important. Always.
Context matters in scripture too. In my ethics class, my professor told us over and over and over again, that no portion of scripture can be interpreted on its own but must be understood within the context of the entirety of scripture as a congruent whole. So far as he was concerned, the Bible is not a collection of random books and stories bound together randomly, so that we can study them individually, apart from the whole. But rather, ethically, and theologically, every piece of scripture, whether a single verse or an entire book, must be interpreted as a part of the greater whole.
And yet…that’s not what we generally do, even in worship. We follow a lectionary that suggests small sections from several different parts of scripture, that someone has decided should be read and interpreted together. But each one is taken out of context. And sometimes that context matters a very great deal.
For instance, we occasionally read the creation story from genesis 1, and this year we will read a portion of the Genesis 2 creation story, but we never get that in full, and never get both creation stories at the same time. And there’s a problem with that. You see, the first creation story ends at verse 3 of Genesis 2, immediately followed by a second creation story. These stories arose at different times in Israel’s history. But when the book of Genesis was divided into chapters and verses, someone deliberately decided to make Genesis 1 bleed over into Genesis 2 so that these two creation stories would be read together, because they need to be read together to interpret them properly. I’m curious, how many of you knew there is a second creation story?
Genesis 1 is beautifully poetic, almost songlike, with the repetitive refrain “and there was evening, and there was morning” for each day. According to theologian William Brown, Genesis 1 is also a mathematical marvel. It’s surely the most familiar Biblical creation story. God creates by simply speaking, and the earth responds, doing all the work. The order it gives for the creation of the plants and animals is almost scientifically correct, which, of course, I find appealing. It states that humans are created in the image and likeness of God, and then gives us dominion over everything. In Genesis 1, God tells us to rule and subdue creation. Reading Genesis 1, out of context, might allow us to conclude that God created the world just for us, for human use, and gave us permission to dominate and abuse it, to rule or Lord over it like sovereign dictators and tyrants. And, given the condition of the planet today, and the rate at which plants and animals are going extinct, it seems that this is what we humans have done for the 2000 years since Jesus died and rose again.
But if we don’t stop at the end of Genesis 1, or even at Genesis 2 verse 3, but continue right on into the second, older creation story of Genesis 2, we get a quite different perspective. We see God as a worker of clay.
In Genesis 2, we learn that humans were formed from the dirt. In the Hebrew, the relationship between humankind and the soil is much more obvious. The root of the words is the same. God formed the adam from the adamah. In English, we might demonstrate this by saying that we are earthlings formed from the earth, or humans formed from the humus. Then God plants a garden in Eden and places the human into the garden to care for it. The NRSV translates the verbs in verse 15 as tend and till, but another, equally valid (and preferable) translation is “to serve and preserve it.” Compare this to rule and subdue. Next God creates the land animals, also from the soil, brings them to life, presumably in the very same way, by giving them the breath of life, and offers them to the human as helpers, partners to assist the human in serving and preserving creation. God invites the human to name them, to bond with them, to form a relationship, a partnership with each of them. These creatures are not creatures to subdue or to enslave, but fellow creatures, neighbors in the garden—the garden that is a metaphor for the whole earth and all its plant and animal inhabitants. This second creation story is trying to tell us that we are part of creation, not above it; that we are all connected and interdependent; that what is good for these creatures is good for us; that all of them have a niche to fill, and a role to play; that they are all as important as we are, and that our ability to survive and thrive is dependent on our ability to serve and preserve the garden and all that live in it.
Humans are not separate from creation, nor are we above creation. We are stewards, caretakers, servants given the sacred task of preserving the garden and providing for all its inhabitants.
Now consider the Gospel reading from John 1. Everything that was created was created through Jesus, through the entire Triune God. And what does Jesus teach us? Jesus tells us that to be the greatest of all requires that we be servants to all. It means loving our neighbors as much as we love ourselves, and even putting them first. That includes our fellow creatures and the plants in the garden. And in John 3:16-17, Jesus tells us that God so loved all of the cosmos, all of creation, so much that he sent Jesus to save it, all of it. Jesus told us to love others as he loves, to serve others as he served us.
Being made in the image of God doesn’t mean we are different or better than the rest. It doesn’t mean we are ontologically different or ontologically special. It doesn’t mean we somehow look like God. An image is a representation of something else. Being created in the image and likeness of God means that we are supposed to rule on God’s behalf, to serve and preserve creation as God’s representatives on earth, to manage and maintain the earth according to God’s will and desire. It means we have a special purpose—to serve and preserve the garden that is earth so that all creation may continue to thrive. We are the earth-keepers, made from the earth for the purpose of serving and preserving the earth, keeping it healthy and fertile and habitable.
But we failed because we didn’t interpret Genesis 1 in its full context. We never considered that the older creation story of Genesis 2 might shed light on Genesis 1, and serve as a corrective for a newer, more mathematical, and more poetic story. We didn’t consider how the Gospels might affect the way we interpret and understand the creation stories. Genesis 2 was set aside as a story about the origin of marriage and replaced with Genesis 1, because it gave us Lordship over the planet.
But now we know better. What will you do with this new understanding? Will you choose to embrace it, or discard it? Will you share it with others? Will you embrace the role of servant and protecter of the earth? Will you let it transform you and the way you interact with nature, and change the impact you have on this earth?