Jesus Died for the Environment, Too

(These thoughts are heavily influenced by the books I've been reading lately, notably Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision by Randy Woodley, Practicing the King's Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save, and Give by Rhodes and Holt, and Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible by Ellen F. Davis, all of which I heartily recommend.)

As a Christian, I celebrate Easter as the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, thus conquering death and forgiving our sins. The exact theological mechanics of it are up for debate, but Christians everywhere agree on this fact: Jesus's return to life gives life to us all.

But is this new life just for us humans?

Everyone is familiar with the philosophy set forward by many Christians that this earth is just a cross to be borne, a reality to be endured until we're whisked away to the sweet by and by. Many Christians go as far as to say that focus on anything other than the "saving of people's souls" is lesser work that should be ignored. This often comes to light when people talk about "saving people instead of the environment," as if the planet that God gave us to inhabit is somehow separate from our very health, livelihood, and existence.

But the Bible tells a very different story. The first story in the Bible (whether taken literally or poetically, is a foundational narrative in understanding our place in the cosmos) includes God's first job for us as humans. God set people in the Garden of Eden to, according to various translations…

-work it and take care of it 

-tend it and watch over it

-work it and keep it

-take care of it and watch over it

-work it and guard it

-care for it and maintain it

-cultivate it and take care of it

-serve it and to keep it

Although there is a lot of nuance in the original Hebrew phrases, it's clear that this is a mandate to both cultivate and preserve. This isn't just a random rule thrown in at the last minute: this is a foundational duty of human beings— and failure to sustainably cultivate our environment is, quite plainly, a sin.

God is actively involved in his creation: feeding ravens, rock badgers, and lions; orchestrating the weather; clothing the grass of the field with flowers; playing with sea monsters in the deepest oceans; keeping track of the deaths of sparrows. God enters into a covenant with not just people, but animals (Genesis 9:8-11), and calls the nonhuman creation to serve as witnesses when making important announcements (e.g. Deuteronomy 30:19). 

In addition, when God was instructing his people what they must do to inherent the promised land, much of it was based on the care of the land itself. This included miscellaneous notes, such as not cutting down fruit trees and allowing oxen to nibble on grain while they were working, as well as larger patterns of life, such as giving farm animals a break from labor every Sabbath. The most radical of these rhythms were the Sabbath years: every seventh year, farmers were not allowed to plow, sow, reap, or harvest— everyone just shared in the bounty that naturally grew up from the perennial vines and trees, and from the leftovers of last year's crop. This was partly for the sake of the poor and the foreigner, but God also makes it clear that people are not the only target audience for this Sabbath:

"But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten. (Leviticus 25:4-7, emphasis mine)

In the fiftieth year, the Sabbath year was followed by yet another year of rest, the Jubilee. Although this focused mostly on redistributing wealth and setting prisoners free, it was yet another chance for the land to rest from human effort, and for all to enjoy its bounty. 

These Sabbath years are so important that they are cited as a key reason for punishment if they're ignored. In a chapter detailing the blessings of yielding to God's directions and the curses of ignoring it, God specifically tells the Israelites that they will be exiled if they ignore his commandments, and one of the purposes of exile is for the sake of the land itself: 

Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not receive during the Sabbaths when you lived in it. (Leviticus 26:34-35, emphasis mine)

Sometimes I think as westerners we just skim over verses like this, thinking that God is just using personification to get the point across. But I want us to stop and think for a moment: what if we took verses like this literally: that the land has the capability of enjoying Sabbaths? Can you imagine the land breathing a sigh of relief when the Israelites, who had been relentlessly plowing and harvesting without pause, were finally taken away? Understanding the land as "Mother Earth" is not some hippie-dippy modern white person thing: this is the way that many cultures throughout time and history (including, I would argue, the ancient Hebrews) have understood the land. The environment is not some separate, nonliving thing: it is an entity to be respected, listened to, and interacted with. This involves an intimate relationship with the land, and respect for it.

When we fail to take care of the earth, we fail one of our most basic mandates as humans.

When we pollute the water and strip-mine the mountains, when we open great chasms in the tar sands and burn the rainforests, when we cram thousands of God's animals into metal crates without sunlight, when we degrade the soil beyond repair with poor agricultural practices, when we poison the air and cause the extinction of species, when we refuse to change our habits and systems in the face of climate catastrophe— these are not just bad ideas. They are not just self-destructive practices. They are blatant sin against a living God who cares for the earth. They are flagrant refusals to obey our original mandate. 

As Christians, our first response in these cases should be repentance. And I mean in the original lament-and-cry-aloud-and-then-turn kind of repentance. We should confess our sins to God, and to other humans, and to the animals, and to the earth itself.

So how does this relate to Jesus?

When God came to earth as an incarnate man, he taught people to humbly learn from flowers and birds ("The lilies trust me— why can't you guys?"), and he spoke directly to the wind and the waves and the trees ("Be still," he said to the wind as if it understood him— not, "Let this wind stop blowing"). Most notably, when he was announcing the beginning of his earthly ministry, he introduced himself with a passage that refers to the Year of Jubilee, or "the Year of the Lord's Favor" (Luke 4:16-21). In this reference, he invokes all the significance of the tangible, here-and-now blessings that this special Sabbath year was created to bestow on people, animals, and the land.

Later in the New Testament, Paul famously says that, "creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God… We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." (Romans 8:19-23) We as humans are together with nature (creation) longing and hoping for Christ to make all things new. The animals, the birds, the earth itself, are groaning under the burden of sin and death. We are all in this together, and Jesus came— and will come again— to bring about not only the new heavens, but a new earth.

Jesus died and rose again to save us from our sins… and to redeem creation. To redeem culture. To redeem animals. To redeem the scars that we have inflicted on the earth. And when he went back to heaven, he gave us Christians the Holy Spirit so that we could continue to carry out his work on the earth. Saving souls? Yes. But giving the land rest, humbly listening to the lessons that God's creatures give us, caring for and maintaining the fertility and abundance of the earth? All of that, yes. It's not either/or. It's both/and.

This Easter, I hope that we Christians will pay attentions to the words of Job (12:7-10): 

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
    or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;

or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
    or let the fish in the sea inform you.

Which of all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?

In his hand is the life of every creature
    and the breath of all mankind.

~~~