Caring for Creation

FORWARD

In a beautiful and breathtaking vision, the person who was inspired to write Psalm 104 was given a panoramic view of God’s creative power in and through the awesomeness and diversity of life on earth, and of the creation of the earth itself.

The picture here is that everything originally derives from the wisdom and light of God: the skies, the planet, vegetation, animals and people. God made them all and they witness to God’s wisdom in their making. Even though the neighbouring people of Canaan thought that the sea was a demigod of chaotic power, this Psalm shows the Creator God ordering the chaos of the waters into life-giving springs and rivers. God provides food as well as the animating breath of life itself. The words “breath” and “spirit” are the same in Hebrew, meaning the breath of living creatures is not the same as the breath of God. This breath is still the giver of life to these creatures. God’s breath brings new creatures into being and God’s “face” is made to “renew the face of the ground.” The reference to plants yielding wine, are means of pleasure; sustenance and oil are means of God -given hospitality and joy. Even trees, which provide hospitality for birds and animals, witness to the bounty, abundance and providence of God in all that God has made and given. Even though, as Genesis describes it, the earth has experienced fallenness, nevertheless, the original intention of God and the power of God are yet visible in what God has made.

A key principle of the Psalm, especially in verse 35, is that no-one should harm or interfere with the operation of the world as God intends it. We are called to give, in thanksgiving and responsible stewardship, the whole of ourselves to God in life and so that we may care for the world we have been given. When a creature is not able to live out, or to realize, its God-given potential, then that creature is not able to witness fully to the glory of God. For this reason, a challenge to or the destruction of God’s design can threaten the delicate balance God has put in place and our own destiny. In Psalm 104, we are totally bound up with the existence and destiny of everything else; with springs and hills and trees and creeping things. We are called in Genesis (chapter 2:15) to serve and keep the Garden of Eden rather than to consume and dominate it. Our dominion in creation is a dominion of upholding, sustaining and redeeming care.

This vision is centred in Christ in a remarkable way in the New Testament, in Paul’s letter to the Colossians (chapter 1:15-20). Here Christ is God’s image, God’s wisdom, the first-born of all creation, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the creative Word, the principle in which all things are created and in which everything holds together.

For followers of Christ then, there is a special responsibility to become deeply involved in creation and the redemption of all things by beginning with people; with the salvation of the soul. From this flows the salvation of the whole earth as people with soul love and keep what God has given in all of life. Jesus said God’s Kingdom would come on this earth, and not another, as it is in heaven.

Dick Tripp, in this very comprehensive expression of the biblical mandate of caring for God’s creation has provided Christians with a detailed biblical approach to the growing crisis in our environment, its causes, the role of the Christian church and the challenge that lies before us all. What is needed today is the energy and morale for people at the flax roots to act decisively and together. Dick’s work provides the biblical and spiritual motivation we need to move forward at this critical time. The moral leadership the church can offer is very significant, not only because, as the environmental groups say, our very planet is at stake, but also because it is God’s earth, our home. We are accountable to the Creator of the heavens and the earth for our stewardship in this garden for which we have been called to care.

I am sure that readers of this well-researched and intelligently-argued resource will be given an irresistible biblical vision and mandate to redeem what is being despoiled.

David Moxon, Archbishop of the New Zealand Dioceses, Primate of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia