Exploration & Contemplation

My son Peter would be fifteen today, December 11, 2020. What would he be like at fifteen? What joy would he bring? What trouble and heartache? What strange thoughts would he be sharing? When Peter was ten, we had a long conversation about nothing. I mean literally about nothing. It was one of his favorite topics.

“How could there be nothing?” He would say. “If you’re thinking about nothing, then it isn’t nothing. And if you mean empty space, then there is something around it that isn’t empty. And if you mean no space then that just doesn’t make sense. So there can’t be nothing.”

It wasn’t the first time we had talked about nothing, so I said, “You’ve been thinking about nothing for a long time, haven’t you Peter?”

“Since I was born!” he insisted.

I just discovered the book Nothing: A Very Short Introduction. Obviously, I had to read it. The book, which is written by a particle physicist, dives right into the science of nothing. Is a vacuum (empty space) nothing? If all objects are removed from the universe, does space still exist? Would that space still be expanding? Expanding into what? If there was no space, time, or matter – say before the Big Bang – is that nothing, or were there some quantum principles at work that constitute something rather than nothing? These are exactly the kinds of questions Peter found so delightful. He was playful, but serious in discussing and expressing his opinions about them. When I think about nothing I think about Peter.

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction explores vacuums; gravitational, electric and magnetic fields; electromagnetic waves, including light; and the speed of light, which, amazingly, Einstein found to be a link between matter and energy (E=mc², where c² is the square of the speed of light). A book supposedly about nothing is filled with a lot of somethings. These concepts revived faint memories from an AP chemistry course I took 25 years ago, when I thought I would go into science. I still find scientific descriptions of how the universe works fascinating. Like Peter, contemplating nothing fills me with wonder at the something that exists. Contemplating nothing is really a way of contemplating the nature of reality. What is matter? What is energy? Where does it come from? Is the existence of a life-sustaining universe a cosmic jackpot, or is there a mind and a purpose behind it?

Like Peter, the author of the book, Frank Close, thought about nothing from the time he was a child. “I discovered then what philosophers have known throughout the ages: it is very hard to think about the void.” Nothing is difficult to imagine. Strangely enough, the something that exists is also difficult to imagine. Scientists have constructed models to help us visualize things like atoms, but as Close says, “The fundamental structure of the atom is beyond real imagination, and its emptiness is profound.” The individual pieces of the atom (protons, electrons, and neutrons) surprise us even further: “The electron, which we think of as a particle, is really a quantum bundle of an ‘electron-field’ which acts with wave-like properties.” So imagine a single quantum bundle of an electron-field waving around a bundle of quarks at a rate of a million billion times per second. That is hydrogen, the simplest atomic element. The nature of the world is at once profoundly simple and complex. We can understand it and yet in the end it is completely incomprehensible.

Conversations with Peter could switch gears quickly. Let me do that here. The book of Revelation records a scene of worship in heaven. God is worshiped simply because the universe exists: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Revelation 4:11). Surely John was not thinking of protons, photons, and electromagnetic fields, some of the invisible things that make up the visible world. No one knew these things existed. Now we do, and many people have the idea that the science that revealed them makes wonder and worship unnecessary, irrelevant, or foolish. I don’t find that to be the case at all. The more science reveals the simplicity and complexity of things, the more I feel inclined to worship. Peter was endlessly curious about the world. His wonder and delight in the world were a form of worship of God, by whose will all things were created and have their being. In the world we find order and chaos, simplicity and complexity, power and beauty, predictability and surprises, comprehensibility and incomprehensibility – what must its Creator be like? What sort of posture do we take towards the world and the one who upholds it by his will?

Let’s add one more layer of wonder to this picture of the world. According to the witness of the book of Revelation and the rest of the New Testament, the one by whom all things were created, the Son, entered into that which was created. He became incarnate. This is marvel of Christmas. When John saw him, “I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:17-18). He entered the world in order to die for the world. The world exists because God wills it to exist. Jesus who died continues to exist. In fact the marks of his suffering and death are still visible on his glorified body.

Jesus told John in his overwhelming state of death-like fear, “Do not be afraid.” Through Peter’s illness and for many long months afterwards, I was overwhelmed with fears. I was never concerned about Peter’s well-being, though. He is with the First and the Last, the Living One, who was dead but lives forever and ever.

Science peers into the atom and finds things we cannot imagine. It looks outwards and finds distances we cannot comprehend. It looks backwards to a beginning so ancient and so inexplicable we are left in awe. Science suggests other dimensions that are beyond our ability to observe and measure. How many layers, how many fields of reality are there? Peter loved to ponder such things. Pondering them leaves us in wonder and worship. Our wonder and worship will endure past death, because the one through whom all things were created is the one through whom they are created anew.

On Sunday we celebrated a baptism. Jerryson rejected Christianity when he was younger. He wasn’t impressed with what he saw. As he dug into the history of Africa, he didn’t see how the Christian faith could fit him, a black man.

But I don’ t need to tell you the story. Jerryson wrote out his story himself. You can read it on the blog of his soon-to-be-wife. It is one more illustration of the magnificent grace of God. What a wonderful job I have as a pastor to watch these stories of grace from the front row.

A thread on reddit asks the What is the Dumbest Thing You’ve Ever Done? The responses are entertaining. They also make you cringe. Here is one response:

You know those old cigarette lighters in cars? Nobody in my immediate family smokes, and when I was younger, I pressed it in and it popped out. I pulled it out to inspect – it was just grey coils – it didn’t look red hot or anything. So I tested that sucker the best way I knew how. I stuck it to my tongue.

That reminded me of the time I did the same stupid thing, except I only tested it on my finger, not my tongue. Yep, it was hot!

There are many other stupid things I have done, but one stands out. A number of years ago our youth ministry team did a little skit for our youth group. It had something to do with a heavy metal band, so someone brought some props, including handcuffs. After the youth group I slapped one of the handcuffs onto my left wrist. Why? Sheer stupidity. Only after it was secure on my wrist did I think about how to undo the handcuff. “Hey Terry, where is the key to this?” I asked.

“Oh,” Terry said. “I think that’s the one that I don’t have a key for.”

“Come on Terry. Where is the key?” I said.

“Really,” Terry said. “I don’t have a key.” Then my stupidity hit me. How long was I going to be stuck with handcuffs dangling from my left wrist? Could I cut it off with a hacksaw at home? When the whole youth group became aware of my stupidity, one of the teenagers came to take a look. For some reason he knew how to pick locks. He asked for a paper clip. I got one from my office and within seconds I was released from my stupidity.

We have all done stupid things. According to Jesus, the dumbest thing a person could ever do is listen to his teachings, but not practice them.

I did another thing on Sunday when I was preaching on this very topic; I printed my sermon notes double-sided. I decided that it didn’t matter. I was wrong. I got myself and the man running the sermon slides both confused. I probably got the congregation confused as I jumped around. As a pastor-teacher I have a responsibility to make things as clear as possible. So I am writing to set things straight.

The passage is Matthew 7:24-29, where Jesus says that the person who hears his words and puts them into practice is like a wise person who builds their house on the rock. As the son of a carpenter, Jesus knew something about building houses. But how to build was so obvious that Jesus could use it as an example of stupidity. It’s like slapping handcuffs on your own wrist, or testing how hot something is by touching it to your tongue. The person who hears Jesus’ teachings and does not practice them is such a fool. A house build on sand will not stand up to the storm.

Every expert gives both positive instruction and negative warnings. Doctor, personal trainer, mountaineering guide, flight instructor – all of them will tell you what to do and what NOT to do. The one who ignores their warnings is stupid. The consequences are disastrous. Jesus the master teacher also gives positive instructions and negative warnings. But he goes farther than any other. He says the consequences are eternal. The fall of the house built on sand is a picture of final, total disaster.

The famous Sermon on the Mount ends with three warnings. The first is a warning not to enter the wide gate that leads to destruction, but the narrow gate that leads to life. Jesus then warns that some will say to him “Lord, Lord,” but he will tell them, “I never knew you. Away from me.” In the context he is talking about false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing. (If you think about some of the awful things done in the name of God you will agree that these wolves in disguise must be called to account in the end). The last warning is the one about putting his teachings into practice.

These warnings lead to the question, who does Jesus think he is? Who is he that his teachings are so important? Who is he to determine a person’s eternal fate? C.S. Lewis, among others, has said there are only three possible responses to Jesus: he is either Lord, liar, or lunatic. The one response that does not work is to say that Jesus was a “great moral teacher.” A great moral teacher would not make such claims about himself and his teachings. A great moral teacher, even a prophet, would not put himself in the place of judge. God alone is judge. But Jesus did make these claims, so he is either crazy, or an evil liar, or he is in fact Lord and God. If Jesus is God in human flesh, then his teachings would be as important as he said. If he is not God in human flesh, he is no great moral teacher.

There is one more option, however, that allows people to say that Jesus was a great moral teacher without accepting him as Lord. Maybe Jesus wasn’t a liar or a lunatic, and maybe he never claimed to be Lord. Maybe all of that was a later invention. Maybe Jesus taught good moral teachings and years later people added things about him being Lord.

Let’s stop to consider this with a bit of logic. If people were going to make up things about Jesus being Lord and God, why would they combine it with him being crucified? And why would fiercely monotheistic Jews claim that a man was also God? This doesn’t really make sense.

Wasn’t the Bible changed over time, and these things were just gradually added? The problem with that is there are no earlier times when people were not saying that Jesus is Lord. They believed Jesus was Lord from the beginning. We have very early writings that show this. And we have many, many copies of the New Testament documents, showing that the New Testament was not changed substantially over time. It was instead carefully preserved. I have large books on my shelves that go into these questions in great detail.

The use of logic and historical evidence have helped many people come to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. But there are deeper things going on in the human heart. Jesus’ warning about the house built on rock or sand points to an inner moral struggle that we all experience. We recognize that Jesus’ teachings are good and true. Is it better not to murder? Of course. Is it even better to deal with our anger and seek reconciliation? Yes. Even thieves know that stealing is wrong. If someone steals from them they are outraged. Is it good and right to love our neighbor as ourselves? We certainly want people to love us. Everyone recognizes the truth of Jesus’ teachings. But not everyone practices them. That is what Jesus warns us about. We hear the teachings of Jesus but we do not do them.

There are many non-Christians who would like to have the teachings of Jesus without the Lordship of Jesus. That makes humanism. There are also many Christians who would like to have the Lordship of Jesus without the teachings of Jesus. That makes for shallow Christianity, cheap faith. You cannot have the teachings without the teacher, the king without the kingdom. If Jesus’ teachings are good, then he is Lord. If Jesus is Lord, then his teachings are good and we must put them into practice.

What if we try to practice the teachings of Jesus but fail? Our failures drive us back to the first words of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Lord whose teachings come with the demand of obedience is the same Lord who blesses those who have nothing. But many people who call Jesus Lord don’t even try to follow his teachings. Jesus warns us, that is the stupidest thing you can possibly do. If we call Jesus Lord, then we must put his teachings into practice. His end goal is to make us worthy of the kingdom of God. Jesus’ teachings show us how to live a life of love, which is the nature of God. Building a life on this foundation is the smartest thing you could ever do.

This is the house where Ulrich Zwingli was born, just a few minutes away from where we stayed in northeast Switzerland. Who was Zwingli?

Zwingli was a man of the mountains. He translated the well-known Psalm 23, “In schone Alp weidert Er mich,” (In the beautiful Alps he tends me.) He had a tremendous view of the Alps from his birthplace, plus the town where he first served as a priest.

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Zwingli was an intellectual. Unlike many priests of his day, he was highly educated. He studied philosophy. He mastered languages. He read. He wrote.

Zwingli was a man of the Word. When the Dutch humanist scholar Erasmus published a Greek New Testament, Zwingli ate it up. Some say he memorized all of the Apostle Paul’s letters in the original Greek. When he became priest in Zurich, he broke from simply saying the words of the mass each week and began preaching straight through books of the Bible. The power of the Word, he said, was as unstoppable as the Rhine river. You can dam it for a time, but eventually it will have its way.

Zwingli was a reformer. In Germany, Martin Luther’s agonizing personal struggle led him to attempt to reform the Catholic church and its teachings. Zwingli came to similar views through his study of the Bible. And he came to those views before he ever heard of Luther, who was active at the same time. Zwingli led reforms of the church’s teaching and worship. He chose to marry, insisting that celibacy was not a requirement for serving Christ’s church.

Zwingli was a man of conviction. In his early days as a priest, he accompanied Swiss mercenaries as they fought in Italy. He watched them looting when they won. On another occasion, he watched them suffer defeat. He became convinced that “selling blood for gold” was corrupting the country. He began preaching against the war industry. It cost him his job as priest in the town of Glarus.

Zwingli was a man of compassion. After Glarus, Zwingli became a priest in the leading church of Zurich. A plague killed one-third of the city’s population. Zwingli chose to stay and continue ministering. He himself became sick and nearly died.

I find plenty to inspire me in our day.

We were just in Switzerland. It’s not fair. Some people get to live there. The mountains! The lakes! The supernatural green of the hillsides. It would be dangerous for me to live there. If I couldn’t be out on the trails I would be staring out the window. All day.

It’s also not fair that some people get to live in Seattle, where I grew up. The Puget Sound on one side, beyond that the Olympic mountains. Now turn around and look across Lake Washington to the Cascade mountains beyond. The giant Mount Rainier reigns above all. My high school cross country team’s home course was at a state park, where trails thread down forested, ferny canyons to the shore of Lake Washington. Who deserves to grow up among such beauty?

Denise Evertov, who moved to Western Washingtom, wrote a poem about the place. Here is a piece of it:

Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain’s vast presence, seen or unseen.

It’s true, the mountains surrounding Seattle are often unseen, blocked from view by gray clouds. When Mt. Rainier makes an appearance people say, “The mountain is out.” The price of that beauty is the gray weather. It’s worth it. The price of Switzerland’s beauty is literally the price of everything. We never ate out and we never rode a cable car. The price of the train to the “Top of Europe” (Lauterbrunnen to Jungfraujoch) would have cost around $230 per person. I looked it up. We spent $10 for parking and hiked for free, though not as high up as the train goes.

I enjoy Belgium, but I do get homesick for mountains. So far, I have been to the mountains once a year, either to the west coast of the US or the Alps. They are different experiences, but both are indisputably beautiful.

Not everyone loves the mountains. I mentioned to an older man in Belgium that I missed the mountains and he looked confused. “Why would anyone want mountains?” he said. Like almost all Flemings, he loves Flanders, which is flat as a pancake (which are more like crepes here). I think most people feel that the place they grew up is the most beautiful. I know plenty of beach lovers. I enjoy the beach for a bit, but I end up bored after a while. People get homesick for the beach, the plains, the forest, whichever place imprinted its beauty upon them.

I sent some pictures of Switzerland to my family. My mom responded, “Preview of heaven?” She said the photos made her think of Peter. He was an adventurous, mountain-loving boy. I wrote to my family that in terms of beauty, I think of heaven as basically looking like Switzerland. “So Peter’s not missing out,” my dad said. “But I’m missing him.” After a ten minute rainstorm at the breathtaking Walensee, I swam out and admired the deep blue water, goggled at the giant teeth of the peaks towering above in shreds of cloud, and those green hillsides shining in the sun once again. Later I wept, thinking how Peter would have been out there with me, dreaming with me about climbing those peaks. His joy would have multiplied my joy.

When you feel that homesickness, that longing for something, somewhere, someone, what is it really about? Heaven is described as a place, a people, and the presence of God. Certainly the new heavens and new earth will be beautiful. There will be fullness of love between all God’s people. And God himself will be there, the center of all things.

I’m homesick for heaven.

Oh, we also did this. Switzerland has engineered everything possible into its mountains, including this “rodelbahn,” or mountain roller coaster.

Finally, a good song that has spoken to me recently. Listen well to the lyrics. It fits well with the theme of this post. “Mine are keys to Zion city!”

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Moses and Janien are moving to one of the poorest parts of Malawi. The average income is less than five cents a day. When Moses, who is from Malawi, was arranging housing there by phone recently, the owner offered some advice, “Why don’t you stay in Europe a year longer? The situation here is not good. The economy, politics, coronavirus.”

Moses replied, “What if God is calling me to be a part of the solution?”

Back in Delhi, California, a police officer was once at my home in the middle of the night. I mentioned this in my sermon on Sunday, saying that the story behind it was for another time. (Which reminds me of the time the fire department was at my home in the middle of the night, but that is yet another story). I will share that awful story behind the police coming to my home, after first sharing what the police officer told me about our town. He was a former member of the church that had sent me to Delhi. As a police officer, he knew all about the town’s problems with drugs, gangs, crime, and poverty. Now standing in my living room, the officer said, “If someone handed me the keys to a brand new house in Delhi, I would turn around and walk away. I would never live here.” I told the police officer, “That’s why I’m here.” I was reminded of this by Moses saying “What if God is calling me to be a part of the solution?”

This way of thinking makes no sense to many people. You move to the place that has the most jobs, that has the most advanced health care, the best education. That is what draws many people to the countries of Europe and North America. For good reason, their home countries are struggling. So people in Malawi don’t understand why a man from Malawi and a woman from the Netherlands would move from Europe to the poorest part of one of the poorest countries. That looks like a downward trajectory. Don’t they know about the poverty, the lack of health care, the struggling education system, plus the current problems with COVID and politics? Of course. “But what if God is calling me to be a part of the solution?”

This way of thinking makes perfect sense to someone who knows Jesus Christ, because this is literally Jesus Christ’s way of thinking. We are told to “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,” then we are told what his way of thinking was. Jesus, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:6-8). As God, emptied himself to become human. As human, Jesus humbled himself to become a servant, to suffer, and die. “He became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” Jesus chose a downward trajectory. All the way to death on a cross.

To be a Christian is to share the mind of Christ. You may not be called to go and serve the people of Malawi in person. You may not be called to go anywhere. But you are called to love and serve. You are called to put others above yourself, to sacrifice yourself for others. You are called to give up your life, as Jesus himself said to those who wanted to follow him. This is the way God has loved you. This is what it looks like to follow the model of Christ our Lord: to give up our lives, and so receive them back eternally. Other immigrants to Europe support projects taking care of orphans, drilling wells, or providing clothing back in their home countries. If they have found advantages from their life in Europe, they realize the importance of using that advantage for the sake of others.

Jesus’ downward trajectory didn’t end in tragedy. The tragedy was turned into the greatest triumph. Because of his humility, he was “exalted to the highest place and given the name above all names.” The downward trajectory was upward trajectory. There is hope and joy in our sacrifice of love.

So why were the police at my house in the middle of the night? I got a call around midnight from a man saying he needed to talk. “I think I just killed my son,” he said. “Okay,” I said. “Meet me at my office.” He said he knew where it was. It was a small town. He had my phone number, which was posted on the office door.

The call was shocking, of course. I didn’t think it was for real, but it was possible. I called the police and explained. “You know what happened a few weeks ago,’ they said. “It could be for real.” What had happened a few weeks earlier was that a man beat his two-year-old son to death in a field by the side of the road. A sheriff’s helicopter dropped a deputy nearby. He rushed toward the man with his gun drawn. The father raised his middle finger and continued kicking the boy. The officer fired one shot and it was over. Father and son were both dead. The town was horrified. He must have been on drugs, everyone thought. That would help explain such an incomprehensible act of evil. The result of the toxicology report was even more horrifying: there was no trace of drugs. What was wrong with this man then? A witness said the father spoke about demons in his son. There were no drugs. There may have been demons, but not in the boy.

So when I got a call from a man saying that he thought he had killed his son and wanted to talk, the police took it seriously. They sent an unmarked car to park near my office. Either it was for real, or someone was just messing with the pastor, or someone wanted to harm me. While I drove over to my office, I said, “God, I am willing to give my life for Delhi.” Thankfully, I didn’t have to. It was just someone messing with the pastor. It wasn’t the only time. Sometimes it was more physical than a phone call.

Back at our house, the police officer took a report. “What time did you get the two phone calls?” he asked. They had called again a little later, with a slightly different story. I got out my phone to check. The record of the calls had been on my phone before, but now the calls were simply gone. “They can’t get in and change your phone,” the officer said. I don’t know how it happened, but I swear it’s true.

The police officer dealt with situations everyday that were much more real than this one. Maybe he was involved in the incident of a few weeks earlier. You get an idea of why he said he would never live in Delhi. There are so many places in the world facing worse problems than all of this. “But what if God is calling me to be part of the solution?” Certainly, he is calling all of us to share the mindset of Jesus Christ. He is calling Moses and Janien to live alongside those who live on less than five cents a day.

You can find more information about One Hope Malawi here (in Dutch, though Moses speaks fluent English. Check back soon for an English version).

You can watch the worship service where we commissioned Moses and Janien for their work here.

You can find more about the mindset of Jesus Christ here.

At the beginning of the coronacrisis, we heard terrifying stories of death and despair. At the same time, we heard encouraging stories of a recovering planet. Wildlife wandered into silent cities. Dolphins returned to the canals of Venice. Actually, they didn’t. But the water of the famous canals was cleaner. Satellite readings showed air pollution disappearing from the area around Wuhan, China.

Photos showed clear skies above Kathmandu, Los Angeles, and other cities usually socked in with smog. (True story: the smog was so thick that I lived in Los Angeles for three weeks before I realized there were mountains a few miles from our apartment). “Coronavirus hit the world’s reset button,” people said. “The planet can breathe again.” Some said, “Humans are the virus.”

Coronavirus lockdowns around the world made our environmental questions more pressing. It also made them more promising. Seeing how air and water quality can improve simply by pausing our economy and transportation, can we reverse deforestation, desertification, pollution, climate change? From a Christian perspective, what impact should human beings have on the planet? What role and responsibility do those with the Spirit of Christ have towards the planet? The Bible actually has quite a bit to say about the issue, but applying the Bible’s framework today takes hard work and wisdom, because we live in a more complex and complicated world.

We start in an unexpected place, the book of the prophet Hosea, but Hosea will quickly take us to God’s commandments, his covenant, and his creation. I was reading through Hosea pre-corona and this verse struck me: “the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea are swept away” (Hosea 4:3). Hosea wrote about a land polluted by sin. How perfectly it apples to a planet polluted by plastic garbage and greenhouse gases.

Hosea famously married an unfaithful woman, as an illustration of God’s relationship with his unfaithful people. In the fourth chapter, the prophet speaks for God, who brings a case against those “who live in the land.” Through the prophet, God says, “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying, and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.” God’s charges against his people refer back to the ten commandments (found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). The lack of faithfulness, love, and acknowledgement of God reminds us of the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The next series of charges brought through Hosea refers specifically to four of the commandments related to our treatment of others: bearing false witness (lying), murder, stealing, and adultery. Sounds like a terrible place to live. Those commandments were given for our own good.

As a result of the failure of God’s people to live out God’s commands, “the land dries up, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea are swept away.” The inhabitants of the land do not acknowledge the God of the land, therefore the land and all its human and animal inhabitants suffer. God had promised to bless the land that was a gift to the people. The people were to bless the land for God by living out God’s way of life.

The gift of the promised land and the gift of the law were a part of God’s covenant, an all-inclusive way of life centered on God. God spoke to Moses, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God…And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob” (Exodus 6:7-8). Those given the land were also given a mission. “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6).

The covenant gave direction on worship and holiness, which was to be lived out in “the land the Lord your God is giving you,” as it says in commandment about honoring father and mother (Exodus 20:15). Most people today would define holiness in terms of personal morality, but it is bigger than that. Holiness does include one’s self, but it also includes one’s neighbor. The laws and the prophets constantly emphasize holiness in the social realm. We are to do justice, care for the poor, welcome the foreigner, and so on.

Holiness didn’t just include the human inhabitants of the land; it included the animals as well. The weekly day of sabbath rest specifically included animals (Exodus 20:10).

Sabbath rest was even extended to the land. “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left” (Exodus 23:10-11). The practice of the sabbath year was intended to benefit the land, the poor, and the wild animals – three things that are still easy to overlook. The land never did belong to the people. It belonged to God. They were to live in it and treat it the way God wanted. The presence of God’s people should have a positive impact on the land and all its inhabitants. That idea did not begin with the covenant and commandments; it began with the creation of the world.

Careful readers of Hosea notice that he refers not only to the ten commandments but to creation: “The beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea” is an echo of Genesis 1, where these creatures are each put into their spheres of land, sky, and water. And humans, last of all, are given authority to reign over them as the image of God in the earth. “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,” God says (Genesis 1:26). A lovely line from my favorite communion liturgy sums up the responsibility and authority given to humans, “You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care so that, in obedience to you, our creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures.” Rule and serve. That’s what it means to reign with and for God on the earth.

The whole Bible assumes this role of human beings. Where human beings are present, the planet should thrive. Our presence should be a blessing to the whole creation. The first humans were placed in a garden. They were to be fruitful and multiply, extending the garden out into the whole earth. The Biblical writers are also all aware that something has gone wrong with the image-of-God rule of human beings on the earth. Genesis 3 says that instead of keeping their trust in God and his goodness, the first humans wanted to become like God. They tried to cross the infinite gap between created, finite beings and uncreated, infinite God. An outrageous thing to do, yet we all do it. We refuse to trust the good Creator and choose instead to trust in ourselves. A sense of nakedness and shame entered them immediately and they hid from God. They were expelled from the garden. They were to fill the earth, but now the woman’s pregnancy and labor would be more difficult and painful. They were to care for the earth, but now the man’s labor was made wearisome with thorns and thistles. Worst of all, they would die.

We still sense our role and responsibility as human beings. And we still sense our failure. The people of Israel were supposed to give the world an illustration of God’s kingdom at work, blessing the poor, the animals, and the land. One piece of American history illustrates how things have often gone on the planet instead.

Below is a map showing the interior plains of North America. This enormous grassland once held up to 60 million bison. One observer claimed that in the mid-1800s it took five days for one herd to pass by a spot of land.

Native Americans had hunted bison, of course, and ate them from nose to tail. European settlers had a taste for just the tongue and a use for just the hides. The rest of the animal was left to rot. The decline in the number of bison is unbelievable: in 1889 there were 541 bison left alive.

The destruction of these millions of animals had an unintended consequence. Grassland thrives when grazed periodically. It does not do so well without. Among other factors, the destruction of this ecosystem led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when the soil literally dried up and blew away, just as Hosea described. The victims of the drought and dust headed west to California to work in the orange groves. (My wife’s family were Okies. They say a hitchhiker’s cigarette caused a fire in the back of their vehicle that burned up all their belongings en route to California.)

The slaughter of 60 million bison was not “ruling and serving all God’s creatures.” That was not reigning as God’s image on the earth. It was reckless destruction. It was bad for the animals, bad for the land, bad for the economy, bad for agriculture, bad for those who like hunting, bad for humanity. Thankfully we have move beyond that attitude. Or have we?

We have never killed a bison on the great plains, but we have eaten meat from animals raised in confinement and butchered by immigrants.. We have discarded countless thousands of plastic bags, plastic spoons, plastic everything; you can find it in the oceans, where it is killing the creatures of the sea. We pollute the air, despite the fact that it’s changing the earth’s entire climate. Even if it wasn’t, who like to see or breathe smog? We are not hunters, we are consumers. The cost of our consumption is the same as what Hosea warned: “The land dries up, and all who live in it waste away.”

For those who love the Lord Jesus and are filled with his Spirit, what can we do? Christians live under a different covenant with God than the people in the time of Hosea. Those who received the covenant through Moses were to live out their holiness in the land God gave them. The land suffered when they failed. They were exiled from the land when they refused to return to God. Finally, the Messiah came to the land. Before his death, he instituted a new covenant. This one was put into effect through his blood, the once-and-for-all sacrifice for sin. Our approach to God comes through Christ, who died for us.

The new covenant does replace the old covenant, but not by discarding it. The new covenant in Jesus Christ amplifies the old covenant. Jesus clarified and deepened the will of God given to us in the 10 commandments; read the Sermon on the Mount. Abraham was given the promise of land, descendants, and blessing. We who are not descendants of Abraham by birth can become children of Abraham by faith in Christ. The promised land is understood to refer to the new earth, not just one piece of this planet.

The sin of humanity led to planet-wide misery. Those who are in Christ wait for a new planet, a new creation. The Apostle Paul picks this up in Romans 8, saying that “the creation was subjected to frustration” and that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” The creation is groaning for the time when it will be “liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-22). The Bible’s vision of the future is a new creation ruled by human beings, the glorious children of God. The presence of re-created human beings will once again be good for the earth. We will take our rightful place and exercise our authority in wisdom as we rule and serve God’s new earth with all the creatures it contains. The creation longs for this. So do we. What shall we do as we wait?

I will assume that you agree that we should take good care of the planet – for God, for others, and for ourselves. This will take our will, our wisdom, and our work. Caring for the planet requires our will because it’s so inconvenient. We like eating meat. We like buying cheap things. We like driving. And flying. We’re not the ones running the major polluters, like factories and tanker ships, but we like their products. We are consumers. Changing our habits of consumption is extremely inconvenient. It might mean choosing what you eat with more care (I miss the man who raised a few cows each year in Central California – happy cows, happy land, happy farmer, and happy eaters).

Caring for the planet also requires wisdom, because it’s endlessly complicated. In the time of the Bible, there was no oil drilling or oil spilling. Transportation was by foot, horse, or sailboat. Humanity didn’t have the potential to inflict such great damage on the earth as we have now. Today, if you want to care for the earth it’s complicated from the moment you brush your teeth. Your toothbrush is a plastic stick with plastic bristles. The tube of toothpaste is plastic too. After a few months you throw it all in the trash. It will all sit somewhere for hundreds of years. How can you avoid this though? Do you need to brush your teeth with your finger? (I mentioned this in my sermon and my co-pastor pointed out that in Ethiopia they brush their teeth with a thin branch from a certain type of tree. That afternoon he looked at a tree in our backyard and said, “This is it.”).

Smart people are coming up with creative ways of improving the land. This screenshot from a Ted talk by Allan Savory shows the impact of bringing in grazing animals and managing them well.

Other improvements are coming through technological innovation. A Dutch teenager named Boyan Slat has invented a machine that cleans up plastic from the ocean.

For those of us who are not farmers or inventors, our contribution consists of small steps. The solution requires our will, our wisdom, and our work. The work will be small, inconvenient steps. My wife is a master at this. Years ago she began slowly changing the way we eat. Then she began hanging our laundry to dry instead of using the dryer. I choose to travel by bicycle whenever possible. To be honest, it’s usually more convenient than driving, even when it’s raining.

But it’s not my job to tell you exactly what steps to take, or what policies our governments and corporations should put in place. My job is to preach Christ! When we talk about the role of human beings on the planet, Christ is the one to look at.

Psalm 8 refers to Genesis 1 in a beautiful reflection on the place of human beings in God’s world. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the starts…What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” The glory and honor are connected to the role of human beings on the earth: “You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.”

The author of Hebrews quotes this Psalm, but observes, “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them” It’s true. Diseases like COVID are not under the feet of humanity. Poverty, inequality, and injustice have not been overcome. Pollution, climate change, extinction of species, the depletion of animals to hunt and fish to catch – all these things are not under the feet of humanity. Worst of all, death is not subject to us. We are subject to death.

We do not see everything subject to humanity, which should be the case. “But,” the author of Hebrews continues, “We do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:6-9). Jesus has fulfilled the role that was meant for all humanity. Jesus shows us what we will be. Our eyes are on him as we care for the earth and all its inhabitants.