Whose World Is It?
Genesis 1:24 ~ 2:4
November 21, 1971

When the history of the 20th century is written some time in the future,
thoughtful chroniclers are going to observe that you and I lived in a time when man,
in general, stopped believing that it mattered whether or not there was a God. Some
of these chroniclers will do their research carefully enough to discover that in the
late 60's and early 70's a minor flurry was created in religious circles by a few
men who announced that God was dead. It will be observed by those careful historians
that the announcement never really amounted to much: but it will be observed by all
higtorians that it was an age which, for all practical purposes adopted a world view
that eliminated God altogether. People, of course, went right on affirming their
belief in the existence of a supreme being: but the cvidence will show, I will predict,
that the existence of God had very little to do with the way men behaved.

Dr, Louis Patrick puts it this way: “Qne of the apprent illusions that our age
has dispelled is just this: -i'The «earth is the Lord's’ Now, even Eskimos file real
estate claims with mineral rights ineluded.*

The twentieth contury was the time when men stopped believing that God, if he
existed at all, had anything to do with his creation ~ with human life. It was the
time when men seized sole ownership of the earth ~ for good or for ill.

{mda then we come to Thanksgiving: the annual harvest festival in our culture:
an we have a rather monumental theological problem, namely, who are we going to thank
and why? Our dilemma is roflected in the story of the man who was tilling the rows in
his garden, when a pious soul made the passing remark: “T sec that God has blessed
you in your labors.” The perspiring gardcner replied, “You should have seen this
garden when God had it by himselfi"

That's our problem. We have seen man, in our own age, learn how to do for
himself those things that were once attributed to God. The fertility of the soil is
not so much a product of God's grace as the quality of chemical fertilizer. The fact
of good health is not so much a miracle of God's beneficence as man's medical

technology. Or so it seems.

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‘In any case, what will be the content of your Thanksgiving prayer? ~ as you sit
down to a table laden with food you purchased. with your money which you earned wi *h
your own sweat and effort: food produced an a mechanized farm, run by computer:
food harvested, cleaned, packaged and marketed by a whole collage of people. Let me
share with you the content of my prayer ~ which I would guess is not too different
from yours. I will thank God -— because I am grateful ~- for the food that day, and all
the food it represents. I will thank God for the home in which I live, for the
health of my family, for the fantastic array of goods and devices we have at our dis-
posal. I will thank him for my freedom, for my friends ond for my loved ones. Most
Thanksgiving Day prayers will go like that, and the idea I want to communicate this
morning is that by praying that prayer; by thanking God for these things and conditions
and relationships, we are making a profound theological affirmation, an affirmation

that flies squarely in the face of the predominant agnosticism of our time. Consciously

or unconsciously, we are affirming, jin the act of thanking him, that God has had a
great deal to do with our lives and with the world. We are reaffirming our belief i”
an old, old, idea - the providence of God: the idea that behind all the intermediate
providers, God is the giver of every good and perfect gift: an idea summarized beauti--
fully in a little song my children taught me:

Back of the flour is the mill: and back of the mill is the grain:

And back of the grain is the wind and the rain:

And the father's will.

It was the winter of 1621 when William Bradford wrote in his diary, ‘Behold,
now another providence of God. A ship comes into the harbor.’ Now William Bradford
knew, as we know, that the ship came into the harbor because its timbers were sturdy
enough to withstand the North Atlantic, and because the winds had been right, and
because the captain knew how to work a sextant. Yet he called it a providence of God,
and in doing so was making the same affirmation which we make when we thank the
Lord for frozen turkeys and pre-fab houses.

It is an affirmation that goes deeply to the heart of the Biblical tradition.

I read this morning from the first and second chapters of the Book of Genesis.

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The story of creation perplexes und bothers us with ite apparent detailed deseription
of what happened ond when. But the tremendous significance of the passage is in what
it saye about God the Creator, God's relationship %o his kereation, and mam's role
within God's creation,

It says, fixet, that things did not just happen as a result of a cosmic
accident, but that there im em intentionality in the universe, a will, a creative
force that brought onder out of chaos, thet made something out of nothing. I+ saya,
second, that the plan of the creator can be seen in what he omeated. There are-
seeds and plants and food. dnd in thie we pee that the creator has a definite
continuing relationship with his creation. What he gave once, he continues to
give. It says, thin, that men is something special. God says to man: ". » fill
the earth and subdue 4%, tule over it, use it, life off of it, . " God does not
say to man, "It is now yours to do with what you want.” Rather the sense of the
Ribliesl creation story is that God is very much the omer: and man is very much
the manager ~ the trustee ~ the steward. Men's place in God's creation is one of
vesponsibility. And from that serice of Biblical affirmations we believe in
Providence. It is still hic creation: he is still creating it: we are parimers
in the process: we are managers of the property: but it belongs to him: we ame
responzible to him ané@ accountable to him for our trusteeship. ima it is to him ~
the owner - that we owe gratitude.

The creation story, an you mow, moves rather quickly to the fali of man.

Men simply refuses to live by the rules. Instead of manager, man wants to be omer,
Instead of trustee, man wants to be the bores, So the miles get broken, symbolically
by Adam and Eve and the ‘tree of life, tut historically, time and time again

as men ghowed their indifference to the created orfer and their disdain for \

the owner. ‘s

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That's where wo are ecologically. We act ae if we owm the place and that
we can jolly well do with it whatever we please. Inetead of playing our given
role in the order of things as those who are responsible, we act as if it's all
here to exploit and rape to satiofy every whimsical need we feel. At heart the
ecological disaster we have made for ourselves is a theological problem: a self
made problem resulting from our indifference to the will of the omer. That goes
for oil slicks, amd aly pollution, and chemical waste in the Wabash River. It
applies to schemes to melt the Arctic ice cap and run pipe lines through the
tundra. But it alwo applies to those who write ‘beat I. U.." with spray paint
on giant rocks, ond those who use Greenbush road as a gurbage dump. It's really
a theological issue when we use a power mower to trim a twenty by twenty patch
of grass, or when we jump in a 2,000 1b, machine to transport us one block.

It's a theological iseuc, relating to monte rele in creating when we find our~
selves caught in technological overkill. I+ has been calowlated that the number
of calories consumed in the form of oi], gas ad coal to fumish farm machinery,
transportation, pesticides, fertiliser to produce a unit of food exceeds the
calories contined in the food itself,

Yow I don't know what you do with that kind of fact except worry about it,
and hope that our technology will be able to extricate us from the mess 1% has
gotten us into. But I do kmow that if God is the owner, it is every bit os
offensive and wrong to dump your car ashtray along a country road as it is to
dump it on my living room carpet.

If the earth is the Lera's, av the Pralmist suggests: if God is the owner =
as Genesis suggests, there are some particular implicatione ~ some of them
attitudinal; some of them behavioral.

br. Exnest Campbell suggests that “To hold the belief that the earth is

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the Lord's is to appreach the bountiful provisions of life with the humility of
eo guest rather than the arrogance of a proprietor." We have moh to learn here
from the American Indiems, who never heard of Genesis, but who aia, for centuries,
realise s certain modesty in relation ‘to nature, When travelling, some Indim
tribes made a practice of moving so carefully that as far as possible they left
no evidence of their having passed that way Now, it isn't realistic for modem
man ever to contemplate omlating that. nut af is realistic to question the
Latest in military technology since the ban on cheabes! defoliants. ‘two
botanists, in a recent paper, report that in Viet Nam, every day fx dam
4411 dark, 150 huge yulldesersplows are making vast wastelands of wooded and
cultivated areas ~ following which only elephant grass will grow, What do you
suppore the ower thimkes sbout that? The creatormowmer, that is.

tf the earth is the lord's, and if we are Hie guests, theme are some
implications about our attitudes and our behavior. We need a healthy dose of
modesty and humility. We need what can only be called reverence for the created
order end for all life. We need, most of all, to reorient our thinking about
our own amall role in the scheme of things - and our owmership of property,
goods « life itwmelf. You Af the earth is the Lordjs ~ it is all a gift.

Jesus talked sbowt om ership in a memorable section of the Sermon on the
Mount. “Put away amclous thoughts about food and avink and clothes. . Life
is more than these. + . Consider the birds « the lilies. + - set your mind on
God's Kingdom.” Jesus knew that one of man's major probleme im Cod's esonomp
wes ownership. lie knew = os Genesis telle it — thet man wants to be the ower,
ana that the uxge to acguize and have and own would forever be a barvier in the
way of a right relationship with God, That passage, by the way, has always bed
subject to some bad interpretation. He did not say ~ don't give eny thought

to providing for yourselver. He did not teach irresponsibility. He did say

“Don}t be anxious"; don't get involved in a debilitating, selfish mmxiety sbout
your need to accumilate.

I think that is most relevant as wo approach Thenkegiving: beomse the
Gospel of middle America is precisely that there is salvation in owning end
acoumlating. It is preached every evening on television, There are cosme tice
to make you irresistable, tooth paste to make you sexy, shirts to give you
confidence, deodorants to give you security. If you want to play in the big
leagues there are cars to give you self esteem, cigars that exude power and
computers to make you ~ if not immortal, at least remembered by your customers.
And if you need love = you can buy that too, by providing cough medicine to
your husband, Geri tol to your wife, or protein packed burgers to your dog.
Modern Americon Middle Class man, observed Wm. Sloane Coffin, has become 4
“Hamlet in a Supermarket: to buy or not to buy: that is the question.”

Well, Jesue suggested thet there is more to life then that: that in the
Providence of God we wove created for a purpose - and that purpose is some thing
more than satisfying every need the ad agencies create. Jesus suggested that a
right relationship with God ~ the God who owns the earth -— is where we will find
mesmning ond salvation.

Authentic, heart-felt gratitude, 4% peeme to me ~ mst have some basis
in something other then the goods and materiale we have managed to buy. It
must penetrate our socuminted goods « all the way back to the Providence of
Ged who gives us lize itwelf, and in whose world we are privileged to live.

So we come to Thankagiving, end our need to express gratitude to our creator
God. In a sense it is a cultural holiday. ‘The Pilgrims started i% and Abraham

Lincoln first made i% a Yational Celebration - neither one of which had much to

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be grateful for according to our standards. But both possessed a deep sense
that God's providence had played a role in their story: that he was responsible
for their being alive: and that he was very much involved in their world.

As we give thanks thie year, let's remember them - : let's begin at the
point of God's owmership and our role as his guests: let's reflect on the
ancient tuth that he is the giver of ewerything we have.

‘A sermon, of course, cannot make you feel grateful. I oan insist that
my children say "thank you" but not that they feel gratitude. I have tried to
provide some theological reflections to undergird your Thanksgiving ~ but in a
very real sense ~ you will conclude this sermon yourselves ~ this Thursday.

“The earth ic the Lord’s and all that ie in it, the world and those
that dwell therein.

For it was he who founded it upon the seas and planted it firm upon the
waters beneath."

Amen.