Nobody can deny the extent to which poverty and deprivation, injustice and greed, cruelty and abuse, disfigure the mind and mutilate the body of mankind. As a species, we regard ourselves as supreme; even those among us whose thoughts would never include any conscious awareness of Scripture in even the broadest sense, are somehow reinforced in their arrogance by a faint echo, as it were, of God’s words as laid out in the book of Genesis after the creation of humankind: ‘God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.”(Genesis 1:28)
Looked at coldly, without any disturbance or intervention from the parts of our nature that make us different from the rest of creation, the qualities that define us as members of the human race, we could look at what we have accomplished and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. We have been fruitful, and we have definitely multiplied; there are now some 6.8 billion of us. Can we even begin to imagine how many people that is? It is clear that we have done our best to fill the earth, and in so doing it must be said that we have accomplished some astonishingly wonderful things; but we have also been the cause of horrifyingly destructive consequences of our attempts to subdue the earth and everything in it. We have taken it upon ourselves to enslave everything, finding no possible alternative meaning for the instruction to “Be masters”, and we carry our natural tendency to lord it over the world into our relationships with other people, ignoring, depriving, robbing and abusing those who have been created as our equals.
And how can we read the next two verses of Genesis without further doubting both the integrity of our mindsets, and the wisdom of our actions?
“Look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this will be your food.” (1:29) – without being visited by images of the famine stricken and starving peoples of our world?
“And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the plants as their food.” (1:30) – without being assailed by images of the planet’s blatant destruction, and the desolation, emptiness and silence that follow our rape and pillage of the environment and all that it once had the ability to sustain.
Our free will is potentially our greatest gift, and granting to others the freedom to exercise theirs is in keeping with the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind. But, for ourselves and for the world, it is what we each do with our freedom that determines whether we become a blessing or a curse. In those areas where we fail to bless our neighbours and our world, an apparent indifference is as much a curse as any active or militant contribution to destruction and injustice. A terrifying reality of our freedom and of any failure to bless, is that the curse to which we contribute may sweep across the entire face of the globe, with no way of differentiating between those who are blessings upon the earth and their destructive neighbours.
Our actions have ensured there is no shortage of blood, but however much we spill and wherever we may smear it, destruction and death will not be kept from anybody’s door.
‘Some of the blood must then be taken and put on both door-posts and the lintel of the houses where it is eaten. ... The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood I shall pass over you, and you will escape the destructive plague when I strike Egypt.’ (Exodus 12:7-13)
We regard ourselves as absolute masters of our own destiny. However late we may leave it, we believe that we shall come up with the right answers and act accordingly; that we have the power and the ability to put things right; that everything will be fine. It is only now that most of us are beginning to suspect that all this talk may be more than just a potential script for another exciting disaster movie; we have stopped popping popcorn into our mouths, and our smiles are beginning to fade. Some of us are wondering whether there may even come a time when there are no more movies to watch.
Those whose freedom is a blessing for all of us, in terms of economics, the environment, health, education, justice, peace, and all areas which have a bearing on human dignity, have, in recent years, raised their concerns loudly enough to make the difference we now see being accepted and acknowledged by political leaders around the world. These pressures must be maintained of course, but more than this, we must learn to appreciate our ability to choose: our freedom to exercise our free will; and those who are called to be today’s prophets – they are out there somewhere – must allow the Spirit to take them where it will, and must proclaim the message God places within them. This message will not only be, “Wake up! Open your eyes; look, and see”; and it will not be merely an additional urging to find the scientific counterbalance for the destructive path down which we are all slipping. It will undoubtedly include a call to finally understand the intended responsibilities inherent in God’s will that we should “Be masters of ... all the living creatures that move on earth”, and that “this will be your food”.
We shall receive and act on that understanding, only when we realize we are the keepers and carers of our world and everything in it; that we have been appointed as caretakers of our own home, planet Earth, while The One who is our own Master, and Master of all that is, longs for our return to harmony with the rest of creation, and to the dignity, equality and unity that should be hallmarks of our trust in Him.
Looked at coldly, without any disturbance or intervention from the parts of our nature that make us different from the rest of creation, the qualities that define us as members of the human race, we could look at what we have accomplished and congratulate ourselves on a job well done. We have been fruitful, and we have definitely multiplied; there are now some 6.8 billion of us. Can we even begin to imagine how many people that is? It is clear that we have done our best to fill the earth, and in so doing it must be said that we have accomplished some astonishingly wonderful things; but we have also been the cause of horrifyingly destructive consequences of our attempts to subdue the earth and everything in it. We have taken it upon ourselves to enslave everything, finding no possible alternative meaning for the instruction to “Be masters”, and we carry our natural tendency to lord it over the world into our relationships with other people, ignoring, depriving, robbing and abusing those who have been created as our equals.
And how can we read the next two verses of Genesis without further doubting both the integrity of our mindsets, and the wisdom of our actions?
“Look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this will be your food.” (1:29) – without being visited by images of the famine stricken and starving peoples of our world?
“And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the plants as their food.” (1:30) – without being assailed by images of the planet’s blatant destruction, and the desolation, emptiness and silence that follow our rape and pillage of the environment and all that it once had the ability to sustain.
Our free will is potentially our greatest gift, and granting to others the freedom to exercise theirs is in keeping with the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind. But, for ourselves and for the world, it is what we each do with our freedom that determines whether we become a blessing or a curse. In those areas where we fail to bless our neighbours and our world, an apparent indifference is as much a curse as any active or militant contribution to destruction and injustice. A terrifying reality of our freedom and of any failure to bless, is that the curse to which we contribute may sweep across the entire face of the globe, with no way of differentiating between those who are blessings upon the earth and their destructive neighbours.
Our actions have ensured there is no shortage of blood, but however much we spill and wherever we may smear it, destruction and death will not be kept from anybody’s door.
‘Some of the blood must then be taken and put on both door-posts and the lintel of the houses where it is eaten. ... The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood I shall pass over you, and you will escape the destructive plague when I strike Egypt.’ (Exodus 12:7-13)
We regard ourselves as absolute masters of our own destiny. However late we may leave it, we believe that we shall come up with the right answers and act accordingly; that we have the power and the ability to put things right; that everything will be fine. It is only now that most of us are beginning to suspect that all this talk may be more than just a potential script for another exciting disaster movie; we have stopped popping popcorn into our mouths, and our smiles are beginning to fade. Some of us are wondering whether there may even come a time when there are no more movies to watch.
Those whose freedom is a blessing for all of us, in terms of economics, the environment, health, education, justice, peace, and all areas which have a bearing on human dignity, have, in recent years, raised their concerns loudly enough to make the difference we now see being accepted and acknowledged by political leaders around the world. These pressures must be maintained of course, but more than this, we must learn to appreciate our ability to choose: our freedom to exercise our free will; and those who are called to be today’s prophets – they are out there somewhere – must allow the Spirit to take them where it will, and must proclaim the message God places within them. This message will not only be, “Wake up! Open your eyes; look, and see”; and it will not be merely an additional urging to find the scientific counterbalance for the destructive path down which we are all slipping. It will undoubtedly include a call to finally understand the intended responsibilities inherent in God’s will that we should “Be masters of ... all the living creatures that move on earth”, and that “this will be your food”.
We shall receive and act on that understanding, only when we realize we are the keepers and carers of our world and everything in it; that we have been appointed as caretakers of our own home, planet Earth, while The One who is our own Master, and Master of all that is, longs for our return to harmony with the rest of creation, and to the dignity, equality and unity that should be hallmarks of our trust in Him.
.
‘Go up on a high mountain, messenger of Zion.
Shout as loud as you can, messenger of Jerusalem!
Shout fearlessly, say to the towns of Judah
“Here is your God.”
(Isaiah 40:9)
.
‘Go up on a high mountain, messenger of Zion.
Shout as loud as you can, messenger of Jerusalem!
Shout fearlessly, say to the towns of Judah
“Here is your God.”
(Isaiah 40:9)
.
