INTRO
True, we've never before had a nearly-instantaneous, nearly-worldwide network connected to devices in our pockets alerting us to rising temperatures and the temperamental outbursts of tyrants or the spread of malicious insects and viruses.
And being constantly aware of all this can feel disorienting and surreal.
But even so, we're not convinced we should be so quick to call our times "totally unprecedented." Our ancestors weathered tyrants and plagues and renovated their political thought and activity when facing the consequences of previous human actions.
And for those of us within the Christian Tradition, we must always remember that our predecessors took on the challenge of reinterpreting all of reality in light of the singular life of Jesus of Nazareth.
What is not "unprecedented" is humans encountering the unprecedented. And in the midst of our own unique challenges, we unnecessarily feed the bad reactions that can come with fear and uncertainty if we believe we face our challenges alone.
So, in this series, we look at people and moments in the Tradition where those who came before us give us precedents for facing our epoch-shaping tests and tasks.
This time, in the face of constant news of ominous threats to the climate and ecosystems, we look at a precedent that could help form us into people who see the world rightly, and live accordingly.
STORY
Talk and fears about the end of the world are nothing new.
A religious text that dates early as the 18th century BCE, named The Epic of Gilgamesh, tells of an immeasurable storm whose winds and waters flatten the earth and turn all human life to clay.
Portions Norse mythology that started to be written down about a millennia ago, but was passed on orally for who knows how long before that, tell of Ragnarok, a war waged at the primal spiritual levels of reality that brings about natural disasters and the total submersion of the world in water.
And the New Testament book of Revelation gives us a picture of how some, nearly 2,000 years ago, imagined the end in episodes of spiritually desolate yet aesthetically awe-inspiring cities lying within wasted landscapes and then a burning and then renewed world.
But that's the end. And we'll grant that the end is the most important part of any story. But that end is always dependent on the second most important part of any story: the beginning.
And Genesis 1, the beginning of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, invites us to see things of substance and potential being called out of the nothing and chaos by the Word of God. To hear that Word speaking the structures that undergird peace and provide a guiding vision for those things to come together in order and harmony and beauty. And over all this is Spirit of God, or as the Hebrew has it, the ruach elohim, hovering, and teasing out the kind of vitality and beauty that makes God pause, take it all in, and declare that the light and the waters and the land and the life filling it all, is all good.
You can read every line after Genesis 1:2 and you will not again see the word combination ruach elohim, the Spirit of God, until the 31st chapter of the book of Exodus. Here, you find God's people in a wilderness, a desolate landscape falling back into formless chaos, right after God has freed them from the tyranny of Egypt, but without their own culture and law and liturgy to give shape to their own particular way of life.
They did not know it yet, but God was about to, again, issuing the same invitation to bring something from nothing.
In the beginning, God speaks over the course of seven days. And to each word, there was a yes, and because of this response there was light and water and earth. The raw materials for a world.
In the wilderness, throughout chapters 25-40 of Exodus, God speaks precisely seven times. And to each word Moses and the people respond with funding and incense, cloth and wood, which become the raw materials for what would be shaped into their place of worship: the tabernacle. This was their yes.
And the Spirit was again hovering.
Because here, in chapter 31, you also meet a man named Bezalel. He was the artist tasked with crafting the tabernacle. And this is also the next time you encounter the phrase ruach elohim. God poured the same breath that teased life and beauty from the raw materials of creation into Bezalel so he could craft the incense and cloth and wood into a place of worship.
Now, if the Spirit of Genesis 1 is involved in this craftwork, do you think we are intended to see the place of worship, and the worship itself that takes place there, as having nothing to do with Creation?
Under the inspiration of the ruach elohim, Bezalel sectioned the tent into three portions, like the earth, sea, and sky in creation. He held the pieces of fabric that would cover the tabernacle together with gold clasps that would catch the light of the candles and cast dancing beams like heavenly beings onto the underside of the covering. Walk in, look up, and behold the stars and angels and their heavens.
Bezalel also placed the lamp stands inside to source the light. Behold the greater and lesser lights God placed in the sky.
In the courtyard, waters were to be separated and contained in a large basin, which was often called the "sea." The colors of the tabernacle evoked earth and sky. The birds of the air and animals had a place in the rituals and, like humankind created on the sixth day and given dominion over the whole thing, in the liturgical procession, the High Priest came last and ordered what happened in the tabernacle according to the word of God.
All of God's people were invited to participate in this, and in doing so learn to get the true story of all things deep into their minds and hearts and bodies, so this worship and this story would help fund the particular culture they would generate. To shape how they would see, understand, and treat the world God placed them in, and trusted to them.
So, the first structure dedicated to the worship of YHWH was also a place of new creation.
Remember though, "liturgy" does not just include proper religious ceremonies. It also includes the idea of work. Again, there is a creation pattern here: God speaks and Moses and the people respond with work. Bases were laid and frames were set, poles were erected and pillars raised.
This distinctive mix of worship and work involved ordinary things like stone and wood and metal and fur. Bezalel took the raw materials and crafted them into frames and fabrics and vestments, like elements and organisms from energy and base matter. Then the fabric covering was spread and the guidelines for worship and ordering everyday life, the liturgies, were put in a special ark. Bread and lamp stands were arrange and incense burned. Later, a Hebrew poet would pick up on the similarities between creation and the tabernacle and say that when God created the heavens and the earth, God "stretch(ed) out the heavens like a tent" (Ps. 104:2).
The seventh word spoken by God in Genesis 1 ushers in the Sabbath. The seventh time God speaks in this section of Exodus, God invites the people into Sabbath worship in the newly completed tabernacle.
The tabernacle was a tent designed by an artist who was moved by the same Spirit that evoked a world from an empty, primordial wilderness, and erected by people given a crucial role in the ongoing shaping of that world.
Compared to the temples of Egypt or Babylon, this tent was small and temporary. But when the response to God's call was complete and the work of the tabernacle done, a cloud covered the tent, and the glory of God filled the place. Like God again walking around in Eden.
The worship that happened there was intended to embrace everything about the world and bring it into the presence and care of the Creator.
If this little tent was also a "little universe," this, more than the impressive temples of the Empire they just escaped, gives God's people a picture of where everything is heading.
And knowing, trusting, and enacting our true beginning points us toward our true end.
Listen for the call, notice the potential, respond and give yourself to it, and God will use us to build a little model of that new world right in the middle of this wilderness. We may not even Eden. But, wherever we happen to be, God will meet us there in our work-and-worship.
But there is also, always the chance that we will say no to the invitation. When we do is when we build hell.
So, next, Julius and I will explore the ways our worship can give us precedent for thinking about and engaging the anxieties so many feel regarding our relationship to the health of the earth.
DISCUSSION
Julius: Welcome back to “All Things”. This is Julius and Wil, and today we are talking about, I guess, an undergrad, there was a lot of talk. Um, I sat through quite a few lectures and chapels about the idea of, um, the language of creation care. And that seems to really, I mean, it has been timely for the past couple of decades now, as, as, I mean, the way that.
Things have progressed with the earth and climate. And especially like we find ourselves in the middle of a public health crisis. There's lots of anxiety. I think about, um, how as a people, uh, or regardless of whether they're, these are people who identify as part of the church or not, but how to kind of navigate.
A changing world and environment and how to care for, um, quote unquote, like the natural world. Um, I know that just recently there've been a lot of anxieties about like how long, like, is this planet even going to be able to last for. Given, I don't know the way that things are going with climate change.
And so today, as we continue this series of looking to Christian tradition for precedents, that help us to navigate times that like, I mean, where we are right now with. Things like climate change. Like these things might not have been like specifically the way that the church has dealt with it before, but we see even in the story proceeding, this, that there's a tradition that holds, um, the church and being able to.
At least see and relate to the world rightly as God has intended it. So the first thing I want to note here is this, the proceeding story seems to outline a different way of seeing and relating to the world. Not just as the quote unquote natural world as kind of like a cold objective thing, but specifically with the term creation as something that is rooted in the story and then the action and in the character of God, And God's loving act of grace and creating all things.
So what can we say more about this distinction and why is this important in helping us, um, helping direct the way that we relate to things like the planet, the cosmos now.
Wilson: Yeah.
I think it highlights, um, the importance of. Well, this may seem like an odd place to start, but you give me just a minute and I think the connection will become pretty clear. Uh, it highlights the importance. Um, of learning to speak Christianl-y. Um, and it, it takes my mind to, uh, when I was a youth pastor, um, and I used to, I used to allow students and even myself, when we're reading portions of scripture, that had really difficult names. or cities or whatever, you know, Hebrew or, or even, you know, in the new Testament, uh, when it's got Jesus's genealogy and stuff would let them just skip the names or say like, you know, some, and I don't know, it's some variation of the same joke about, you know, “And then…some difficult name beget the other… difficult thing to say,” you know, and everyone would giggle or whatever, but I eventually decided to stop. And it kind of explained, "Hey look, look, look. Uh, ‘grande’… ‘venti’…you guys know what that is, right?”
It that's a, that's an alien word. The first time it gets on your tongue, but you've been to Starbucks enough right now. You understand what you're saying? Verizon…
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: There are strange words that you're incredibly comfortable with.
Not because the first time you come upon them, they're easy to say or understand, but because of practice and here's what someplace like Starbucks knows: that's all part of the experience. That's part of how they, like, shape you to become a Starbucks customer. Is they, they do something that you have to be initiated into, but then once you, once it gets inside, you feel more comfortable, you feel like more of a sense of belonging there.
Uh, you've you feel more at ease or whatever it is, you know. Because they're not just selling coffee because God knows if all Starbucks was selling was coffee, they would have tanked a long time ago. Cause it’s god-awful coffee, but they're selling what they're great at is X is selling a kind of experience and truthfully what they're selling is a kind of belonging and to a certain degree, it's, uh, it's certainly an attenuated, but they're selling identity. Um.
Julius: Totally.
Wilson: So you learn that language, you get comfortable with it. And so we can do, because these are our ancestors in this. And just like, it's important, you know, if I'm going to be your friend, even if your name is difficult for me to say, for me to learn, to say your name well, and if this is the story that we're entering into, we need to learn to say this well, and this is why when, when now bringing it into talking about creation and not just a planet or the, even, even the natural world, you know, because just like venti is different than… Is venti large? Grande’s large?
Julius: Yeah. I think it's Tet.
Wilson: Grande’s like honking large…? I don't know, whatever, you know,
Julius: Venti like the largest in the three size ecosystem. I think.
Wilson: Yeah. In, in Starbucks world.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: Um, uh, but, uh, Just like, you know, Hey, there's some overlap here, but they're not exactly the same because venti is now so tied into the whole Starbucks experience. There might be some places of overlap when you talk about natural, the natural world, the planet and creation, but they're not exactly the same because so much of the experience or the, the world, you know, the parallel we're making, like the whole Starbucks experience, the whole thing that shapes what we feel, uh, what we read into and take out of the word natural or planet is so shaped by just a mechanistic cold.
Hey, it's just there. It's just stuff. Picture of reality. Like it, Hey there, it makes it seem neutral. It makes it seem like just a thing. And now that thing is there and it's totally up to me. Like according to my desires, my whims to decide what we will or won't do with that thing. But creation is personal. Okay. Eh, if you name a person, it's not a thing. And we all still, at least in for maybe not everyone, but in large part, we, we hold in common that we understand when you're dealing with a person in a name, you don't just get to do what you want with that person. It's not just an object for you to manipulate and you can't just control them according to your whims and desires.
Wilson: Creation is tied to creator— it ties it to a particular story. The natural world almost makes it seem like, uh, it's totally separated or floating above, or disconnected from a story, but creation, situates it in a particular story and then invites, like, and you, you start thinking, what does this word mean?
And what do I do with it? All of that is shaped by the particulars of that story. There's a God, and this God creates why? Because of love. And how does this God create?
Julius: Right.
Wilson: By speaking. And so then why is creation there? It's not just an object for me, you know, I, because of what I want right now, you know, or what I want to drive or how I want, you know, all of these things, not just my desires.
You also have to think about what, what was the intent and the hope and the purpose of the creator? Well, it was to create out of love and creates by speaking—it’s a way for the invisible, I mean. Creation is language. Creation is a way for God to speak and communicate something about God's self. And so then in all of that, I mean, and this is why God speaks with a word, and with a word comes light and darkness day and night, sun and moon and plant and animal life, and a garden.
Now, all of this is coming from love, coming from a person shaped by the desire of the creator to give a good gift and in the giving of this gift for the creator to be known. That just, that's such a different thing when you encounter creation as a part of that story— it puts you on an entirely different footing and, and… takes it out of this sphere of “Here's this stuff, what do we do with just this stuff?” To… is this? Who is this? And it, it, honestly, it holds so much promise because it makes demands on us. It invites us. Don't just do with what you will with me, but get to know what I truly am and then do something with me that that's true to what I am in my essence.
Julius: I think that's really helpful to frame this, and um. While I do think. And I think w-we have affirmed how language really matters in shaping, um, like in this sense, right? The story that, um, like our understanding of the world is held in. Um, but it's, it seems that also like moving beyond that, as much as language shapes, how we interact with the world, that there's another element of like, having to… of connecting kind of like this story ur, to our actual concrete practices and how we, um, like relate to the world in our every day.
And there's, um, right now I'm thinking of the, one of the comedians that I follow has a bit that he's workshopping right now that I don't know if it'll say. Act or not, but where he's kind of painfully honest, where I think a lot of people are maybe misunderstanding the bit, but like painfully honest about this, this whole idea of like, uh, no, I know like intellectually that it's good to care for the environment or whatever.
Yeah. When it comes time to vote for policies like about the environment I'll vote the right way. But like internally, just like, I think that's where the disconnect comes and people are uncomfortable with it. He's like, I don't care. Like I don't actually in my heart care about like the polar bears or whatever, or, um, um, and so I, I, and I think that that's like a conundrum that a lot of people face and maybe.
Don't always talk about, or aren't always honest about it is this disconnect we feel about, like, I think a lot of us can do the things that like, in terms of optics, feel like the right thing to do about the environment, but as far as where our actual heart and our desires are for the world, that. That there's a disconnect there.
And it feels like at least speaking from a Christian perspective, that the liturgies that we participate in, like have a crucial role in shaping that part of it, of like the part where our heart is pulled into actually caring where like this language distinction between natural world and creation as something that allows us to see, but then also act like differently.
In relation to the world that it feels like liturgy is a huge part in like making it, not just like a, oh, I know intellectually. And so on a surface level, I know what to do to not be considered like, uh, environmentally irresponsible. So I guess my question is what, um, in what ways can we see in the Christian tradition?
Like the ways that liturgy, um, specifically, um, shapes the way that the people of God. In their everyday life interact with the world. The ways that the story actually, um, makes its way into embodied practice.
Wilson: Okay. So in this story, we, we talked through the parallels, right between the literature. That the, um, that Moses and the spirit, right. Or we would say this spirit through Moses and and the people in the wilderness, uh, developed and enacted the overlap there, um, between.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: The creation story and the, what their liturgies there.
They're obviously taking, you know, what God does in creation in the speaking and the working that God does there and putting that into the liturgy or the work of the people. Right. Which is what the word liturgy means. Um, and actually, you know, to put a finer point. Liturgy is not just the work of the people.
It's the work for the people. Um, because when it was first developed in like the Hellenistic world, that Greek term was referring to a communal work, yes, we would all participate in this work that we would do together. Um, but also understood. We do this for the ongoing flourishing of each other in our land and our societies, everything.
Interrelated. Right. Because they understand as a society goes, so goes the land and as the land goes, so goes the society. Right. And so we do these liturgies to appease the gods. Um, so that things could continue to go well for us. And so it is the work of the people, but it's also the work for the people.
And I think that's a dual meaning, or at least a… to just expand the definition with another clause to help us see more of what's happening there, liturgy the work of the people for the people.
Wilson: That leads me to talk about the Hebrew word that is used to describe. In that story, the old Testament, right. We talked through, or God speaks seven times and Moses was alien. The people respond like the primal elements responding to God's God's word in the work of creation. And they come with, you know, the incense and they come with the goal, then the metals and the cloth and they sew and they arrange it.
And then they do the work of the liturgy. Right. In all of these things. It's. Fascinating. And I don't know, this is where I would hope I know on all sorts of levels. This is such a politicized thing. And. Uh, it's funny how, like, in the middle of it, I get excited. So I'm not nervous right now, but I absolutely 100% know as soon as we stop recording and I get in my car to go teach my class, I'm going to have that.
Oh, shoot. That's when I'm going to
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: because I realized what we're stepping into for all the different ways that. It could get politicized and just get just knowing it's guaranteed. Someone is going to misunderstand, not going to hear because we're so locked in our fighting. Right.
But just understand what we're, what we're walking into.
What I hope we do. Here's a key point, Right.
Where this would really maybe open up our minds and our hearts to see at least where Julius and I fought on behalf of Shema, you know, and in that, trying to be faithful to the truest, deepest parts of the Christian tradition, which means to be faithful, that Jesus, where we're really hoping to push this, it would be on this point.
That? Yes, there are those parallels and they're, they're intentional. They're obvious, right? Seven words, seven words creation responds. The people responds here's the, here are the CS in creation. Here are the CS and the tabernacle, the earth, the sky, the three parts that creation the three parts, you know?
Right. That's not on accident. I think it is, then we'll talk about something else at some other point, but I don't know what more I could do to just make that blatantly obvious, but this is the thing that just takes it to another place. The word in, in that story there, while the Hebrews are in the wilderness erecting, the tabernacle. Is not just any generic term for work it's Barra. And that's a very particular, very specific term for a very, not just particular kind of work, but that word tends to be reserved for one being and that's God, Barbara is, is a word used for what God does when God creates. And this is a very distinct it like in the Hebrew, it's it like stands out like, like if it were, it were bold italicized, underlined and highlighted the fact that this word is being used for the activity of human beings like Moses and and the people in worship.
What they're doing here is continuing
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: that God begins at creation what's happening here is a restoration. I mean, cause it creation, God speaks and, and all that power, all that life that's carried in God's word. Right. God then breeds that into humans and puts them in a garden to till and to keep it that's what we were made for.
And that's exactly what we fell off. We no longer hear respond. And so faithfully respeak God's word to care for, to cultivate all of creation. And now this is what's being reinstated and proper healthy worship. You're not just doing the work of the people for the people. Yes, you are doing those things, but what really makes it for the people and for the, the good of the whole world is that it is.
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: in learning to worship. And in this, like we talked about to not just escape the world, not just transcend the world, but enter more deeply into and be remade to the people that we were made to be. We become the kinds of people that when we work, we do borrow God's care and love flows through us. And that, that Karen loves.
Translates well into genuine, actual care and love for everyone and everything and anything less. Yes, it's an ideal, right? And we don't want to be rigid legalistic, judgemental. You or I, or people fall short of this, but we do not want to let go of that and nothing, anything less than that as the ideal Barra that sort of creation care as ongoing creation, the spirit of God, continuing to carry the word of God through us to do what only God can do through us.
Anything less than that is something much less than a Jewish Christian. That's where I would hope to take recenter this whole conversation. I mean, that's like that's basic fundamental, uh, grade school level Christian theology. And if we can't make the connection between that and the world that we live in. We've missed something of basic fundamental Christian theology.
Julius: So with this part of the conversation makes me think of is, um, actually I, where it brings my mind right now is what feels like a contrast between two kind of types of stories and images in particularly in, in Genesis, because I'm thinking right now of like, I think a lot of our conversation now, and a lot of our conversation prior to this in preparation touches on.
I mean, I think a lot of where we are right now with regards to things like climate change and dealing with these like environmental anxieties of like things being really dire comes from the result of like this. Misdirected like misordered relationship between humanity and like for some the natural objective world and for Christians creation.
Right. But that like a lot of this is like a lot of where we are is the result of us having built these systems that assume that nature is something that is, uh, Perhaps like an unlimited resource that is there for the taking that is purely for our exploitation versus the more Christian narrative of something to be cultivated, something that is held in like the story of God's creation, um, that there's a different kind of relationship there.
And it makes me think of something like in Genesis, right? There's the, um, and this might not be a perfect analogy, but like the, the story of the tower of Babel to meet. Like represents an origin story of a people who are trying to reach say the heavens or like, to, to become kind of like equal creators with God, but in, in a way that is like exploitative and, um, that intentionally kind of like, it's like, let's build everything like, and not like keep in mind.
Limits that are good. Or it's just about chasing like the highest goal based on like human effort versus something like in Genesis with like being planted in a garden. And I think that ties into you. You alluded to earlier, like having a thing about like the importance of the image of the garden, it feels like those are two different approaches to kind of like building.
Maybe like a kingdom or like a people of like a, do we keep on building upwards to the limits versus something like tailing and cultivating a garden?
Wilson: Yeah. I hadn't, I hadn't thought about, uh, The connection there to Babel. That's good. I like that. And then that even also makes me think like, yeah, in Genesis, the first it's explicitly named the first human beings that found a city are the descendants of Cain and. Like, even that is, is that narrative here is directly tied to the narrative of fall and leading to the violence against a brother and to now building societies and, and trying to seek some, some kind of right.
Cause what was Cain's whole neurosis afterwards was. There's not going to be a place for me. They're going to see, and they're going to kill me too, because I've done this now I'm going to get killed. And that sort of fear starts to shape so much of how we build our things and our cultures and right.
Looking for now that the world has become so unsafe and we've contributed our fair share to make it an unsafe. Now, how do we make it safe? Right. And so you've got cities at the tower of Babel and over and over and over again, you see, we invent an infinite. Of ways. Right? And so the particulars always seem unprecedented.
We invent an infinite number of ways of making one of two mistakes. Either we sell ourselves too short as human beings. And one of the ways you see this is, oh, well, it's God's world. It's in God's hands. If God wants the world to be destroyed well, isn't that how it all ends. Anyway, we have no, right. And you sell that humanity too short.
You make that mistake and, and the other end is a hubris. Well,
we are, Hey, we could build a tower to heaven. Let's chase this. right.
And now Yeah.
you do see, like we can create, we can make things, but now when you rival God, there's an arrogance. That's like at the heart of what you make and how you create, and that's going to lead to destruction for you and for other people around. And so that, Yeah,
in a sense, if we want to go back. Early early in the story for some sort of like, okay, let's back up, let's push this deeper. Let's dig down for an idea, uh, a story or a precedent that could maybe point us in a different direction. You do go to the garden because look, look there at the story.
God speaks. And all of this life, right? We've already taught all of this life that can and power, like the kind of love that can make light shine from darkness that can bring, that can shape order in the midst of, you know, just primordial chaos, right.
Is spoken, is breathed into humanity. Now this is what makes us and God as a good Korean.
And God has a creator that notices like the what's true, you know, the essence of what I create. And now how do I continue to care for what's been made that God has the model for what it is to do this well, notices what God's made and knows. Hey, now, if this is what humanity is, if they're carrying, if they're breathing this breath, if they are this sort of like open. Channel for me like to receive my life and my goodness. And then to let that flow through them, to the world around them, they need the right place to be. And so what does God do?
Julius: Hm.
Wilson: plants a garden and then puts humanity in the garden and gives us work to do Barbara. Now here's the thing. Where I was going with garden is they don't just happen.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: plants and cares for a guy. And, and, and that takes intentionality. It takes care. You and I riff often about the misuse of the word organic. Oh, I, you know, I don't want to force it. I just want
Julius: You'd be organic, right?
Wilson: Just because it takes effort doesn't mean you're forcing it and organic things take effort. What you really mean is magic,
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: But it's clear to me. You have not gardened because gardening, it's hard. It's hard work. You sweat your muscles, get sore. You, you face frustration. You've got to constantly weed things, Right.
If you're walking along in a forest and picture like, is this a Y.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: creation with life like spreading out everywhere. This is kind of the picture of, of Genesis at this point. If you're walking along and forests where life is just without, without guidance, without direction, without cultivation, and you suddenly happened upon a garden in the middle of a forest, your response is not going to be holding up happened.
Sometimes your response is going to be, how did a garden happen here? And it's going to lead you to questions about the garden. God cultivates and cares for, for it to make the garden possible, says, this is what you need. And you don't just need this to be given to you.
Julius: Yeah.
Wilson: who you are as human, if this is how I've made you in my breath is flowing through you.
You don't just need to be given this garden. You also need to be given the task of caring for it. That's our place in this world.
Julius: Hmm.
Wilson: And, and that puts us at the place where Right. That. We're, we're not trying to be, co-creators like right there on the same level with God or dethrone in God. Right. It's not babble.
We're not trying to be there nor are we going. Like, well, we just, it's all God's anyway, you know, he gave us, we just, we want to be handed this stuff. No, like it. It's our proper place. I token Jr. Token called it sub creation and it shaped the way he treated his whole like imaginative work of inventing a whole world is why does, why does middle earth holds so true for us?
Because he, he knew the word. He he learned, he's like, Okay.
God, through, through the liturgy, through the worship, through your scriptures, through the disciplines, teach me to enter into your world and see it. Right. And because he had entered into our world, entered into creation that way he was able to imagine and sub create a world middle earth.
It seems so different. Right.
But tells us so much that it's true about our world. And th this is, this is what we need. This is the work that we need to do.
MEDITATION
A precedent is not just something that happened in the past and claimed to be important. A genuine precedent actually sets a direction and provides some momentum that will carry us into the future, and so shapes something of what that future will be.
So if, for Christians, this kind of worship flowing into this kind of work sets this kind of future-shaping-and-enabling precedent, where would it all take us?
Gardeners, looking forward to the end of all things would certainly not formulate in their imaginations a picture of God saying, "Good job my people, for just sitting around while I destroyed the world I gave you to care for. Now let's get on with that eternal party I promised you."
And so of course, the book of Revelation, concluding as it does the story that begins with Eden, gives us an ending that harmonizes with and develops that initial precedent.
Revelation is, of course, a long and complex book. But for the purposes of this episode, the vision we are given there can be summarized in two key points.
First, when in chapter 11, verse 18, God judges the nations and kingdoms of this world, it is clearly stated one of the reasons is for destroying the earth.
And, if we followed the story well, this judgment should not come as a surprise.
When Moses and Bezalel were shaping a Tabernacle that taught people to see their world as Creation, they also shaped the Law that would outline ways to actually treat the world as Creation. So in Exodus 23:11, it is commanded that every Seventh year God's people were to let the land lie fallow.
Let the liturgies that shape your worship on the Seventh day, shape and flow into the way you do your work and how you treat the land.
Build that into your rhythms for work, so the land can rest and you do not deplete it. That has been calling like a drum beat inviting us to move in rhythm with it for centuries and centuries.
Gardeners would move to this beat. And in practicing it, grow to love it.
Second, in the book of Revelation we are given a picture of where this is all headed.
And it looks like a city.
But not one whose architecture and culture were shaped by hurt and fear and greed, like the cities the descendants of Cain built. This is not a landscape where it would make sense to place in its center something looking like the tower of Babel.
This is the New Jerusalem. With eternal light and streets of gold and so it is fitting that at its center, straddling a river bearing living water, is the Tree of Life, which was seeded in Eden, and has not been seen for a good while.
But now, it's right in the heart of the City, bearing leaves that heal the nations that have just been judged.
So the end that fits our precedent is Eden. But not just. This Garden has grown into a city.
When our worship begins to shape how we see, we began to recognize the world and its resources are not just "stuff" to be used according to our plans and agendas. Our worship helps us see that Creation is, in its deeper truth, raw material for healing.
And so, when this worship flows into and through our work, we build cities that are not concrete deserts with alleyways swallowing the forgotten and lonely in darkness and dunes of refuse blocking the sky.
Instead, when Eden nurtures us and we then nurture Eden, it flourishes into a City that is a Garden that heals the nations.
Our precedent invites us to experience the truth that lives inhabited in Christ by our Creator and poured out in worship and work, are lives that point to this end.