Philip Burchill
Sermon 3-10-2024
Friendship with Nature
The theme of our scripture readings and the topic of sermon is looking at the Biblical and Christian theological tradition of nature as creation. The created natural world is a gift that derives its existence and is mutually sustained by the love of our Creator. I’d like to preface this sermon with a personal anecdote that this topic has been a passionate of interest that I have spent several years researching and been compiling a book on the subject. I suspect I am not alone with the fascination and appreciation of nature considering where we live. It is the reason I fled the chaos of LA for the tranquility we find here. We only need to glance out this window to be reminded of the magical beauty of our home’s natural landscape. It is for good reason this area is called Carmel considering the literal Hebrew translation is ‘the vineyard of God’ or ‘the Garden of God’.
We are well familiar the beauty and well-being of the natural world is under great pressure and threat with pollution, population growth the exploitation of natural resources and climate change. The principal cause scientists inform us is green house gases of carbon dioxide pollute the earth’s atmosphere contributing to the highest temperatures on world record since 2,000. Our globe is witnessing rising sea levels, deforestation, and shrinking biodiversity droughts and floods and tragically the poorest countries feel the effects the most. The general consensus of scientists is this is anthropogenic meaning it is caused by human related activity through technology, industrialization and the manipulation of the environment. This imposes upon us an understanding of nature is of paramount importance for our generation.
I am not proposing to discuss environmental policies this morning rather at the starting point of where such a discussion might begin is to first to question how do we understand our place in nature? For the answer to this question will shape our actions, decisions and relationship we have to the natural world. Rather than uncritically absorb the prevailing view techno scientific narrative, I propose we leap this hurdle of modernity back into history to examine what our Christian theological tradition has to say about nature, the environment and potentially find a more workable alternative that promotes flourishing for the entire created order.
“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth. The earth was formless & void and darkness covered over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God as hovering over the waters’ (Genesis 1:1-2). The Biblical account of the world’s creation bears a striking resemblance the origin of the world accounted by western philosophers such as Plato who conceived of God as a divine craftsmen who puts shape, order and structure to the pre-existing chaos. The question arose for the early church, did God create out of necessity or out of free choice? Consequently, what is the relationship of spirit to the material world? This will have important implications of God’s nature, our own identity and our relationship to the natural world which we will see are intertwined.
To answer these questions early church theologians coined a term creatio ex nihilo which simply meant God creates out of nothing not of something else. God another word created on his own free will and choice. This clearly contradicted philosopher maxim, ‘nothing comes from nothing’. To say God created ex nihilo is to say God’s origin power of creation is not one extra cause among the chain of effects in the material world. God is transcendent wholly other outside of space and time and internal who both creates at a point in time and continually sustains reality.
Some philosophers thought God created by a divine emanation as an outflow as a sun’s ray extends from its sphere. The implication of such a view is that God in this way is compelled by necessity of his substance as a stream flows from a spring. The second implication is God and nature become blurred in distinction and are intermingled with one another that gives rise to pantheism that is to see God in everything in creation trees, rocks mountains lakes and so forth. Contrary to pantheism the Christian tradition holds is as Kierkegaard phrased it there is ‘an infinite qualitative distinction between the creature and the Creator’. When we attach God to the material world it is the definition of an idol that elevates the created above the Creator.
C.S. Lewis brings a helpful metaphor conceive of God’s relationship to and distinction from creation , ‘Now that is the first thing to get clear what God begets is God as a Father begets a child. What God creates is not God creates is not God, just as what Man creates is not man. That is why men are not sons of God in the same sense Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways but they are not the things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.’
The key idea is to not confuse the architect with the cathedral or to see no relation between the two. Either Pantheism God as nature on one extreme or the aloof detached clock maker are both extreme inadequate formulations of God’s loving and intimate relationship to creation that is simultaneously other.
I like the preface outlined in this sophisticated book of theology on Creation that said something in the dedication in a childlike way with profound meaning that God created because he wanted friends. It is precisely this reason the Judeo-Christian tradition stands apart from the different accounts for the origin of the universe for the reason God creates out of voluntary free will, love and diffusion of His goodness. God is not an impersonal force coerced by necessity of a physical law. God is the law maker, a Divine person who simultaneously stands above within and intimately related the creation. 1 John 4.16 God is love and God to create the production of creation and creatures will bear a divine signature goodness, purpose, freedom and relationships.
Goodness, Purpose in Creation
‘God saw all that he had made & behold it was very good.’ Genesis 1:31
The created world is good. For everything exist for purpose. The heart to pump blood, food for sustenance, otters migrate to breed, learning for the expanse of knowledge. By nature we seek to procure what is Good. God’s creation as an interdependent network of provision, connection and sustainability is a reflection of God’s goodness. When we procure the good and flourish we participate in God’s nature. The creature pursuing his or her particular good is imitating God participates in the creator’s universal goodness.
PARTICIPATION
A helpful understanding of the relationship of God to creatures and nature is participation in universal communion. Aquinas employs the metaphor of the sun it gives light that generates for plants, animals and humans in a distant sense created entities are like the sun because they participate in the Sun’s causal power gas as light rays, ‘but they share in its power according to their particular form’. This is a reminder we are a part of nature. In Genesis 2:7 it states God made man from the dust indicating humanity is part of the earth and is animated by God’s breath. ‘God forming the first man from the dust of the earth indicates man’s intrinsic and intimate connection with the earth and wider creation.’
A prime example of living in harmony and friendship with nature is embodied in the life of St. Francis of Assisi who is the patron saint of ecology. As we bear witness in this depiction of St Francis feeding the birds with his brothers in nature all of whom St. Francis saw were his siblings since they all derive their being from the Creator. Pope Francis took the name Francis as he records in his encyclical letter concerning the environment Laudato Si because he was the model par excellance of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. Pope Francis on St. Francis writes, ‘Francis communed with all creation preaching even to the flowers. For to him each creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists.’
St. Francis example and prayers are an invitation to join him in seeing nature as a magnificent book which God speaks to us a gives a glimpse of his infinite goodness and beauty. ‘Through the greatness and beauty of creatures one comes to know their maker’. This is a call to lay aside our empirical scientific spectacles and take up an spiritual lenses to learn to see nature as a sacrament.
Learning to See Nature as a Sacrament
A sacrament is defined as a physical entity that bears witness to a spiritual reality. Nature to the ancient and medieval mind understood as creation meant the material world is saturated with God’s presence that it is a gift of God to mankind that bestows the stamp of God’s goodness, provision and fellowship to living creatures. It was believed ‘if God is the author of the book of nature and scripture the two shall not contradict’. Yet something this is lost to the modern lenses when we look on nature as foreign, a non-living object subject to human will use for the procurement of material use and the agenda of utilitarian projects. To understand the Biblical text as it was written in its ancient Jewish audience we must step into their shoes by moral imagination and learn to see the book of scripture and nature with the biblical, ancient and medieval eyes.
For the early Christian interpretation of the book of nature and scripture went hand in hand, they applied an interpretive method that was both literal and symbolic. It was important to gather the obvious historical meaning of scripture the facts and events and second though not least important the symbolic interpretation involves the moral meaning of the text concerned with how we are to live our lives that is concerned with establishing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. This bears witness to an allegorical sense concerned with theological truths of God as unconditional love, goodness, gift and redemption. For example, the parting of the red sea the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh ‘s oppression and slavery was believed to be a literal historical event with additional theological symbolic significance. It demonstrated to Israel the faithfulness of God as Lord and redeemer who is reliable trustworthy for the deliverance and salvation of God’s people. This event was seen as a shadow a pretext dream for baptism for it signified going into the water as slaves members of the empire of Pharaoh and emerging on the other side as a free people with a new identity stamped with God’s destiny. Just as a believer would undergo baptism and arise from the water as a new creation. This was historical, symbolic and a foreshadow of the Christian sacrament of baptism inaugurated by Jesus Christ.
Throughout scriptures we discover references to phenomenon in the natural world contain allegorical messages of moral truth. In the book of Job God tells Job ‘But ask the animals, they will teach you, the birds of the air and they will tell you, ask the plants of the earth and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea, who among you does not know the hand of the Lord has done this? (Job 12.7-9). Christ himself taught moral lessons through metaphors and parable embedded in symbols of nature the mustard seed, lilies, sparrows and referred to His own divinity through the I am statements all symbols of nature such as I am the bread of life, the true vine, the light of the world.
The key lesson for us to be aware of is nature was not solely understood as an object to extract resources to meet material needs or to know the how things work as in science. As Theologian Simon Oliver puts it, ‘nature was a resource for learning about humanity and its place in the cosmic hierarchy the way we should live in the pattern of God’s creation and the final goal to which humanity is called’.
‘For Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made’, Romans 1:20. The natural world is a system of signposts pointing to the glory of their maker an echo of the divine word created by the Word. Nature as creation is a collective sacrament in which we are entangled in communion. Creation as a mediator of the divine presence signifies the divine activity of God in such a way it gives witness to God’s reality in nature by order of goodness and design. Nature as creation is a mediator a stepping stone to contemplate God in whom alone our hearts find their rest.
In the contemplation of Creation is like climbing a ladder as we contemplate the lower order of the sensory world we ascend rungs to a higher spiritual order. Augustine writes that in the study of creatures we must not exercise an empty futile curiosity but a shadow makes them a stepping stone to things unperishable and everlasting.” It is recorded ‘Francis asked part of the friary garden always be left untouched so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there and those who saw them could raise their minds to God the creator of such beauty’.
The contemporary naturalist view reduces nature into a one sided object devoid of symbolic meaning has changed humanity’s approach to the environment. In the materialist view nature is eclipsed of symbolic, sacred with qualities of the divine which offer metaphorical guides for living and bear witness to the signature of God. Philosophers refer to this as the ‘disenchantment’ of the natural world. The scientific naturalist view of nature of the material is all that exist devoid of any relation to the divine sets up a debased reduction of nature to mere neutral matter. This separates humanity over and against nature. Instead of a fellow subject nature is brought beneath mankind as on object detached, different than humanity in which we use and exploit for benefit. Nature is not seen as creation inherent with God’s signature or intrinsic dignity. Rather nature is an artefact awaiting mankind’s own arbitrary signature of measurement, use and commodification.
Part of what is at stake here is we have severed our original and sympathetic relationship to the natural order. Nature is treated as an instrument for human use rather than respected as a divine gift. The screen is a barrier or heavily tainted window that filters reality through marketing schemes political biases corporate agendas that deliver us an obfuscated representation of reality. As Plato’s allegory of the cave we are mistaking shadows for the complete whole of reality. Our foundations have been uprooted from the natural original, pure and good. The benefit acquiring additional layer of interpreting nature and scripture historically hold up a frame of reference for what is just true good for the wellbeing of mankind proved over time rather than uncritically the current model is the best because it is most recent, which Lewis rightfully described as ‘chronological snobbery’.
Lewis alluded to the travesty of man’s breach of nature began with the changing attitude with the rise of science in the 16th century that took exponential leaps in our last 100 years. Nearly seventy years ago Lewis prescient insight touches upon what we have been speaking of in nature and our current view. ‘Modern humanity lost a primary participative consciousness has led to a crisis of meaning for ourselves and the environment.’ This bridge is to be crossed by returning to an original experience with God our fellow men the natural world around us. Fulness of life is experienced in communion with others for which we were designed and by which we are sustained in true happiness.
One important term we must revisit and properly attend to is the meaning of the word ‘dominion’. This is not the power to exploit control conquer and treat nature as a foe. Theologian Jurgen Moltmann states, ‘To say humans have dominion is only half of the picture the other half is humans are part of the creative community and should not isolate themselves outside. In the OT wisdom tradition the spirit is in every living tree in every animal, the spirit of God is a life giving spirit. If we destroy this and isolate ourselves out of this life giving community we destroy ourselves”.
It is a humble recognition we are servants of God to participate volunteer as an important whole of which we are apart. (Rowan Williams quote we are not the system we are a part of the system. This requires us to discard the image of ourselves as conqueror to ascend and exploit. We are called to descend to uplift Creation and fellow men to divine life. As modeled by Christ the Son of God who came not to be served but to serve. Christ’s definition of dominion is to follow God’s divine pattern of humility and work to preserve the well-being of creation in justice and peace.
Approaching the conclusion our contemplation of Creation and our relationship with the natural world. I’d like to share a story that’s perhaps a familiar tale some of you, it’s the very name of the charity shop here many of you generously contribute to ‘the giving tree’. This story in childlike simplicity puts together the picture of view of God’s will and brings home the major moral theme of nature as friend and a gift of God.
The Giving Tree
Once there was a tree....
and she loved a little boy.
And everyday the boy would come
and he would gather her leaves
and make them into crowns
and play king of the forest.
He would climb up her trunk
and swing from her branches
and eat apples.
And they would play hide-and-go-seek.
And when he was tired,
he would sleep in her shade.
And the boy loved the tree....
very much.
And the tree was happy.
But time went by.
And the boy grew older.
And the tree was often alone.
Then one day the boy came to the tree
and the tree said, "Come, Boy, come and
climb up my trunk and swing from my
branches and eat apples and play in my
shade and be happy."
"I am too big to climb and play" said
the boy.
"I want to buy things and have fun.
I want some money?"
"I'm sorry," said the tree, "but I
have no money.
I have only leaves and apples.
Take my apples, Boy, and sell them in
the city. Then you will have money and
you will be happy."
And so the boy climbed up the
tree and gathered her apples
and carried them away.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time....
and the tree was sad.
And then one day the boy came back
and the tree shook with joy
and she said, "Come, Boy, climb up my trunk
and swing from my branches and be happy."
"I am too busy to climb trees," said the boy.
"I want a house to keep me warm," he said.
"I want a wife and I want children,
and so I need a house.
Can you give me a house ?"
" I have no house," said the tree.
"The forest is my house,
but you may cut off
my branches and build a
house. Then you will be happy."
And so the boy cut off her branches
and carried them away
to build his house.
And the tree was happy.
But the boy stayed away for a long time.
And when he came back,
the tree was so happy
she could hardly speak.
"Come, Boy," she whispered,
"come and play."
"I am too old and sad to play,"
said the boy.
"I want a boat that will
take me far away from here.
Can you give me a boat?"
"Cut down my trunk
and make a boat," said the tree.
"Then you can sail away...
and be happy."
And so the boy cut down her trunk
and made a boat and sailed away.
And the tree was happy
... but not really.
And after a long time
the boy came back again.
"I am sorry, Boy,"
said the tree," but I have nothing
left to give you -
My apples are gone."
"My teeth are too weak
for apples," said the boy.
"My branches are gone,"
said the tree. " You
cannot swing on them - "
"I am too old to swing
on branches," said the boy.
"My trunk is gone, " said the tree.
"You cannot climb - "
"I am too tired to climb" said the boy.
"I am sorry," sighed the tree.
"I wish that I could give you something....
but I have nothing left.
I am just an old stump.
I am sorry...."
"I don't need very much now," said the boy.
"just a quiet place to sit and rest.
I am very tired."
"Well," said the tree, straightening
herself up as much as she could,
"well, an old stump is good for sitting and resting
Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest."
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.
GIFT
Essential to a Christian theology of nature as Creation is that we do not own the natural world, ‘The Earth is The Lord’s and all that is within it’ (Ps. 24:1 & Dt 10:14). As creatures we inherit this gift of existence and creation from God we find ourselves within and a part of a divine system of communion and interconnected web of Love endowed by our Creator who donates life voluntarily by His infinite goodness. The appropriate response to this gift as receiving with any gift is to receive it with care and thanksgiving since the gift is an extension partially of the giver. One way we do this when we sing hymns is we return to God the gift of praise and thanksgiving for the gift of life that all humanity exudes in praise and magnifies the Creator.
‘Human sin is a turning away from God’s gift a refusal and rejection of our nature as created and the proud self assertion of one’s autonomy outside God’s goodness’. It is to refuse the gift of God’s friendship, the human community and creation. Instead to be turned totally within oneself and solely pursue an end acquisition of oneself without regard to any one or thing ‘other’. In communion we turn away from self-imposed alienation are enter back into fellowship, into a current of love based on reciprocity of the divine gift. In turning to God seeing nature as Creation and a sacrament we re order our love from private acquisition to direct our lives to the highest end of Man communion with God, man and nature. In union with all being.
Thrown into this world’s current directed by productivity, efficiency and use, this is no easy task to swim upstream. Deep down we recognize life’s most fulfilling goods are gifts such as friends, relationships with loved ones simple walks spent in admiring the natural beauty of the coast landscape or the awe inspiring mountains. All experiences that cannot be reduced to measurement to use or monetary value. The true order of being is rest in God’s good beautiful creation is a gift. So let nature be our guide, as a friend by our side. Amen.