Who owns the world? A Sermon for Proper 22 (Washington National Cathedral)

Proper 22: Psalm 8

⁵ Yet you have made them a little lower than God,^*
   and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
   you have put all things under their feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen,
   and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
   whatever passes along the paths of the seas (Ps. 8:5-8)

Does God own the world? And if so, what does this mean for our efforts to protect the earth through conservation and the like? One possible way to attend to these questions is to start with what we mean by ownership. Usually when we say we own something, it is assumed that the item in question belongs to us. Whether a car or a pencil, ownership is as ordinary a concept as they come. We may have lots of cars, and many pencils, and there might be a problem with how much we own in comparison with other people , but few of us would question whether possessing items is in itself problematic. It is, we might say, simply part of life. Accepting this rather pedestrian truism only makes the sign found in some stores more troublesome that perhaps it ought:  “If you break it, you just bought it.” Ownership due to clumsiness is a terrible way to buy and possess that hideous bowl now shattered in three pieces. 

We live in a world of cars and pencils. We also live in a world where phantom items like “stock” or “credit” might additionally count as possessions. Some items are material and occupy our houses or work desks; others exist via the paperless world of banking. How, then, can we make sense of the psalmist’s declaration that, the earth is the work of God’s hands? Something that God grants us oversight?  At one level (in one sense) our answer to this question tells us something of how we understand the connection between God and the world. If the earth is God’s, what is our part in living here? Questions like this open up a line of inquiry that begins to address how (if at all) we reconcile a material universe in which we claim some of it as our own, and the workings of a God whose ultimate claim on the earth (and our “stuff”), the psalmist assumes. 

We might want to say that ownership is not proper to a God who is, after all, a Spirit. We know from watching ghost movies that spirits come and go as they please, never really owning items but making use of items when it seems necessary.  If God is just a really powerful ghost, then we really do not need to worry about whether the earth is God’s because God can simply float hither and yon in our material world while leaving the cars and pencils to us. God can’t use them after all, so they remain safely in our care. We might even ask:  what use does God have of the earth anyway? This whole Spirit thing seems to make the psalmist’s language into just one more metaphor is a bible full of the same. God may be the creator, but the earth is really ours.

To be fair, the psalmist and his or her fellow Hebrews operated under a different mode of ownership than our modern world. Yes, they did have personal items (think of the commandment against stealing), and possessing the promised land is part and parcel of Israel’s earthly pilgrimage; however, they also held the belief that ultimate and final ownership of items (i.e. land, houses, and so forth) belonged to God. Why? Simply this: it was a gift, all of it, given to the people by their God. We can see this clearly in the bewilderment and pain of Israel’s exile into Babylon. What they lost was not just “their land” but also the promise God had made to them; a promise that was deeply connected to the rocks and shops that made up the city of Jerusalem and her region.

It is this connection between the ownership of God and the items that make up Israel’s world that provides a glimpse of the poet’s praise of God as the earth’s maker. From the Hebrews we learn that this world is so deeply saturated by its giftedness from God that it is hard (nay, impossible) to calve the earth up into chunks that belong to us, and those which belong to God. It all belongs to God. The earth is the work of God’s hands. What is now all too clear is that the gift is withering away in our hands. And we must respond. To neglect the giftedness of creation: to pollute the rivers, overspend the growing potential of the land, fish the oceans out of their (once) abundant fill, is not to act like a bad owner; rather it is be a rotten guest who takes the hospitality of a gracious host and runs amok, destroying the residence as we go. This is the state we find ourselves. Regardless of whether we openly support something like climate control measures, or live as though the whole thing was concocted in the minds of a secret, liberal think-tank, the place of earth in God’s generous rule is not something we can ignore. In short, the earth is not ours to do what we will. It is God’s and it is good and worthy of our attention.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams recently noted that, “the deepest religious basis for our commitment to the environment in which God has placed us is (the) recognition that we are called to be, and are enabled to be, the place where God's love for the world comes through. “ Williams isn’t, I believe, speaking of the earth being good only when its wonders make us feel special. If the only time our attention turns to the natural world is when it pleases us (due to say, a lovely sunset or a life-changing scuba session), then we really haven’t begun to delve the depths of the earth as ‘good’ in the eyes of God. 

To speak of something as good is to recognize that the item in question - whether a pair of scissors or the entire earth - is in a state proper to the kind of thing it is. Good scissors cut well; a good earth flourishes. Goodness is not simply a moral category whereby we distinguish some items or actions as good and others as bad. Goodness captures how something is, or becomes, what it is meant to be. The earth, as given by a good Creator, is made to be a site of growth and life. We can speak of the earth being good because it is the very site of divine activity;  the kind of power that ordered and arranged the chaos, as we hear of in Genesis, and made a habitable home for flora and fauna. It is also where we are meant to thrive. Unfortunately, the needed recognition and human action that is suitable for the earth to be good, to flourish, is often lost on us. It is though we think we own the place!

This is not to say that we don’t try to help the earth. We do. You recycle, right? Great. How about buying organic foods? Terrific! But do you love the earth? In other words, do you think of it and act for the earth’s benefit, so that this world of ours can thrive and truly be what it was created to be? This seems much harder.  To consider our vocation to be “the place where God’s love for the world comes through” is to move into an arena of thought and action that is at once overwhelming in its scope, yet equally, necessary. 

Many of us who hear the call for environmental stewardship cry out for immediate action. What can we do? It’s so large a job, where do we begin? For what it’s worth, before we answer the “what” question, we ought to be convinced of the “why”. Countless examples of our ailing earth can be paraded before us. Stories of failing biospheres and shrinking ice-caps can trigger a desire to respond; but unless we are clear on ‘why’ then our actions, albeit helpful and at least something, will not be sustainable. We require reasons for our actions, if our actions are to be said to be proper human activity. We need something like a conversion experience, an old-fashioned ‘turn-to-Jesus’ moment where we really do ‘repent’ and change direction. Our actions will speak loudly, but so will our change of language from that saturated by the rhetoric of ownership and possession, to a grammar that reflects the depth of goodness, giftedness and above all, love of God.  Yes, love. Something that is good is lovable, and our world is so loved by God that we are invited to share in that love and become, as it were, participants (like gardeners) in the flourishing of this world. This is not just a turn to something called environmentalism, it is an acceptance of our place in the world, and our role in tending the soil from which God molded and breathed into to give us life. This might sound overly religious in tone, and not radical enough to do any earthly good, but if we fail to recognize what is at stake in receiving life rather than simply having life, then we will forever be fretting about the latest Discovery Channel program on endangered elephants, but never actually address the question, why: why should we respond?

We don’t own the earth. Part of the distinctive character of earth stewardship by religious-minded people is that we freely confess as much. Through our belief and trust that the life we live on this earth is eternally taken up in the gracious life of God, we practice being good guests. Plenty of religious-minded people would disagree by stating that our position in the world makes us like an owner, as if God made everything, gave it to us, and went on holiday. This attitude, I believe, displays a paucity of understanding toward the created order. Our religious traditions equip us with language and rationale for engaging fully in care and protection of our world and all its myriads of life forms. We may not own the earth, yet we have the unique vocation of loving it and doing so to the point that it truly thrives. As such, it will serve us well to learn (or re-learn) the connection between the soil under our feet, and our place to care for that very soil. This isn’t about becoming a special kind of person or joining the right kind of organization; rather it has everything to do with adopting patterns of thought and practice that reflect God’s goodness in a world that was created to flourish. Only when we are convinced of God’s goodness and the earth’s worth, will we realize our vocation as stewards of God’s handiwork.