A Sacred Task

Read Genesis 2:15 (For this Saturday's Sermon Into the Wrong Hands)

So get this...we were placed in the Garden, right in the heart of God’s good creation with a task, “work it and care for it.” From the very outset we were tied to the earth, tied to the physical creation that God had spoken into being and had declared it as good. God had placed into our hands the beauty, splendor, and abundance of the earth.

But the problem is...when we sinned, we ruined it. See, we have this weird belief that sin only really affects our relationship with God. However, that’s not true. Sin affects everything, our relationship with God, with others, and with the earth. Part of the punishment found in Genesis 3 is “toiling in a land filled with thorns and thistles.” That new enmity has blurred our vision. Now we no longer care for the earth. We make a commodity of it. We use it only for our pleasure and our profit. We have very little regard for sacred stewardship of the earth...a task—that remember—we have been created for.

Now we can split an atom and make a bomb that threatens all of what God once declared good. Now we can fill up our landfills with man made products that can take centuries to degrade. Now we can make fun of anyone that is environmentally aware and call them “tree huggers.” Now we can continue to treat the earth as an object to be used, exploited and manipulated with little regard for what God might think about such use. Now we can forget God’s intention for our lives...an intention that included “working” and “caring for” what God had created. But that’s because we know better. In fact, Genesis tells us that we took a bite from a tree that gave us a knowledge we should have never had. Ever since then...we have pretty much determined that we know better than God what needs to happen.

Well God...Could it be that you placed your earth “Into the Wrong Hands?”