Climate crisis. Extinction Rebellion. Global warming. Carbon neutral.
All terms that just a few decades ago were unheard of, or at least were less than mainstream. Now you can’t open your browser without them jumping out at you.
Our environment matters. Where we live. How we live where we live. And, most importantly, whether we will be able to continue living where we live because of how we live.
But beyond our environment mattering to us, does it matter beyond us? Is there something more about it that makes it significant than just its mere existence? If we are all just cosmic dust, the result of exploding stars billions of years ago, then in the big scheme of things can it really matter? Can we really matter?
Strangely we feel it does matter. Strangely we feel we matter. Strangely we pin our hopes, and the hopes of future generations, on what happens to this increasingly tenuous planet that bears us up.
I say “strangely” because the crisis we feel inside of us about the crisis we see around us, is revealing. If the universe is cold, impassive and empty, then the question of whether we survive is grounded in nothing bigger than ourselves. And when the camera pulls back, and we look at our size relative to the rest of the universe, we’re not that big. In fact we’re pretty small and insignificant.
Of course that does not mean we should not care for our planet and its environment. For as that great philosopher, Tony Stark, puts it “It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we’ve got.”
Well Iron Man is half right. The world is imperfect. It’s not rocket science to see that. And it is the only world we’ve got.
The Christian message in the Bible aligns with much modern thinking about the world. Yes, the world is imperfect, and it started good. But the Bible story goes much further. It says that the future hope for our world and our environment is not simply limiting the damage we have done to the world so far. The future the Bible paints a picture of a perfect world in the future. And not just any world. Not a new planet out there. But this planet right here.
Christianity says that God created a good world. But rather than starting again with another world because of all the imperfections in this one, God is going to renew the world and make it perfect.
It was good. It is imperfect, It will be perfect.
Here’s the great news. The start of the perfect world has begun. It began the day that Jesus was raised from the dead. That’s God’s promise that he will make the whole thing perfect.
He will make humans perfect for that perfect world. Imperfect humans in a perfect world won’t work: We will muck it up again. Perfect humans in an imperfect world won’t work: We won’t be happy with it. Only perfect humans in a perfect world will work. And that’s God’s intention.
Our care for the environment is based on this reality. Look after the environment because God will one day make it perfect. Reflect his reality now, in light of the future. But don’t put our hopes in our ability to make it perfect. We might get some things right; cutting fossil fuels, ensuring food production is ethical. But without a bigger picture, without a grander plan that comes to us, not from us, we will get a lot of things wrong.
Here in the garden we invite you to explore how and why our environment matters to God. But more than that, how we matter so much to God that he’s going to put all things right in this world.
