"Mother Earth or Father God?"
Genesis 1:1 - 2:3
Trinity 21, October 12, 2008
Pastor Aaron A. Koch
Mt. Zion Lutheran Church
Greenfield, Wisconsin

In then name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Throughout the history of mankind, there has been a battle going on between the religion of mother earth and the religion of Father God. The religion of mother earth is paganism, where different elements of creation are thought to have some sort of supernatural or divine power. Pagans would worship the sun-god or the river god. They would speak of the spirit of the trees or of the mountains or of animals as forces they would have to appease or show proper respect to. In other words creation itself was seen as being divine. All the worship of idols was at its root a worship of the creation in some form rather than the Creator. Romans 1 speaks of this when it says, "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man-and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things . . . (They) exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator." The very term "mother nature" or "mother earth" is really a sign of our identity as fallen creatures. As ones formed from the earth, we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

Of course, in this scientific age, we believe we've advanced beyond all the superstitious paganism of the past. In our technological wisdom we can now explain everything logically and rationally, even down to the level of subatomic particles. The wisdom of this age is that evolution is the way things came to be. There is no personal being called God. Rather, it is said, through chance random processes spread out over billions of years, dead elements came together to form living things which developed over time into the vast variety of living plants and animals that we see around us today. In this way all living things are connected because we are all joined somewhere on that same evolutionary tree of life.

But do you notice where that leaves us? Right back with the pagans. After all, if there is no eternal Creator God, then nature, the stuff of the universe must be eternal. The material world is the only thing that's real and everlasting. And so, once again, man ends up giving his honor and love to the creation rather than to the Creator.

And it goes even further than that. This evolutionary mindset inevitably begins to take on the characteristics of the old pagan religion. The Scriptures say that all people know instinctively that God exists. That knowledge is corrupted and darkened by sin, but everyone has a sense that there is something divine out there that is to be worshiped and honored. And if the Creator is excluded from the scene, then even a supposedly logical and scientific culture will begin to speak of the creation as having divine, spiritual qualities.

If you're listening at all, you can hear language being used nowadays that talks of the spirit of the universe or the spirit of nature. I recently saw a show on PBS where people were literally crying over trees that were cut down for lumber, as if a family member had been murdered at that very place. It was seen as an attack on something divine, something holy. Their temple was the forest, and as they saw it, it was being desecrated. You hear the same sort of reverence and awe being shown for whales and dolphins and other animals, a mystical and almost worshipful tone being used to describe these creatures. The whole Biblical order is turned upside down as animals are often implicitly portrayed as being higher than human beings because they are more in harmony with nature and with the "circle of life."

Being spiritual today for many means being "green," honoring mother earth. And so the worst sort of sins don't involve breaking the 10 commandments but rather not being environmentally pure. In today's society it would be a worse sin for me not to recycle properly than it would be for me to misuse the holy name of God, more immoral to have a large "carbon footprint" than to download pornography. There is more outrage over someone abusing an animal than there is over the abortion of an unborn child. And don't even think about suggesting that global warming isn't necessarily the huge crisis it's made out to be or say that man is not the primary cause of it. That's sheer blasphemy! Our supposedly open-minded schools and universities will brand you a wicked heretic for even considering such a thing. Environmentalism has become a religion in our day, as dogmatic as any medieval church.

All of this grows out of a shift away from the worship of the Creator to the worship of the creation, from Father God to mother earth, from the Lord to whom we are accountable and who will be our judge on the Last Day to the cycles of nature which we try to become more in harmony with. We need to recognize that this pagan philosophy and spirituality stands opposed to the Christian faith, for it subtly changes the definition of sin and salvation and God Himself.

Now, of course, I am not suggesting in any way that we are free to callously pollute nature or selfishly misuse the gifts of God's creation, or that we shouldn't seek cleaner forms of energy and the like. Quite the contrary. The Scriptures, including our Old Testament reading for today, clearly point to our responsibility in that regard. But the reasons why that is so and our God-given place in relation to creation is very different from the environmental philosophies that dominate today.

Human beings are not merely animals who happen to have highly developed brains. God created man in distinction from the animals. Only man is created in the image of God. Only man is given that value and that status far above the animals. Human beings are given a unique role as stewards of God's creation. God commanded man, "Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." As those who bear the image of God, human beings are given to be the overseers of God's creation, managing it, caring for it according to His purposes, as His representatives. We are even commanded by the Lord to subdue and have dominion over creation, and in that way to continue His work of setting creation in order. Man, therefore, is not below nature, in a position where he must reverence and worship her. He is over creation by God's own design as a steward and caretaker of what the Lord has made. It is not to creation but to the Lord alone that all reverence and worship belongs. The Psalmist put it this way, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands."

Now, of course, creation today is far different from what it was in the beginning. Before man fell into sin, all was good; there was no death or decay or evil. But, as proof that man is over creation, when he rebelled against God, all creation fell and was cursed with him. Romans 8 says that all creation groans and is in bondage to decay. While nature can be beautiful, it can also now be harsh and desolate and dangerous. The circle of life is really the circle of death, where the strong survive and the weak die-and even the strong are eventually overcome.

All of this is the wages of our sin, which is death. We have turned away from God and what He created us to be to try to become like God Himself. We were not content to be under His authority and live according to His will. Instead, we wanted to run our own lives our own way and be accountable to no one. We wanted to treat creation not as something that belonged to God that we were stewards of but as something that belonged to us to use however we pleased. We ended up becoming like the animals, living according to our own instincts for survival or pleasure. The image of God has been corrupted and broken in us, cutting us off from eternal life with Him.

However, the same God who created us in love has entered into His fallen creation in order to redeem and recreate us in Christ Jesus. Colossians 1 says that Christ Himself is the image of the invisible God. In other words, when man was created in God's image in the beginning, that means he was created in Christ, the eternal Son of God. Already then, from the foundation of the world, Jesus was the heart and source of our life. And in order to restore the image of God to us who had lost it, the Son of God came and shared in our humanity, true God became true man, that the image of God might be imprinted on us again.

When God created all things in the beginning, He did so through His Word. He spoke, and it was so. "Let there be light," and there was light. The Gospel of John tells us that the Word was the Son of God, Jesus, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity. It is written, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . All things were made through Him . . . The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Jesus is the One who became a part of His own creation to renew it. As your blood brother, He took your place under judgment and was held accountable for your sins. Just as all creation groans, so He groaned and breathed His last for you on the cross to break the curse of death and free you from your bondage to decay. The shed blood of Christ cleanses you and renews you and puts you right with the Father again.

And the creation account itself foretells and foreshadows this saving work of Christ. For notice how the days are marked: it's not morning and then evening the way we usually think of it, but first evening and then morning. First it's darkness, then it's light. First it's the shadow of death, then it's the light of life. Jesus dies in the darkness of Good Friday to subdue creation, and then He rises at the dawn of Easter morning to put an end to death and to bring about a new creation.

The Scriptures say that in the world to come there is no night. For the light of Christ will be all in all. And that light has shined on you already, for it is written, "If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come." As the Spirit of God hovered over the waters at creation, so you were given a new life by water and the Spirit in baptism. You descended into the depths and rose again with Jesus to a life that never ends.

So think no longer of the earth as your mother; rather let us speak of mother church. For the saying is true, "No one has God as his Father who doesn't have the church as his mother." Here is the source of your life. For here is Christ your Savior, who continues to speak His powerful creative Word: "Your sins are forgiven," and they are. "This is My body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins," and it is. Jesus has dominion over all creation for your good. He is crowned with glory and honor at the right hand of the Father. Considering all of this creating and saving work of God in Christ, we can only repeat the words of Scripture: It is very good.

In then name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit