Chapter 4

Loving God by caring for his creation

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

Psalm 24:1

God wants us to love him - with all our heart, soul, mind and strength - wholehearted love. It is not a Sunday morning only love, but a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week love. It is not a love that we can pack away, only to be brought out when we are in trouble, sick or feeling low. Nor is it a one-sided love that takes God for granted because we know that, like a good parent, he will always be there for us.

Care and respect are not unique characteristics of love, but without these, there is no love. A partner who enjoys baking or craftwork would welcome constructive critical appreciation offered in love, but would not stand for their creations or their shed, workshop, studio, craft room or kitchen being deliberately or unthinkingly and continually damaged.

Love cares for what others value.

Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength requires that we value and take care of his creation.

When God gave humanity ‘dominion’[1] over his creation, he was making human beings his stewards to care for it. Genesis 1:28 speaks of God instructing humankind to subdue the earth. The Hebrew word we translate as ‘subdue’ is kabash, meaning to control a people or land in order that it may yield service to the one subduing it. Human beings are to use the earth’s resources that God has created to benefit their life on the earth. The writer of Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve hid from God as he walked through the garden in the cool of the day.[2] God enjoyed the world he created as a place of rest, relaxation, and recuperation, and a place where humankind and God could enjoy companionship together. As we read through the book of Genesis, we find people using the earth’s resources to provide food, through the farming of plants and animals, and to make tools and musical instruments. Through his creation, God has provided resources for humankind to sustain them physically, emotionally, and culturally.

Although God gave human beings the right to rule over the earth, it remains his. The Psalmist writes; “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.”[3]

Loving God raises challenging questions for us about how we live and the impact of our lives upon the planet and the universe beyond, which God has created.

Does the way we live damage the natural world that itself sustains our earthly life?

Does the way we live honour and respect God’s creation?

Are the resources of the world ours to own and possess, or are we only custodians? As Paul wrote to Timothy, “We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.”[4]

So, in the twenty-first century, our love for God challenges us about our carbon footprint, how we might live more sustainably, our care for wildlife as more species become threatened with extinction, our farming practices, the destruction of rain forests, and global warming. If we fail to care for the natural world, what does that say about loving its creator with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

Of course, a major part of God’s creation is human life. What does our care of fellow human beings say about our love of God and his creation? What does our misuse of God’s creation say about our love for our fellow human beings?

Christians believe in one God who is three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. John touches on this in the opening sentences of his account of the Gospel, writing,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”[5]

John is clear that God, who created all that is, came to earth to live among us. That is exactly what we celebrate at Christmas, God taking human form and being born as a human being. The Apostle Paul emphasises this when writing to the Colossians, “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”[6] So, when we love Jesus, we love God, for Jesus is God. When Jesus speaks, it is God who speaks.

Jesus said to the disciples that they should love one another as Jesus himself loves them; “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”[7] Notice that what Jesus is saying here is a development of the command to love neighbour as oneself.

Our love for God is hollow if we have an outward show of devotion, yet our love for him is not made demonstrable through the love we show our neighbour: fellow human beings created by God and made in his image. In the Old Testament, we read of the prophets challenging, more than once, the Israelite nation about their religious practices. Through their religious observances, the nation demonstrated an outward show of love to God, yet this was not made a reality in the way they lived their lives, nor in their relationships with God, with one another, and with others outside their community.

Even The Day of Atonement, the only ritual fast of the Jewish religious year, became a meaningless ceremony. The fasting meant nothing since it did not impact on the love and compassion the people had for their neighbour. Through the prophet Isaiah, God chastised Israel. Paraphrasing Isaiah 58:6–14, God said.

“This is the kind of fast day I want:

unlock the chains of injustice and release people from the yoke of oppression,

get rid of exploitation and abuse.

Share your food with the hungry,

invite the homeless into your homes,

put your own clothes on the naked

and remember to help your own relative.

Then your light will shine like the morning sun dissolving the darkness

and your lives will quickly be healed and transformed.

God will walk with you as your guide and protector.

Then God will hear your prayers and answer them.

When you call for his help he will be there for you.

“If you get rid of the burdensome yoke of exploitation, stop blaming victims and maliciously gossiping about other people’s sins,

If you are generous and feed the hungry, start giving to the poor and caring for people homeless, marginalised, abused, or voiceless,

then you will be a light in the world, shining like the midday sun.

“I will always show you where to go,” says God.

“I’ll give you all you need to live a full life.

You’ll be like a well-watered garden, bringing beauty and joy to the world

and like a refreshing spring that never runs dry.

Your people will clear away the rubble of their broken lives and rebuild on the firm foundations of the past.

You’ll be known as the one who can transform ruins and devastation into useful and beauty, regenerating the community and making it a place where people can live again.

“If you keep the Sabbath as it was intended for you and not simply use it to do as you please;

If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy and celebration of God’s holy day,

if you honour it by refusing to make it just another day indistinguishable from the other six,

then you’ll find joy in God.

I’ll make you ride high,

and you will enjoy the heritage I gave your ancestor Jacob and feast on its delights.

God has spoken.”

Through Isaiah, God was saying that the kind of worship he prefers is that which overturns all that oppresses and keeps down the poor and weak. Unless the people stop perpetrating injustices, he will not hear their prayers. What God prefers is not an empty ritual but energy and action to address social injustices and for the people to demonstrate compassion, supporting anyone in need. Then Jerusalem will be restored as the garden of the Lord, and the Temple rebuilt. This is the renewal that will follow repentance and atonement.

It is impossible to separate our love of God from our love of others. Jesus said that whatever you do for one of the least of people, you do for me.[8] That’s all wrapped up in a story about a King that Jesus told just days before his death. You can read it in Matthew 25:31–46. The message of that story is that what we do for others, we do for Jesus, and what we fail to do for others, we fail to do for him.

Some commentators and theologians make the point that what Jesus actually said, as recorded by Matthew, was, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40) and so was referring only to aid given to the faithful rather than all people in need. For example, R T France comments that when Jesus speaks of his brothers in this chapter, he is using it as “a term specially for his disciples, not for men in general.”[9] France and others infer that we only do something for Jesus when we do something for the brothers, that is, people who are members of Jesus’ family, meaning those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit, people who have faith in Jesus. The context is somewhat exclusive. However, when Jesus speaks in the negative, that is, when he says (in Matthew 25:45) when we do not do something for ‘the least’ we do not do it for him, he does not mention ‘brothers,’ simply “the least of these.” The terminology here suggests greater inclusivity.

However, just as Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbour?” we may ask, “Who are his brothers and sisters? If Jesus was only referring to the faithful, how are we to know who they are? How do we know who are those born of the Holy Spirit? We understand from scripture that God creates all human beings, and he delights to make people in his image. That points us towards a more inclusive interpretation. What we observe in Jesus’ actions is that he is willing, and indeed does, help all in need: a Samaritan woman at a well, lepers, a Roman centurion, a rich young man, a tax collector and five thousand men on a hillside, amongst whom will have been all sorts of people.

However, Jesus specifically warns against our making judgments about the faith people have or do not have. One of those warnings comes to us in the parable of the wheat and weeds that Matthew recounts in Chapter 13 of his account of the Gospel.

Clearly, the world includes people faithful to God, children of the Kingdom, true disciples, good grain, as that parable calls them, and those who are not; people who are weeds, the darnel in the parable. However, Jesus warns us against judging who is a faithful follower of Christ and who is not. Yes, we are to discern behaviour that is worthy of discipleship, but we are not to exercise God’s right to judge people’s ultimate destiny. Distinguishing between darnel and wheat is difficult. Was Abraham a child of the evil one for passing off his wife Sarah as his sister or trying to murder his son, or a child of the Kingdom for keeping faith with God? Was Rev Ian Paisley wheat because of his faith in God or weed because of his apparent lack of Christian love towards Irish Republicans? I am sure we all know people who declare a faith, perhaps even attend church regularly, yet we wonder whether they are indeed born again by the Holy Spirit, truly faithful disciples of Jesus. We are all fallen people. We all need the forgiveness Jesus won for us on the cross. The real question here is one of faith in him. We cannot, and should not, make that judgement about others; we leave that to God, who commands us to love.

Other commentators interpret Jesus speaking of “these brothers of mine” as Jesus embracing the hungry, thirsty, the stranger, the least of people, as members of his family. Michael Green states that “we must realise that in failing to care for the poor and unemployed we are failing to care for those with whom Jesus identified himself.”[10] Indeed, some commentators, such as Graves,[11] have postulated that the man in the story about whom we read at the start of Chapter 1, who was beaten and left for dead on the Jerusalem Jericho road, symbolises Jesus. He is left for dead by the Jewish religious establishment, but those who help the man are helping Jesus himself.

Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is certainly about loving his creation, including every human life, each made in his image.

What we do, even for the very least, we will be doing for Jesus, the second person of the Godhead. These are acts of love and devotion.

Points for reflection

1. Is it possible to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength if the way we live does not honour his creation?

2. What is required of us to tread more lightly on the world?

3. How broad is our understanding of the nature of worship? Is worship simply singing songs to God or what we do mostly for an hour or so on Sunday, or is it something that permeates the whole of our lives?

4. Psalm 104 [ESV]

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

O Lord my God, you are very great!

You are clothed with splendour and majesty,

² covering yourself with light as with a garment,

stretching out the heavens like a tent.

³ He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;

he makes the clouds his chariot;

he rides on the wings of the wind;

⁴ he makes his messengers winds,

his ministers a flaming fire.

⁵ He set the earth on its foundations,

so that it should never be moved.

⁶ You covered it with the deep as with a garment;

the waters stood above the mountains.

⁷ At your rebuke they fled;

at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.

⁸ The mountains rose, the valleys sank down

to the place that you appointed for them.

⁹ You set a boundary that they may not pass,

so that they might not again cover the earth.

¹⁰ You make springs gush forth in the valleys;

they flow between the hills;

¹¹ they give drink to every beast of the field;

the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

¹² Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;

they sing among the branches.

¹³ From your lofty abode you water the mountains;

the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

¹⁴ You cause the grass to grow for the livestock

and plants for man to cultivate,

that he may bring forth food from the earth

¹⁵ and wine to gladden the heart of man,

oil to make his face shine

and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

¹⁶ The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,

the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

¹⁷ In them the birds build their nests;

the stork has her home in the fir trees.

¹⁸ The high mountains are for the wild goats;

the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.

¹⁹ He made the moon to mark the seasons;

the sun knows its time for setting.

²⁰ You make darkness, and it is night,

when all the beasts of the forest creep about.

²¹ The young lions roar for their prey,

seeking their food from God.

²² When the sun rises, they steal away

and lie down in their dens.

²³ Man goes out to his work

and to his labour until the evening.

²⁴ O Lord, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

²⁵ Here is the sea, great and wide,

which teems with creatures innumerable,

living things both small and great.

²⁶ There go the ships,

and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

²⁷ These all look to you,

to give them their food in due season.

²⁸ When you give it to them, they gather it up;

when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

²⁹ When you hide your face, they are dismayed;

when you take away their breath, they die

and return to their dust.

³⁰ When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,

and you renew the face of the ground.

³¹ May the glory of the Lord endure for ever;

may the Lord rejoice in his works,

³² who looks on the earth and it trembles,

who touches the mountains and they smoke!

³³ I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

³⁴ May my meditation be pleasing to him,

for I rejoice in the Lord.

³⁵ Let sinners be consumed from the earth,

and let the wicked be no more!

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Praise the Lord!

Prayer

Creator God, I will sing of my love for you as long as I live. All of creation joins together in an eternal song of praise. I praise you for the sun that gives light and warmth and the stars and moon that give light at night. I thank you for the rain that refreshes the earth and the tides of the sea.

I wonder at the microscopic, hidden from view, yet an intricate and essential part of creation. I wonder at the universe; impossible to see its extent, even with the greatest telescope.

I thank you for rock and sand, for all that grows in the earth, for the birds in the sky, the life that lives within the oceans, in and under the soil. I thank you for the way that birth and life, death and decay, is a complete circle of re-creation.

I thank you for light and sound, smell, taste and texture, for joy, sadness, excitement and all the emotions you have given us. I thank you for love, that holds me close, protects and provides.

You are great and wonderful, Father God, all praise and honour, glory and power be to you. Amen.

[1] Genesis 1:26 &28

[2] Genesis 3:8

[3] Psalm 24:1

[4] 1 Timothy 6:7

[5] John 1:1–3 & 14

[6] Colossians 2:9

[7] John 13:34

[8] Matthew 25:25

[9] France, R T. Matthew: Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. IVP (1985) p357

[10] Green, Michael. The Message of Matthew. The Bible Speaks Today, Series Ed John Stott. IVP (1998 & 2000) p 264

[11] Graves, M. Luke 10:25–37: The Moral of the Good Samaritan Review and Expositor 94 p269–75 (May 1997)