Faithful Relations With All of God's Creations

When I’m at home you can often find my gazing adoringly at one, two, or all of our three dogs. If you haven’t had the chance to experience their amazingness you should definitely come say hi to them before you leave today. I truly marvel at their capacity to love us so unconditionally. And we have a responsibility, not only to our pets, but to all animals and all of creation to care for, to steward them, well.

In my preparation for my sermon this morning I explored the relationship between people and the rest of the animal kingdom throughout time.

In Genesis 1:26 God gives humankind “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” In a modern legal sense the word dominion means to have supreme authority. The original word used in Genesis 1:26 is וְיִרְדּוּ֩ and means to rule over. The NRSV and KJV both translate the word to mean dominion. While other versions of the Bible translate the word to mean responsibility and stewardship.

Many Indigenous peoples around the world hold the relationship between humankind and animals as sacred. Here in North America indigenous tribes such as the Iroquois, Lakota, Cherokee, Ojibwa, Cheyenne, and Navajo among others have as a part of their origin or creation stories a deep interconnectedness and interdependence between humans and animals. Like most North American Indigenous tribes the Celtic Tribes show respect for animals in their hunting practices, by only hunting for need and offering a prayer over the animal in thanks for the resources gained by its death, demonstrating a respect for God’s creation.

These stories of interconnectedness between humans and animals are woven throughout the history of time.

But I found that with major explorations from Europe to other parts of the world, humans began to show less and less respect for the animal kingdom. I was reviewing an interview that PBS did with Jane Goodall this year and something she said struck me. The interviewer Jeffrey Brown is narrating and says, “...it all began in 1960, when a young British woman without a college degree went to what is now Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to live with and study chimpanzees in a new way.” Here the interview cuts to Jane saying:

“It's absolutely so vivid. And, of course, it was a time when the chimpanzees were like part of my family.

And the striking thing was how like us they actually are. When I got to Cambridge, because Louis Leakey said I had to get a degree, I was told I'd done everything wrong. I shouldn't have given the chimps names. They should have had numbers. I couldn't talk about [their] personality, mind or emotion. Those were unique to us [humans], I was told.

But I had been taught by my dog Rusty…And of course animals have personalities, minds and emotions. And now science has been forced to accept we're not, after all, the only beings with those attributes.”

This statement stopped me in my tracks.

How often do we see ourselves as better than? Better than other people? Better than the rest of God’s creation? How often do we fail to see the value in other people and in God’s creation outside of humanity? How often do we put ourselves and our needs above others? How often do we fail to trust in God to care for us or fail to do our part to care for one another?

It’s true that people are made in God’s image. What is also true is that we have been given the responsibility of stewardship for the rest of God’s creation, including one another. There are no disclaimers attached to this responsibility, no waivers given. We are to love as God loves us.

But that isn’t easy. At least it isn’t easy all of the time. So what do we do? What’s the answer.

My answer is probably getting really old, but don’t worry, I go back to school in September and there’s a chance that another theological concept will capture my attention…well maybe.

Anyway, here’s my answer. We live in the freedom we have been given through God’s gift of justification. To refresh your memory justification is God’s declaring a sinful person to be “just” on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The result is God’s peace, God’s Spirit in us, and salvation. Without justification given to us by God’s Grace alone we would be left in the bondage of our own will. And what exactly does that mean?

As Lutherans we believe that because of human sinfulness, the human will is bound to act according to its sinful nature and is therefore captive to it, unable to choose to do anything good apart from its liberation by the Holy Spirit. That sinful nature not only separates us from God and the ability to do good, but it also keeps us from being in right relationship with one another and the rest of God’s creation.

Now receiving God’s justification doesn’t mean that we will always be perfect and without sin. What is does mean is that God has graciously declared each of us just in spite of the continued presence of sin in our lives, making us simultaneously sinner and saint. It also means that we have been freed from the bondage of sin. Freed so that we may in turn go out and love as Christ loves us.

But I’ll be honest, living in a world so full of division and hate seeing what that love looks like in a tangible way can seem impossible some days. And that is when I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me towards my dogs. I know I’ve said this many times, so please have patience with me. God works in and through created means. That means that God can and does work through God’s creation to love us. And each time I look into the eyes of my fur-babies, I experience unconditional love and acceptance. I know that God has used my precious pups to make me and my family better and more caring people. Just like God has used each of us to love and care for others.

All too often we let our sinful natures and the sinful natures of other people get in the way of seeing God working in us and in them. And sometimes people choose to turn away from the gracious gift of justification and salvation that God has given us. But in my experience, God has used the created means of the animal kingdom to make God’s love and compassion for me. So much so that I have no desire to turn away from God’s gift of justification and salvation.

As we move through the rest of our service this morning I hope that you will enjoy our animal friends and the love of God that they embody. Amen.

McKim, Donald K.. The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Second Edition: Revised and Expanded (p. 36). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.