Sermon Text: Genesis 1:26
Sermon Excerpt
Dominion is one of those words that makes me cringe. I cannot hear the word in any context without having some kind of reaction. There are many reasons for it, including a very troubling experience with a rather unconventional church.
This church practiced Dominion Theology and took this task so seriously that it shaped every aspect of their identity. They understood that it was their role – along with other churches that held Dominionist views – to rise up and take control of the world beginning with our country. Their plan was a Crusade of sorts by which they were determined to rule our country by replacing our democracy with their theocracy. For them, the rule of Christ needed to become the rule of our land as soon as possible and by nearly any means possible.
So now you understand one reason why I would have liked to simply skip over the word dominion in this morning’s passage. A more troubling reason that hits closer to home for many gathered here is the way good Christian people have used the “d” word as a license to do whatever they wanted to harm the earth. Unfortunately this “the earth is ours and we can do with it as we like” approach was all too common for many centuries.
During our lifetimes that approach has given way to one that both takes into account the earth challenges of our age and takes seriously the biblical text.
The Lutheran Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim suggests that the Hebrew verb we have translated as dominion “must be understood in terms of care-giving, even nurturing, not exploitation.” And, he believes that “As the image of God, humans should relate to the nonhuman as God relates to them.”
Walter Brueggemann, perhaps the best known living Christian scholar of the Old Testament, explores what it means to be made in the image of God and suggests that this image is a “mandate of power and responsibility.”
If you look at the Scripture printed in your bulletin you will notice it comes from the contemporary paraphrase The Message. It has done for us what the academics have recommended by replacing the word dominion and all of its many violent connotations with the word responsible. We – all of us humans – every single one of us – as those made in the image of God have a responsibility to care for creation.
This is our shared responsibility. Together we have so much to do! The magnitude is such that we could spend a lifetime just exploring the possibilities.
I am thankful that . . (read manuscript or watch video)
So What?
Churches tend to do a good job of emphasizing earth care on the Sunday closest to Earth Day or on an alternate Sunday selected for environmental stewardship. Learning to model responsible earthkeeping in how the church campus operates on a daily basis and in long term plans for building renovations is a growing edge for most congregations.
- Share ways your congregation models a commitment to responsible earthkeeping in the daily operations of your church campus (e.g., list green practices or procedures adopted in recent years).
- How has your personal understanding of and commitment to earth care changed over the last five years? the course of your lifetime?