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by Ashtyn Adams Isaiah 55:1-5 (NIV) |
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I come back to the twelfth chapter of Mark quite a bit as a divinity student. Here, Jesus is engaged in debate and dialogue with different religious groups and people of varying theological perspectives. The tension can feel reminiscent of what I experience in a classroom, and sometimes it’s nice to think that Jesus also cared about the details, and knew the ins and outs of religion. He is the good student quoting the Shema from Deuteronomy and the love-your-neighbor ethic from Leviticus. Yet, more than anything else, these passages are an important place of humility for a divinity student. I am the Sadducee who needs to hear the correction from Jesus, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” or the Pharisee from this passage who needs to keep first things first, the Love of God and neighbor. I can’t help probing even that great commandment though, and if I am to love God with my mind, then an investigation into what this love looks like, especially in the Climate Crisis, is warranted.
I find the work of Simone Weil to be refreshingly insightful and thought-provoking. In her essay, Forms of the Implicit Love of God, Weil says the commandment ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God’ infers that the love in question is not just a love we can give or refuse when God takes our hand, but that there is “also a love preceding this visit, for a permanent obligation is implied.” The preceding love has a different object besides God but is ultimately “destined to become the love of God. We can call it the indirect or implicit love of God.” God is really, though secretly, present through these three forms of implicit love of God: religious ceremonies, the beauty of the world, and our neighbor. These three indirect loves are what she considers preparations for the soul, and once we have these to a high degree, then they well up and are taken together to make a single love of God. It is only then that we actually receive a personal visit from the divine.
We cannot love God, therefore, until we have love of the beauty/order of the world. This form of implicit love will be my focus, although it is a complement to the other loves. Weil writes, “By loving our neighbor we imitate the divine love which created us and all our fellows. And likewise, by loving the order of the world we imitate the divine love which created this universe of which we are a part.” This idea is not new to Christianity, but rooted in ancient thought. Primitive Christianity’s close ties to Stoicism exemplify this idea, especially in the writings of Saint John and the school of John. It is important to recognize that creation justice has preceded the environmental movement by millennia, and we now must seek the essentials we have abandoned. We must, “awaken to what is real and eternal.” Weil poignantly asks, “How can Christianity call itself catholic if the universe is left out?” If we cut ourselves off from intimate relationships with the world, the answer to her rhetorical question is that we can’t call ourselves Christian. We can’t love God.
One of Christ’s commandments we forget is to contemplate and imitate the lilies of the field and birds of the air. Another time he says to imitate the distribution of rain and sunlight. Although our sense of beauty can often be distorted, it remains rooted in the heart of each person and is the commonest and easiest way to approach God. It, Weil writes, is “the beauty of the world by which we can allow God to penetrate us,” it is, “Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter.” I really resonate with this idea. Our culture tells us to hustle, equating our worth with our productivity. We have no skill for attention. If we cannot attend to a lily or bird, how can we attend to our friend in need? The climate migrant that shows up to our church? Our communities as they face devastating loss due to environmental disasters? Spending time and admiring the hand of God in creation cultivates an eye for us to see the hand of God in all aspects of our lives. We must tune out the voices that tell us we are wasting time and realize something much greater is at work in us. Another critical observation of Weil’s is about the ease of salvation. She first quotes Aeschylus who says, “That which is divine is without effort,” and then adds that “there is an ease in salvation more difficult for us than all efforts.” Salvation, as when Moses held up the Serpent to the Israelites in the desert, is found in the effort of looking and listening. This is difficult for us to accept, us who prefer to take. Yet, salvation is not a muscular or violent effort of the will, but rather one of attention and consent, like a fiancé saying yes and accepting her lover. We try to complicate things, but Weil simplifies it for us. “Only beauty,” she writes, “is not the means to anything else. It alone is good in itself, but without our finding any particular good or advantage in it. It seems itself to be a promise and not a good. But it only gives itself; it never gives anything else.” Can we attend to something which will not give us something else, or are we trapped in a utilitarian frame of mind? Where are we looking and how is it shaping us? Will we slow down to contemplate and listen, so we may imitate the lilies?
If we cannot attend to a lily or bird, how can we attend to our friend in need? The climate migrant that shows up to our church? Our communities as they face devastating loss due to environmental disasters? Spending time and admiring the hand of God in creation cultivates an eye for us to see the hand of God in all aspects of our lives.
There are two saints I have in mind who I think embody this notion well. First, Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), a wealthy Italian merchant who gave up his life of comfort and founded the Franciscan order of friars. He is well known for his care for lepers and outcasts and negotiated peace during the Crusades. However, his devotion and love of God overflowed into his belief that all God’s creatures deserve compassion, often preaching sermons to animals and performing miracles on creatures ranging from wolves to lambs. St. Francis shows us how to bless the created order, how to posture ourselves towards our “sister birds,” and how to recognize that creation is a character in this story of redemption we are caught up in. Most notably, St. Francis is the first person to receive the stigmata, the phenomenon where a person bears all or some of the wounds of Christ on their body. St. Francis demonstrates Imago Dei as Imago Christi, the image of God being the image of suffering love. The stigmata is an outward sign of the indwelling of the crucified Christ, that it is no longer I but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). St. Francis’ faithfulness and implicit love of the beauty of the world invites the question, where are our wounds, what are we willing to give up so that others may flourish and know their loveliness? It also invites questions about our liturgical practices. If we are not preaching to, praying for, and blessing the plants and animals around us, then we fail to live out Christ’s radical hospitality. How we pray and sing not only reflects our beliefs but shapes what we believe. If we want to learn to love God, we must reform our worship practices to include love for the beauty of the world.
A second compelling example of this implicit love acted out in our society is Dorothy Day, who is well known for her activism for labor and workers' rights and for co-founding the Catholic Worker newspaper and movement in New York City. One of my favorite stories highlights Day’s Christ-like foolishness. When one supporter of the movement donated an expensive ring, Day regifted the ring to a homeless woman who had come to the house for a meal rather than selling it to buy food for the poor. When asked why she did this, she responded, “Do you suppose God made diamonds only for the rich?” Practicality was always the wrong question for Day, and she dismissed the ideals of industrial society that promoted “usefulness” and “effectiveness” but failed to treat God’s children as beloved. Her witness is vital for our world which worships the false religion of capitalism, which tells people to indulge their greed and believe that infinite economic growth is possible in a finite world. We treat the people and planet as commodities to be quantified and consumed rather than to be respected or loved. The climate crisis is a structural problem that must be combated without demonizing the people who are caught up in the systems. Day’s belief in God drove her to pay more attention to the world around her rather than depart from it, to believe each person worthy of dignity and that God was present in all people. Her gifting of the diamond illustrates that love for the beauty of the world is something we must ensure all people can experience. She famously said, “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” Our acceptance of climate change will strip, particularly the poor and vulnerable, of the opportunity to know God and God’s love in the beauty of the world.
The implicit love of the beauty of the world swells up into a single love of God in St. Francis of Assisi’s and Dothory Day’s lives. However, Simone Weil’s own life is also one of political activism and solidarity as she spent years suffering with and caring for factory workers. Weil wrote and demonstrated that love for the beauty of the world is difficult, “It is real; it offers resistance to love,” but ultimately, “It is this country which God has given us to love. He has willed that it should be difficult yet possible to love it.” Possible is the keyword. It has been done by many in the cloud of witnesses, and it can be done by us. If we nurture a love for the beauty of the world, we can know that “the longing to love the beauty of the world in a human being is essentially the longing for the Incarnation.” This is how we love Christ, not in the abstract, not only in the classroom but in the tangible, material world. If we can first notice the ground beneath us, bless the trees around us, imitate the lilies beside us, then and only then will we begin the lifelong attempt to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
This is how we love Christ, not in the abstract, not only in the classroom but in the tangible, material world. If we can first notice the ground beneath us, bless the trees around us, imitate the lilies beside us, then and only then will we begin the lifelong attempt to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
If this attempt is one of looking and listening rather than taking or willing, then Mary Oliver, poet and patron saint of attention, has some fitting words:
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.
The leaf sings, the stones show us patience, the river has a story for us. This is the world God created out of love, for love. The Creator’s heart beats through it all. The test of our faith will not be whether we love Jesus, but whether we can love the things God loves, beginning with the Earth, and rightly understand our place within it. Because love is not some finite good that can be used up, the more we love, the more love there will be. This is an implicit love of God that needs to be made explicit to us, particularly the religious who claim to love God, yet are so far removed from the world of the Bible and early Christianity that we miss the foundations. Yes, we are busy, but our productivity is not the measure of a good life. The Japanese theologian, Kosuke Koyama, talks about the 3 mile an hour God, the average time it takes for a human to walk, the average time it must have taken for Jesus to walk from place to place. If Jesus is God, then love has a speed, and it’s a slow speed. We mustn't spoil the wonder with haste as J.R.R. Tolkien says. God has something for us in the beauty of the world. Yet, our sixth mass extinction might prove most of us atheists at worst, and hypocrites at best, who claim to love God, but don’t, not really. Simone Weil, St. Francis, Dorothy Day, and Mary Oliver are just a few leaders to help us re-envision our love for the beauty of the world, Christ’s love for the beauty of the world. What are we losing by making this gifted, Beloved world uninhabitable? What does it reveal about our so-called love of God?
Resources:
Books
Weil, Simone., and Janet Martin Soskice. Waiting for God. London: Routledge, 2021.
Books
Weil, Simone., and Janet Martin Soskice. Waiting for God. London: Routledge, 2021.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
1 Kings 3:10-12 (NRSV)
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.
King Solomon is the pinnacle figure associated with wisdom in the Christian imagination. Of all the possibilities, Soloman asks God for wisdom in a dream, so he may rule God’s people justly. It is a moment of hope for humanity, Solomon becoming the new Adam who does not choose to take knowledge for himself, but wants God to give it to him. Just as Moses is associated with the Pentateuch, and David with the Psalms, Solomon is likewise associated with the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Scriptures: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Song of Songs. The Bible, of course, reveals a much more complicated history of authorship and reception, but various faith communities have chosen to hold onto these broad categories which honor their heroes. If we only read the verses given to us in the lectionary this week, it would also lead us to believe the picture of Solomon is quite straightforward. Solomon asks for wisdom, God gives it to him, all is well! Yet, in these few verses alone, the lectionary cuts out Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh's daughter before his dream as well as the tangent of God’s promise, "if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments,” (emphasis mine) after verse 12. The reality of Solomon’s desire for wisdom is not so simple and his portrait requires some evaluation. Luckily the biblical text lends itself to our discernment of the fuller picture that might allow us to gain some wisdom for ourselves in the process. As people seeking justice in a world succumbed to contemporary self-help traditions, which put the self at the center at the cost of the rest of the created order, desiring wisdom is vital to the survival of our planet. So what can we learn from Solomon’s wisdom, as well as his foolishness? What might Godly wisdom look like for us in the climate crisis?
As people seeking justice in a world succumbed to contemporary self-help traditions, which put the self at the center at the cost of the rest of the created order, desiring wisdom is vital to the survival of our planet.
Solomon is the human who finally asks for wisdom, and yet, he is Samuel’s warning to Israel fulfilled: a king like the other nations. Some interpreters understand Solomon’s rule as starting out well and slowly deteriorating. After all, his account of determining who was the real mother of a child after two women both claimed to be is notoriously known. At one point the Queen of Sheba pays Solomon a visit to test him with questions after hearing his reputation, and recognizes that his wisdom far exceeds what she has heard, that, “Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness” (1 Kings 10:9). However, scholars like Dr. Ellen Davis would call into question Solomon’s wisdom from the very beginning, from the dream. She calls it comfortable, but not persuasive, since “assurance of divine compliance with human desire is not characteristic of YHWH’s interaction with the chosen leaders of Israel, from Abraham to Moses to Jeremiah. None of them, nor even Jesus, receives such an assurance. Instead, they struggle with what God demands of them and ultimately yield to it, whatever the cost.” No matter when one begins to question the integrity of Solomon's reign, the lure of empire becomes so powerful that an internal pharaoh-hood is established in Israel, and by the end of his life “his heart was not whole with YHWH his God,” and he becomes a source of oppression, making his people’s “yoke heavy” (1 Kings 12:4).
According to Dueteronomy 17, the King of Israel is supposed to essentially be a scribe of Torah. The King cannot acquire horses, wives, or gold and silver in abundance. The King must not make the people return to Egypt, meaning no forms of forced labor. Solomon does all of these things, being fabulously wealthy, having 700 wives and 300 concubines, expanding the boundaries of the kingdom through strategy and military prowess, and building the temple his father David was denied through work gangs and taxation. Description is not the same thing as prescription though, and rather than viewing Solomon as wise, the biblical authors are showing us just how far Solomon has fallen from the ideal King. Part of Israel’s historical books can be viewed as a confession after exile, and here, we see the faithlessness which brings destruction and burden to the people and land rather than shalom.
The detailed account of Solomon’s building projects, accomplished through forced labor, is a demonstration of merciless political craft at the expense of the vulnerable. The agricultural extraction he implements, as Dr. Ellen Davis explains, “was a hardship on a nation of mostly subsistence farmers, managing smallholdings in a highland landscape that is marginal for an agrarian economy.” She points out the stark contrast between Solomon’s building of the temple with the equally detailed description of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus. The wilderness tabernacle was built voluntarily among men and women who brought materials with willing hearts. True wisdom is not demonstrated by Solomon, but rather Bezalel, the architect of the tabernacle, who was filled with the “spirit of God, with wisdom, with skill and knowledge in all manner of work.”
Wisdom was an essential virtue of ancient Near Eastern rulers, but empire wisdom is not tabernacle wisdom. The people of God might admire Solomon’s request for wisdom, and be intrigued by his fascinating stories, but readers must also be wary of the seductive pull of power and empire. Solomon is not the figure we should emulate, but rather Bezalel, who builds with rest and justice of the people and land in mind. Or, we may look to Jesus, who says he is “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42). What does that “greatness” look like? It is not exploitative or self-aggrandizing, but sacrificial, with care for the “least of these,” the marginalized at the center. Jesus chooses to die to Empire rather than partake in it, and I wonder if we would ever dare to be so radical in the Anthropocene. Wisdom is costly, it will require the death of our egos, our comforts, and the known. Yet, it is what will bring the Kingdom of God, the restored Eden, the blessing of abundance to all the nations. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” says Proverbs 9:10. Wisdom is a lifelong choice, and the canonical dance of the wisdom literature can help us move through the cycles of orientation and disorientation. But the story of Solomon, his dream and his rule, invite us to think deeply about how his “wisdom” is manifested, what standards we are conforming to, who we are perceiving as “wise,” and what sort of truths we choose to overlook for the sake of keeping our leaders images in tact. We must strive for tabernacle wisdom, a posture fully aligned with God’s intents for covenant and creation, where we see ourselves as part of a human and nonhuman community. Such wisdom respects material and human resources and affirms that there is such a thing as “enough.” It is completely other from our own industrialized world, which has no limits for extraction, no sense of our creatureliness. Our greed, for example, has removed large areas of natural forests, not only disregarding the value of biodiversity, but blinding us to how they help regulate our carbon and water cycles and influence agricultural yields. An honest evaluation of Solomon can help us face the reality we find ourselves caught up in, where we too “do what is right in their own eyes” while our environment suffers and yearns for liberation.
We must strive for tabernacle wisdom, a posture fully aligned with God’s intents for covenant and creation, where we see ourselves as part of a human and nonhuman community. Such wisdom respects material and human resources and affirms that there is such a thing as “enough.”
Resources
Books:
Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Books:
Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Romans 8:18-25 (NRSV)
18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Woolsey Fire, Pepperdine University (Nov. 2018)
I don’t think it’s too difficult for us in the Anthropocene to see and hear creation groaning. I actually have to stop myself from seeing flames ablaze and blackened hills as I read this passage. We all likely have different imagery evoked with this language, but for me, I am taken back to my first semester at Pepperdine when we sheltered in place while wildfires raged across California. For our community though, just hours before the order we had received the news that Alaina Housley, a fellow first year, had died along with eleven others at the Borderline Shooting. As we waited in the library, grief-striken, watching the flames from the window, listening to the helicopters flying above, feeling the tears roll down until they were stopped by N95 masks, there was such a mixture of confusion and fear, but also the sort of sublime clarity that comes in moments of life and death… there was no need for convincing: creation groans, creation waits to be set free, creation longs for redemption. That harrowing experience was in 2018, but today, such groaning persists. Countless others have been displaced and suffered from the violence of climate change, particularly vulnerable communities who have contributed the least to it. However, what did Paul have in mind when he wrote this in his letter to the Romans in the first century? And what sort of theology of hope is there for both creation and the children of God?
Paul’s notion of creation groaning is more imperially subversive than we might initially think once contextualized. In 17 BCE, the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, held the ludi saeculares, the Secular Games, which inaugurated a golden age of fertility, prosperity, and victory and which paid homage to the traditional gods and goddesses. Yet, as the Empire expanded, the reality of military conflicts and economic exploitation ruined cities, depleted fields, polluted streams, and deforested mountains. By the time Paul writes to the Romans, he is challenging the propaganda of civic religion, that the emperor, now Nero, could only be associated with glory and was the one who brought order and deliverance. My supervisor and the theological coordinator of Creation Justice Ministries, Derrick Weston, has noted the tendency of ecological movements to romanticize the past. However, he says, “we can’t forget that extractive economies are as old as empire itself. Paul would have been witness to his own version of an ecological crisis.”
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Rather than a sort of modern day superhero ending of rescue or a gnostic idea of the material world as evil and something to be disregarded, we can understand this passage as a sort of question of right relations in the cosmos. Paul intertwines the longing of both creation and believers. Our eschatological destinies, whether we acknowledge it or not, are tied together. It makes me think of Ecclessiastes 3:20… “All go to one place, all are from dust, and all turn to dust again.” Our world’s current sufferings find their solidarity with Jesus, he, the Word that created the world, nailed to a tree. Yet, Paul reminds the Romans that Jesus’ glory will become something for all, human and nonhuman, to also share in. Resurrection is one of the few promises we have in Scripture.
If I’m honest, I struggle with that promise. It is easy for me to say creation suffers, but difficult to believe resurrection is coming. I guess it feels foolish, or I think that somehow affirming that the coming glory is not worth comparing to our current sufferings will remove accountability to the present people and creation that so desperately need our attention. However, despite some of the teachings of my evangelical upbringing, Christianity has never been an abandonment of the material world, only a deeper invitation to care and restore it. Jesus’ resurrection is embodied; his scars remain, but he lives.
This Earth is not going anywhere, it will bear the scars we inflict on it. But there is reason to hope. Our God is not averse to suffering. God does not shrink from, but goes down into the depths of it with us. There is no place or situation too dire, for “even the darkness is not dark to You” the Psalmist says (Psalm 139:12). That is why the most repeated commandment in Scripture is “do not be afraid.” Hope is a freedom from crippling fear, from the lie that nothing can be done; it will be the God-given tool to liberate us from the paralysis the climate crisis can often make us feel. Hope, in its truest form, unveils the problem and lets us confront it with confidence. It is always first engaged in a sort of radical naming and truth telling of the way things are, but does not leave us there to be swallowed by it. Somehow in knowing that the only finality will be the divine movement from grave to garden, we actually become more, not less present to the world and tasks in front of us.
Hope is a freedom from crippling fear, from the lie that nothing can be done; it will be the God-given tool to liberate us from the paralysis the climate crisis can often make us feel. |  |
We are not in Paul’s Greco-Roman world, but our empires are only increasingly abusive, wielding unrestrained power at the expense of creation. Our current sins of consumerism and individualism have exploited the land and created the circumstances for cataclysmic natural disasters. Paul’s language of creation groaning finds a special resonance with us centuries later, we too have seen it up close. The role of the Church remains though, to help us hope in the glory to come, so we can partake in the freedom available to us now if we are brave enough to take it. God is with us, and the vision for redemption that Christ brings is cosmic in scope.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Psalm 65:1-13 (NRSV)
1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion, and to you shall vows be performed, 2 O you who answer prayer! To you all flesh shall come. 3 When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions. 4 Happy are those whom you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple. 5 By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. 6 By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might. 7 You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples. 8 Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy. 9 You visit the earth and water it; you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it. 10 You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. 11 You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness. 12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow; the hills gird themselves with joy; 13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks; the valleys deck themselves with grain; they shout and sing together for joy.
The lectionary this week divides Psalm 65 in half, instructing us to read either verses 1-8 or 9-13. How I initially read the psalm was subsequently influenced by that parameter. “Okay,” I told myself, “I will meditate on the second half, where creation is present, where we hear about the ‘river of God.’” However, we thwart the depth of this psalm if we cut and paste what we assume to be most relevant. Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns us about the tendency to clip the wings of Scripture as we contemporize texts. It became obvious to me how, with the lectionary’s aid, I was doing so as my supervisor and the co-director of Creation Justice Ministries, Avery Davis Lamb, asked, “Is forgiveness in verse 3 not also an act of creation?”
When reading Psalm 65 in full, there is a shattering of paradoxes. The movements from silence to praise and from cult to creation, which initially seem separate, are all connected by the God enthroned in Zion. Zion theology is a fascinating part of Israel’s imagination and political ideology. “Zion” is the name associated with the religious significance of the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem. Dr. Ellen Davis in her book Opening Israel’s Scriptures, explains how in Zion theology the temple is the garden of God, the new Eden. The entire building was styled as a sacred garden/forest, lined with fragrant woods, carved with designs, adorned with flowers. A pilgrimage to the temple would be styled as a return to Eden, meaning a return to the place where humanity was in the closet company of God, where God’s presence was most fully experienced. Part of Zion theology was thus the understanding that God had an abiding commitment to Zion. When the Babylonians attacked and the unthinkable happened as Jerusalem was forced into exile, Israel’s theology had to be reimagined (work we see mediated by the prophets). Yet, the most radical transformation of Zion theology happens in Christianity, when Zion and Jerusalem become states of beings rather than geographical locations. Jesus is himself the “meeting place” of heaven and earth, greater than the temple, where God and humanity are completely joined. Dr. Ellen Davis says, “the theology of Zion becomes the theology of the incarnation.”
When reading Psalm 65 in full, there is a shattering of paradoxes. The movements from silence to praise and from cult to creation, which initially seem separate, are all connected by the God enthroned in Zion. Zion theology is a fascinating part of Israel’s imagination and political ideology. “Zion” is the name associated with the religious significance of the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem. Dr. Ellen Davis in her book Opening Israel’s Scriptures, explains how in Zion theology the temple is the garden of God, the new Eden. The entire building was styled as a sacred garden/forest, lined with fragrant woods, carved with designs, adorned with flowers. A pilgrimage to the temple would be styled as a return to Eden, meaning a return to the place where humanity was in the closet company of God, where God’s presence was most fully experienced. Part of Zion theology was thus the understanding that God had an abiding commitment to Zion. When the Babylonians attacked and the unthinkable happened as Jerusalem was forced into exile, Israel’s theology had to be reimagined (work we see mediated by the prophets). Yet, the most radical transformation of Zion theology happens in Christianity, when Zion and Jerusalem become states of beings rather than geographical locations. Jesus is himself the “meeting place” of heaven and earth, greater than the temple, where God and humanity are completely joined. Dr. Ellen Davis says, “the theology of Zion becomes the theology of the incarnation.”
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While it is sound exegetical practice to read the Psalm in its own historical context, written in a pre-exilic Israel under a bountiful and orderly socio-political institution, as Christians, we have the liberty to read with a trinitarian lens. Where one part of the Godhead is, so are the other two. I find Dr. Ellen Davis’s work illuminating because it helps bridge gaps we see in the psalm and which the lectionary underpins. The first is that our places of worship and intimacy with God were never intended to be isolated from creation. In fact, the opposite was true: in the temple nature was honored and nurtured as a place of restoration which helped cultivate an imagination for harmonious relations with the world outside the temple. It makes me wonder what it means for us to worship in minimalist buildings, isolated from the Earth we came from. It would be a foreign concept to our faith ancestors, and it is tragically ironic that those very worship sites are often run with unsustainable energy systems, only contributing to the further destruction of our ecosystems. Second, just as Dr. Ellen Davis highlights the union between heaven and earth in the temple, and then in the person of Jesus, we also see in the structure of the psalm that temple and creation belong together. Creation sings and shouts in praise with us as kin, participating in a relationship with the divine. The smallest of acts are formative for our faith, and the Psalmist helps us properly name and narrate the world so we can understand how to better live in it. Yahweh is God of everyone and everything, “the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.” God’s love is operating within the places we design as sacred and, more shockingly, from the margins and throughout creation. God’s relationships and workings are pluriform and interconnected. As Dr. Norman Wirzba has noted, the world is not a value free, amoral mechanism to do whatever we want with. God is the divine gardener, softening the Earth with showers as the Psalmist says. We have forgotten how central creation ought to be to our worship, and perhaps, need to unify them, seeing creation as the place we actually learn how to worship and enter into intimacy with the Creator.
Our places of worship and intimacy with God were never intended to be isolated from creation. In fact, the opposite was true: in the temple nature was honored and nurtured as a place of restoration which helped cultivate an imagination for harmonious relations with the world outside the temple.
The Church Forests of Ethiopia are one example of what this might look like in the Anthropocene. Over the past century, Ethiopia’s native forests have been eaten up as a result of agriculture and growing populations, becoming a dry hinterland. Less than three percent of the primary forest remains today. Yet, Ethiopian churches scattered throughout the highlands have created porous walls to secure and expand forests, allowing for regeneration of plant and animal life. These churches have become a place of coolness and rest, where the woods and spirituality are all bound up in one, manifesting Psalm 65. Fred Bahnson, who wrote about these projects, reflected that the scriptural metaphor of “City on the Hill” was properly adapted for our climate crisis: “less militant fortress than mystical refuge: the Forest on the Hill.” He ultimately witnessed, “the performance of a mystical geography, the soul’s journey to God made visible in the landscape.” Hope remains for us; we can look to the Psalmist and join in with the Spirit at work in the Ethiopian churches to once again gather as people satisfied and filled with the goodness of God’s house.
Resources
Books:
Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Web Article:
https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/the-church-forests-of-ethiopia/
Books:
Davis, Ellen F. Opening Israel's Scriptures. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Web Article:
https://emergencemagazine.org/feature/the-church-forests-of-ethiopia/
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Song of Songs 2:8-13 (NRSV)
8 The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. 10 My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away, 11 for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
"Song of Songs IV" by Marc Chagall
I remember being a young girl confused and perplexed by my encounters with the Bible. The violence in Joshua was off putting and Paul seemed to ramble on about seemingly-irrelevant things like circumcision. Yet, the Song of Songs was one of the few places I felt safe to go. Love was inescapable in the Song of Songs, and it was a taste of divine love which I was craving most. I was also drawn to the overabundance of creation present in the text, since nature always felt more like a sanctuary to me than a church building. While I was still unsure about the contents of the Song, I felt as though it captured some sort of beautiful, real dance of tension and intimacy, and was always an invitation to get lost in wonder. It was about two human lovers, but it was also about God, whether the divine was in the foreground or background. As an adult who now studies theology, I have found the text to be even more sacred and freeing. Desire finds its telos in relationships and creation which are preserved, honored, and celebrated.
The Song of Songs has a long interpretive history in Judaism and Christianity. Rabbi Akiva said “For all the world is not worth the day when the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies!” Origen famously allegorized the Song, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 86 sermons on it while only getting to chapter three. In modernity, the Song was studied in its ancient Near Eastern context and its origins were traced back to fertility rites rejoicing in the sacred marriage of the Canaanite divine couple Ishtar and Tammuz. The Song has a rich depth and history, and continues to be full of inspiration and exhortation, especially for us in the climate crisis today.
This poem, as Robert Atler has noted, moves rapidly, without concern for unity, superimposing one image onto another and generating double entendres for us to marvel at. While the primary speaker, the Shulamite woman, speaks of her lover, the Shepherd/King, the object of her love is blurred with the overflowing abundance of creation. There is no separating the beloved from the Earth. This is important since Dr. Phyllis Trible considers the Song a depatriarchalized text which uplifts a “garden of eros,” where the configurations of gender that were established with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden are undone. She observes how the tragedy in Genesis is that the woman’s desire becomes dominion, but in the Song, male power vanishes and his desire becomes her delight. Reversal also takes place as eroticism embraces the threat of death, that not even the primeval waters of chaos can destroy. Even the animals serve Eros in the poem as the context for the joy of human sexuality rather than the tension, and there is profuse imagery which recalls the stream that watered the Earth before creation as food and water enhance life. The Shulamite ultimately becomes a “second Eve” who takes part in creating a redeeming garden of love. It invites the question, how do we become a second Eve and offer companionship to creation? The lovers treat one another and the entire land with tenderness and respect. If this is a picture of redemption, of restoration, then a harmonious creation is at the center of it along with an egalitarian relationship between the sexes. It is a testament to the intersectional work of gender and environmental justice.
The Song of Songs has a long interpretive history in Judaism and Christianity. Rabbi Akiva said “For all the world is not worth the day when the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies!” Origen famously allegorized the Song, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote 86 sermons on it while only getting to chapter three. In modernity, the Song was studied in its ancient Near Eastern context and its origins were traced back to fertility rites rejoicing in the sacred marriage of the Canaanite divine couple Ishtar and Tammuz. The Song has a rich depth and history, and continues to be full of inspiration and exhortation, especially for us in the climate crisis today.
This poem, as Robert Atler has noted, moves rapidly, without concern for unity, superimposing one image onto another and generating double entendres for us to marvel at. While the primary speaker, the Shulamite woman, speaks of her lover, the Shepherd/King, the object of her love is blurred with the overflowing abundance of creation. There is no separating the beloved from the Earth. This is important since Dr. Phyllis Trible considers the Song a depatriarchalized text which uplifts a “garden of eros,” where the configurations of gender that were established with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden are undone. She observes how the tragedy in Genesis is that the woman’s desire becomes dominion, but in the Song, male power vanishes and his desire becomes her delight. Reversal also takes place as eroticism embraces the threat of death, that not even the primeval waters of chaos can destroy. Even the animals serve Eros in the poem as the context for the joy of human sexuality rather than the tension, and there is profuse imagery which recalls the stream that watered the Earth before creation as food and water enhance life. The Shulamite ultimately becomes a “second Eve” who takes part in creating a redeeming garden of love. It invites the question, how do we become a second Eve and offer companionship to creation? The lovers treat one another and the entire land with tenderness and respect. If this is a picture of redemption, of restoration, then a harmonious creation is at the center of it along with an egalitarian relationship between the sexes. It is a testament to the intersectional work of gender and environmental justice.
It invites the question, how do we become a second Eve and offer companionship to creation? The lovers treat one another and the entire land with tenderness and respect. If this is a picture of redemption, of restoration, then a harmonious creation is at the center of it along with an egalitarian relationship between the sexes. |  |
Franz Rosenzweig has noted that the word “I” occurs this frequently in no other part of the Bible, yet, there is no “I”, no identity for the Shulamite woman, that is not wrapped up in creation. For example, she identifies herself with the vineyard while the lover is its keeper. Their self-disclosures offer a depiction of a fulfilled humanity and invite readers into this union with creation. It is disconcerting then to think about if the “I” is embedded in creation, what parts of ourselves do we lose with the increased loss of biodiversity as a result of human exploitation and global warming? Our awareness of ourselves and of God is all interdependent on creation; a loss of one plant or animal species means a loss for our language and connection to something which captures the divine. In this week’s lectionary text, the Shulamite woman hears and sees the voice of her Beloved leaping down the mountain and the Beloved in return invites her to engage all her senses, to arise and come away. How can we hear the voice of the Beloved if we have left the land barren, if there is no opportunity for singing? The call to “arise” remains. It must be one of action for us today, to go to work on such an inclusive and redeeming vision of our world. While the lovers do not explicitly mention God, their loving actions are worship in the context of grace. If we follow in their footsteps, then the Lord might look through the lattice in delight instead of sorrow, as we enjoy an enduring intimacy of plenty with each other and all of God’s creation.
Resources
Books:
Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Pardes, Ilana. Song of Songs: A Biography. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019.
Books:
Trible, Phyllis. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
Pardes, Ilana. Song of Songs: A Biography. Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Matthew 9:20-23
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” 22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
I find it ironic that there is little talk about menstruation in the church considering the Christian intrigue with blood. The Eucharist is the central Christian rite, in which we eat the body of Christ and drink His blood. While Christ’s blood is public, out on display, female-gendered blood is conventionally held in secret. This secrecy is harmful in two primary ways. First, it obscures women’s understanding of their period as “a monthly liturgy,” as my professor Dr. Janet Soskice describes it. There is a deep kinship between women and the Earth which witnesses to a central theme in Genesis: many creations, one Creator. Women’s menstruation is one among many ecological cycles, and, for example, most notably mimics the 28-day lunar cycle. Here, the intimate interconnectedness between our bodies and the earth from Genesis 2 is on full display: the Adam from the Adamah, the Earthing created from the Earth.
Dr. Melanie Harris, author of Ecowomanism, also highlights this connection through a womanist and Black feminist race-class-gender analysis. She explains the paradoxical solidarity between women and the Earth, drawing parallels between enslaved African women’s bodies which were violated and raped by white oppressions under domination logic and the way the body of the feminized earth has been abused. These connections are vital for our spiritual well being, connection, and God honoring practices which bring healing, justice, and shalom. Yet, they are severed by secrecy. The second harmful result of our intrigue with blood, but only that of male violent bloodshed, is our blind eye towards the 200,000 tonnes of menstrual waste each year. Jesus said that he came so we might “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). My supervisor and mentor, Derrick Weston, has noted how “abundance” is now confused with “excess.” We disregard and dispose without thought of the impact on the world around us or future generations. Following the one who brings abundant life may mean some of us will have to sacrifice and reorder our ways of living if we want other humans and nonhumans to participate in this divine desire. This includes our selling, buying, and use of women’s health products. It is ultimately deeply troubling that in order to care for themselves, women are damaging the Earth and their connection to it, and even putting their bodies at risk with toxic chemicals, two intermediaries which testify to the purposeful creativity and wisdom of the Creator. How can we set this relation right? How can we, like the woman with the flow of blood, be made well? This month’s lectionary text may offer us a starting point to acknowledge the many different women who bleed and re-envision sustainable menstruation in the life of faith.
There is a deep kinship between women and the Earth which witnesses to a central theme in Genesis: many creations, one Creator. Women’s menstruation is one among many ecological cycles, and, for example, most notably mimics the 28-day lunar cycle. Here, the intimate interconnectedness between our bodies and the earth from Genesis 2 is on full display: the Adam from the Adamah, the Earthing created from the Earth.
The story of the bleeding woman is told in all the Synoptic Gospels, but the presentation in Mark 5:25-34 is the longest and most detailed. Absent from Matthew’s account is a Jesus who becomes, “immediately aware that power had gone forth from him,” and looks around, asking the crowd, “Who touched my cloak?” with the disciples responding, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?” New Testament scholar and historian Candida Moss sheds light on the Markan account by reading it with the broader Greco-Roman conceptions of the body. On the hierarchical male-female continuum, women were viewed as incomplete males whose bodies never achieved the heat, dryness, or impermeability that makes up healthy bodies. Women were more porous, soft, moist, and weak, vulnerable to attack. Men, therefore, needed to avoid porosity and feminization. This idea is subverted in the Markan account though, with the bleeding woman being the active agent in her healing, pulling power from a passive, unsuspecting, and porous Jesus. Moss notes that “Like the woman, Jesus is unable to control the flow that emanates from his body. Like the flow of blood, the flow of power is something embodied and physical; just as the woman feels the flow of blood dry up, so Jesus feels-physically-the flow of power leave his body. Both the diseased woman with the flow of blood and the divine protagonist of Mark are porous, leaky creatures.” Jesus does not avoid, but shares in the woman’s flow, becoming a body also marked by porosity. From the convention of the epiphany motif in Greek mythology, where divine bodies could barely conceal their glory in their fragile human form, it also revealed his concealed identity as divine. Thus, porosity functions positively rather than negatively, facilitating the woman’s cure and speaking to a previously veiled aspect of Jesus’ identity.
Understanding Jesus’ body as one of porous femininity is essential to our insight on the meaning and significance of the incarnation. While we ought to hold in tension how God does choose to work and love in specific, non-generic ways, this account helps us deemphasize the particularity of God becoming flesh as a Jew rather than a gentile, as a man rather than a woman. As one of my professors Dr. Chris Doran has observed, the Greek word for flesh, sarx, which appears in John’s gospel to speak of the incarnation, has its roots in the Hebrew basar, which refers to all living creatures, not just humans. I think the encounter with the bleeding woman uniquely underscores this idea in narrative form, allowing us to see how God indeed took on the stuff of living creatures, becoming a member of creation, and in this instance, a feminine, bleeding one. The incarnation is thus cosmic in scope and speaks to the goodness of creation as a whole. God is not anti-flesh or anti-world. In his book, Hope in the Age of Climate Change, Dr. Doran writes that the incarnation fully affirms that “God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being as fleshy, earthy creatures.”
Understanding Jesus’ body as one of porous femininity is essential to our insight on the meaning and significance of the incarnation. While we ought to hold in tension how God does choose to work and love in specific, non-generic ways, this account helps us deemphasize the particularity of God becoming flesh as a Jew rather than a gentile, as a man rather than a woman. As one of my professors Dr. Chris Doran has observed, the Greek word for flesh, sarx, which appears in John’s gospel to speak of the incarnation, has its roots in the Hebrew basar, which refers to all living creatures, not just humans. I think the encounter with the bleeding woman uniquely underscores this idea in narrative form, allowing us to see how God indeed took on the stuff of living creatures, becoming a member of creation, and in this instance, a feminine, bleeding one. The incarnation is thus cosmic in scope and speaks to the goodness of creation as a whole. God is not anti-flesh or anti-world. In his book, Hope in the Age of Climate Change, Dr. Doran writes that the incarnation fully affirms that “God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being as fleshy, earthy creatures.”
Jesus does not avoid, but shares in the woman’s flow, becoming a body also marked by porosity.
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The bleeding woman not only speaks to our grasp of the incarnation, but also of atonement. Eugene Rogers in his work Blood Theology notes that when the woman reaches out to Jesus, “her past will become his future,” as he will become associated with the issue of blood, shedding it involuntarily on the cross, and giving it to an unlimited number at the Eucharist. When the woman dares to reach out, Rogers writes that “her touch feminizes him; it figures his blood as no longer contained and male but henceforth forward and female.” Rather than viewing the atonement of Jesus in terms of male sacrificial bloodshed, the feminization of Jesus allows us to understand the blood of God, which is drunk as the central Christian rite, as something shared and unlimited. For women, menstruation and afterbirth are experiences where blood “is given without harm or reduction to the giver.” It is a regenerative process that brings forth life. Sarah Jobe even says that the blood and water of a woman “are perhaps as close as we will ever come to witnessing the blood and water that poured from Jesus’ side on the cross.” Menstruation may therefore be a special opening into the divine life, where “humans remain in readiness, ovulating every month – practicing, like God, the openness to new life and renewed birth.” It is not simply a biological process where a baby may or may not be conceived, but “a costly renewal, in view of a perhaps, seventy times seven, holding a place where life could be.” Women can even use their menstrual blood as a natural fertilizer in their gardens, helping their plants grow. The blood itself is not a waste product. In this way, because of its persistence and repetition each month, menstrual blood resembles the blood in the Eucharist, where “the life is in the blood.” The bleeding woman may not just reveal aspects of Jesus’ identity then, but Jesus himself may be described as the bleeding woman, with pain turned to purpose, with menstrual blood taking on cosmic significance, with “her hope revealed.”
There is more to be said. Mark and Luke are rich for theological discussion and research. Matthew’s redaction, in contrast, renders the woman passive and saves Jesus from the disordered and embarrassing presentation of porous femininity. We are given three short verses. Yet, attention and questions about what’s not there is as much of an important exegetical practice as to what is there. I find this month’s lectionary text in Matthew concerning the bleeding woman to still be quite pertinent to today in the sense that it testifies to a historic and tragic tendency to see female gendered blood as taboo, to look away, to forbid it in the sacred realm. Christian artwork has reinforced this gender binary time and again, with, for example, the classic images of Bathsheba bathing, presumably a ritual bath after her period has ended, but only showing her naked without any traces of blood. Mary’s priesthood is also denied in images as artists avoid showing Jesus’ birth. This is relevant because tampon and pad companies market their products on these patriarchal taboos around menstruation. Annie Dillon and Hannah Black have highlighted how disposable products dominate the industry and reinforce the status quo by promoting products as “antidotes to the shame and embarrassment women must feel about their periods. They almost always depict blue liquid rather than red blood, and avoid realistic imagery of menstruation by portraying women dancing or swimming. Some even suggest the need for women to accommodate male desires during menstruation.” The 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons in the U.S. alone that fill up our landfills and contribute to ocean plastics cannot be separated from the messaging that women must hide, conceal, and quickly get rid of any evidence that they are experiencing their period. This is antithetical to the Jesus who freely bleeds on display and chose solidarity with the oppressed on the cross. It is well known that one of the key issues of environmental justice is that those who contribute the least to climate change suffer the most. The production process of menstrual products generates significant fossil fuel emissions, which communities of color will disproportionately bear the cost of. Promoting and providing alternative sustainable products, such as reusable menstrual cups, pads, and underwear, which have minimal impact on the planet, women’s bodies, and their wallets, may be one lasting solution that can save creation, women, and usher in the abundant life Jesus wills for us.
The 12 billion pads and 7 billion tampons in the U.S. alone that fill up our landfills and contribute to ocean plastics cannot be separated from the messaging that women must hide, conceal, and quickly get rid of any evidence that they are experiencing their period. This is antithetical to the Jesus who freely bleeds on display and chose solidarity with the oppressed on the cross.
Although traditionally concealed, menstruation is a form of participation in the divine life, a process which the God-man himself takes on. Like the ecological cycles of the Earth, it points to the Creator. It is an experience which speaks to our place within the created order, to the incarnation, and to the atonement itself. Our current conversations around menstruation, or lack thereof, shortchange women, damage creation, and hinder our ability to commune with the earth and with the divine. Just as the church mystic, Julian of Norwich, saw something of God revealed in the process of defecation, at the very least, intentional awareness of menstruation can reveal a certain holiness if we treat it as such, “for in man is God, and God is in everything.” Despite our attempts to conceal the blood of women, the woman with a flow of blood makes herself known in the biblical witness. Despite our attempts to avoid the topic of wasteful menstrual products, the Earth testifies to their existence. Education and accessibility concerning sustainable feminine hygiene products are an opportunity for Christians today to testify and live into the counter-cultural ways of Christ, bringing justice and abundant life to all of creation. Our attention must shift, for women’s blood may be the very site to see, seek, await, and comprehend the God who repeatedly bleeds for the sake of our enduring flourishing.
Although traditionally concealed, menstruation is a form of participation in the divine life, a process which the God-man himself takes on. Like the ecological cycles of the Earth, it points to the Creator. It is an experience which speaks to our place within the created order, to the incarnation, and to the atonement itself.
Resources
Books:
Doran, Chris. Hope in the Age of Climate Change. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017.
Harris, Melanie L. Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Moss, Candida R. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34." Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010): 507–19.
Rogers, Jr, Eugene F. Blood Theology: Seeing Red in Body- and God-Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Soskice, Janet M. The Kindness of God: Metaphor, Gender, and Religious Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Web Article:
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/planet-friendly-periods
Books:
Doran, Chris. Hope in the Age of Climate Change. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017.
Harris, Melanie L. Ecowomanism: African American Women and Earth-Honoring Faiths.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love. Translated by Barry Windeatt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Moss, Candida R. “The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25-34." Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010): 507–19.
Rogers, Jr, Eugene F. Blood Theology: Seeing Red in Body- and God-Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Soskice, Janet M. The Kindness of God: Metaphor, Gender, and Religious Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Web Article:
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/planet-friendly-periods
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
Matthew 10:40-42 (NRSV)
40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
The language of “rewards” in the biblical text can sometimes cause apprehension. Too often we associate it with our American Prosperity Gospel which tells us God has big blessings in store for us, that the greater our faith, the more material success and wealth we will see in our lives. Since our consumerist culture puts the individual at the center and reduces people to commodities where worth is based on assets and possessions owned, this Marcion-like faith is highly seductive. Yet, it only ingrains our habitual cycles of greed and spiritually impoverishes us. It is not that God is ambivalent to our embodied needs or disinterested in our comforts, but the reality is, as my supervisor Derrick Weston has said, that in God’s economy any rewards are always more relational in nature. If we look at Israel’s trek through the wilderness in Exodus, for instance, they are learning how to become God’s people precisely by practicing cessation of labor and limitations rather than excess; the manna economy is one which starkly contrasts the Egyptian economy. The truth of our creatureliness, the interdependence on one another and on creation was honored. Rest for creatures and creation was intentionally practiced and resources were shared so there could be potential for more harmonious living. Throughout Scripture God is the One who continually challenges our too small vision of the world so we may participate in the transformational and redemptive work which always includes the whole.
Key to these three verses in Matthew though is the designation of prophets. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talks about how prophets are “highly disturbed individuals.” Anyone who has read the prophets might laugh at the ironic language of reward if it is equated to a modern conception, because the prophets were ostracized, exiled, and killed. You do not want to be a prophet, the one who tells the truth about the moral state of the people, who says that few are guilty, but all are responsible, who delivers judgments of God’s wrath (which is only ever a wrath against injustice and for the purposes of restoration). The ceaseless shattering of indifference is the primary task of the prophet, and that is never something encouraged among a comfortable, gluttonous people. Today in the Anthropocene, the undertaking of the prophet will still include no fringe benefits. The message that our rhythms of production and consumption mean that land, water, plants, livestock, and people are being abused will be resisted for the purposes of convenience and indulgence. Yet, the truth remains that we are failing to give the time or affection to properly nurture the gift of creation. We must cling to the promise of the prophet which has always been the same: a promise of presence, of Immanuel, God with us.
Key to these three verses in Matthew though is the designation of prophets. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel talks about how prophets are “highly disturbed individuals.” Anyone who has read the prophets might laugh at the ironic language of reward if it is equated to a modern conception, because the prophets were ostracized, exiled, and killed. You do not want to be a prophet, the one who tells the truth about the moral state of the people, who says that few are guilty, but all are responsible, who delivers judgments of God’s wrath (which is only ever a wrath against injustice and for the purposes of restoration). The ceaseless shattering of indifference is the primary task of the prophet, and that is never something encouraged among a comfortable, gluttonous people. Today in the Anthropocene, the undertaking of the prophet will still include no fringe benefits. The message that our rhythms of production and consumption mean that land, water, plants, livestock, and people are being abused will be resisted for the purposes of convenience and indulgence. Yet, the truth remains that we are failing to give the time or affection to properly nurture the gift of creation. We must cling to the promise of the prophet which has always been the same: a promise of presence, of Immanuel, God with us.
We look for the divine in so many of the wrong places. I am often looking too high and too far. But in Christ we are set free to be fully human and fully alive. We are no longer captive to the idols in our midst but practitioners of shalom, of boundary-crossing, transcendent peace. We learn to be where our feet are, welcoming and caring for others in a way which brings the Kingdom near and heals creation. And where God is, nothing goes unnoticed. It is why Jesus says that even giving a cup of cold water to a little one is something that will be rewarded. But how can we obey this simple task when human agency is polluting our waters? Where droughts have become so common? This command might hold even more significance to us in our modern age with our particular disregard for abundant and clean water. We must remember that God is not somewhere up in the clouds, but the one providing manna in the wilderness, calling prophets to critique and restore our socio-political institutions, shifting our eyes to the ones without water. Our promised rewards might be better understood as our spiritual well-being, which is tied up in our communities, which is never privatized for the few. It is similar to the promise of Immanuel. Cold cups of water may initially seem meager, but I hear it as a profound call to action for our water crisis, and we might be surprised to discover everything we have been searching for in such a provision.
This command might hold even more significance to us in our modern age with our particular disregard for abundant and clean water. We must remember that God is not somewhere up in the clouds, but the one providing manna in the wilderness, calling prophets to critique and restore our socio-political institutions, shifting our eyes to the ones without water.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Romans 6:1-4 (NRSV)
1 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
 Caravaggio's "Conversion of Saint Paul" (First Version) |  Caravaggio's "Conversion of Saint Paul" |
I cannot help but think about Paul’s own biographical life when reading this passage in Romans. One of my old professors used to joke that Paul would be dismayed if he knew his mail had been canonized as Holy Scripture, especially as we make all sorts of the twists and turns attempting, or not attempting, to fill in the conversation on the other side. While the Pauline epistles were certainly not written to us, I believe they can still be written for us, especially Romans. Romans is Paul’s longest and most theologically robust letter since he hasn’t actually visited Rome yet. He cannot shorthand anything like in his other letters where he has already established the Gospel. In the aftermath of exile and return of Jewish Christians from Rome during the reigns of Claudius and Nero in 55/56 AD, Paul writes this letter to a church he has not visited, for the purposes of peace amid strife and contention.
Paul’s own life of sin was marked by his time as a militant pharisee and violent persecutor of the Church. Then he was Saul, the man party to the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr killed for his faith, and who voted for the death of other Jesus followers. When he traveled along the road to Damascus he had a conversion experience: a light flashed around him as he fell to the ground, hearing a voice say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” After being blind for three days, Saul the Pharisee becomes Paul the apostle to the gentiles, the very people Stephen gets his name from. For Paul, grace is an event that happened on the road to Damascus and he never gets over the fact that he has been saved by the same God he once so strenuously opposed. It compels him to go where no apostle has gone and ultimately be imprisoned and martyred himself. The church would look very different without his conversion, if Paul had simply continued as he had before.
In chapter six, we see Paul’s soteriology displayed, what it exactly means to be “saved.” We, as Christians, are not saved from something, but for something. In chapter two Paul has already asked, "Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4). The good news of Christ is not a get out of jail free card. Here, in chapter six, Paul further presses, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means!” Me genoito is the Greek word used here, almost a “hell no!” It is not quite a curse word, but it is a very strong no. Anyone who claims that sin can abound so grace abounds has missed the Gospel. A true encounter with the risen Lord leads to newness of life which witnesses to the daily, incremental grace and mercy of God. Yet, this is still the same sort of pervasive thinking in the climate crisis today. When there is a call to action over the rising seas and warming earth, Christians hide under excuses of pragmatism or realism. There is often an attitude that God will fix it, and display his power all the more. It is an unfaithful, passive, and misguided posture which Paul would abhor. The spirit infused process of sanctification only makes us more and more into the likeness of Christ, and empowers us to live into the Kingdom here and now. If we have truly died to sin, we cannot go on living in it. Yet, our relation with the rest of creation is marked by sin, the sin of violence and indifference. We must be radically changed like Paul on the road to Damascus. As Todd Still says, “imitatio Pauli is in fact imitatio Christi, this is, in seeking to emulate Paul in general I am more able to follow Christ in particular.”
Paul’s own life of sin was marked by his time as a militant pharisee and violent persecutor of the Church. Then he was Saul, the man party to the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr killed for his faith, and who voted for the death of other Jesus followers. When he traveled along the road to Damascus he had a conversion experience: a light flashed around him as he fell to the ground, hearing a voice say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” After being blind for three days, Saul the Pharisee becomes Paul the apostle to the gentiles, the very people Stephen gets his name from. For Paul, grace is an event that happened on the road to Damascus and he never gets over the fact that he has been saved by the same God he once so strenuously opposed. It compels him to go where no apostle has gone and ultimately be imprisoned and martyred himself. The church would look very different without his conversion, if Paul had simply continued as he had before.
In chapter six, we see Paul’s soteriology displayed, what it exactly means to be “saved.” We, as Christians, are not saved from something, but for something. In chapter two Paul has already asked, "Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4). The good news of Christ is not a get out of jail free card. Here, in chapter six, Paul further presses, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? By no means!” Me genoito is the Greek word used here, almost a “hell no!” It is not quite a curse word, but it is a very strong no. Anyone who claims that sin can abound so grace abounds has missed the Gospel. A true encounter with the risen Lord leads to newness of life which witnesses to the daily, incremental grace and mercy of God. Yet, this is still the same sort of pervasive thinking in the climate crisis today. When there is a call to action over the rising seas and warming earth, Christians hide under excuses of pragmatism or realism. There is often an attitude that God will fix it, and display his power all the more. It is an unfaithful, passive, and misguided posture which Paul would abhor. The spirit infused process of sanctification only makes us more and more into the likeness of Christ, and empowers us to live into the Kingdom here and now. If we have truly died to sin, we cannot go on living in it. Yet, our relation with the rest of creation is marked by sin, the sin of violence and indifference. We must be radically changed like Paul on the road to Damascus. As Todd Still says, “imitatio Pauli is in fact imitatio Christi, this is, in seeking to emulate Paul in general I am more able to follow Christ in particular.”
If we have truly died to sin, we cannot go on living in it. Yet, our relation with the rest of creation is marked by sin, the sin of violence and indifference. We must be radically changed like Paul on the road to Damascus.
What is needed, as Pope Francis pronounced, is “an ‘ecological conversion’, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.” My ecological conversion was in the spring of 2020. I realized I was Saul, the stubborn persecutor of Christ resisting the light. After the first weeks of COVID shut down human activity, the airs and waters around the world cleared, and I felt as though I heard a deep groin of Christ from the Earth asking, “why do you persecute me?” Christ said he was found among the least of these, the prisoners and outcasts, being welcomed and fed without us knowing whenever they were cared for (Matthew 25). Creation itself now needs our intervention, it is among the least of these. It is where we will find Jesus and be transformed if we allow ourselves to be first knocked down, to die to sin. Although, like Rome, Paul has not visited our church in America, I hear him asking, are we to continue damaging the Earth in order that grace may increase? Me genoito! By no means.
Are we to continue damaging the Earth in order that grace may increase? Me genoito! By no means.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
by Ashtyn Adams
Matthew 9:35-38 (NRSV)
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Here we are confronted with the “Lord of the harvest,” a particularly intriguing metaphor for God. I admit, part of the fascination may simply be attributed to a sheer isolation from a meaningful relationship with land. Our awareness concerning food production and use of agricultural language has drastically changed post Industrial Revolution. Yet, the pages of the Bible are painted with farming language. Kinship with the land is a common, if not central, theme throughout the Old and New Testament. The intimacy between the first human and the earth are immediately evident in the Hebrew in Genesis: the Adam from the Adamah; the earthling created from the earth. One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ellen Davis, notes that the first covenant of God’s is indeed one with the land. “The whole earth is mine,” declares the Lord, and we are to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation among it (Exodus 19:5).
When I hear the phrase, “Lord of the harvest” though, one of the first images in my mind comes from my own grandpa preparing for his almond harvest in Madera, CA. I would watch him out in the fields for hours by himself, shaking and sweeping trees. To see the abundance afterwards was striking. I found myself in awe of how the harvest was there all along, how the green kernels hiding in the trees I stared at months prior were brought to completion as the brown hulls cracked open. Although my grandpa worked from dawn to dusk during harvest season, as an outsider looking in, I felt as though there was a sort of ease to it all, a rhythm and freeness I was drawn to. Was there a holiness to this process? Could I grasp something of the divine in the harvest? Was God like a humble farmer?
Jesus’ instruction to pray to the Lord of the harvest arises from compassion on the harassed and helpless among them and immediately precedes the commissioning of the twelve apostles to heal, cleanse, and proclaim that the Kingdom has come near. This metaphor of harvest and posture to be a worker in the field is essential to understanding how this kingdom is an alternative Kingdom to Caesars in Matthew’s Gospel. To pray to be a worker in the Lord's harvest field means life is not something to be possessed and safeguarded, raw materials are not something to be hoarded and exploited. There is plenty for all when we acknowledge whose the harvest is and do not take more than we need, which is why Jesus also reminds the apostles in the commissioning, “freely you have received, freely give.”
When I hear the phrase, “Lord of the harvest” though, one of the first images in my mind comes from my own grandpa preparing for his almond harvest in Madera, CA. I would watch him out in the fields for hours by himself, shaking and sweeping trees. To see the abundance afterwards was striking. I found myself in awe of how the harvest was there all along, how the green kernels hiding in the trees I stared at months prior were brought to completion as the brown hulls cracked open. Although my grandpa worked from dawn to dusk during harvest season, as an outsider looking in, I felt as though there was a sort of ease to it all, a rhythm and freeness I was drawn to. Was there a holiness to this process? Could I grasp something of the divine in the harvest? Was God like a humble farmer?
Jesus’ instruction to pray to the Lord of the harvest arises from compassion on the harassed and helpless among them and immediately precedes the commissioning of the twelve apostles to heal, cleanse, and proclaim that the Kingdom has come near. This metaphor of harvest and posture to be a worker in the field is essential to understanding how this kingdom is an alternative Kingdom to Caesars in Matthew’s Gospel. To pray to be a worker in the Lord's harvest field means life is not something to be possessed and safeguarded, raw materials are not something to be hoarded and exploited. There is plenty for all when we acknowledge whose the harvest is and do not take more than we need, which is why Jesus also reminds the apostles in the commissioning, “freely you have received, freely give.”
While this passage is often spiritualized, it is essential to think about God in our agricultural practices, to toil over whether they actually reflect the God we claim to be in relationship with. Currently, it is not difficult to see that they don’t. Industrial agriculture has maximized crop yields and meat production at a lofty environmental price, with soil eroding ten to forty times faster than it’s replaced. Monocultures have stripped the land of biodiversity and the natural ways of regeneration for sustained fruitfulness. Artificial fertilizers create “dead zones” in our bodies of water. Not only is our soil damaged, but our food is wasted. While enough food is produced to feed 1.5 times the global population, a third of it is thrown out and nearly a quarter of children under age five are malnourished. What does it mean to pray to the Lord of the harvest while we farm in a destructive way, without concern for our families, communities, and future generations? Would we even recognize the Lord of the harvest in our present day? Will we ask to be workers in his field? It would be a dangerous prayer, especially since our practices currently resemble Caesar more than Christ.
What does it mean to pray to the Lord of the harvest while we farm in a destructive way, without concern for our families, communities, and future generations?
It is not only the crowds, but the land itself that is now being harmed and harassed. We must look at it, like Jesus, with compassion, recognizing the gift that it is and our place within and among it. We must remember that God is the Lord of the harvest who brings abundance and bounty when creation is cared for properly, when we labor in justice. Sustainable agriculture will honor the limits of the land so that our populations, locally and globally, can thrive in the way God wills. We can embody and bring glory to God the gardener, the Lord of the harvest who makes all things new. Jesus’ ministry was one of touch along with word, one that fed the hungry, that cared about the physical needs of people as he walked the Earth. Perhaps Jesus’ instruction in Matthew’s gospel will help us remember an essential title of the God we serve, the Lord of the harvest, and cultivate a deeper love and respect for the land, the starting place of every other mission field we are sent into.
Resources
Books:
Painter, Betsy. A Christian's Guide to Planet Earth: Why It Matters and How to Care for It. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022.
Resources
Books:
Painter, Betsy. A Christian's Guide to Planet Earth: Why It Matters and How to Care for It. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022.
Ashtyn Adams is a Seminary Intern at Creation Justice Ministries. Ashtyn earned her B.A. in Religion from Pepperdine University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Divinity at Duke University.
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This blog shares the activities of Creation Justice Ministries. We educate and equip Christians to protect, restore, and rightly share God's creation.
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