|
by Ashtyn Adams 1 Kings 3:10-12 (NRSV) |
 |  |
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.”
 |  |
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.
 |  |
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.
by Ashtyn Adams
Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV)
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew (1600)
This is one of my favorite pieces of Baroque art in which Caravaggio powerfully evokes the grandeur, tension, and intensity of the calling of St. Matthew from this week’s lectionary text. Tax collectors held one of the worst occupations in first century Judea, collaborating with occupying Romans to fleece their own people with unjust taxes. Here, Matthew is hunched over, so absorbed in money that he fails to notice the intruder who thrusts his hand into the dark room. One of the figures points to Matthew with a bemused expression, gesturing, “Who? Him?” as the light beams out from Christ and penetrates the darkened room. Christ’s outstretched hand mimics Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, and we, the viewers, are present to Genesis 1 all over again, witnessing vocation and discipleship as a repetition of creation, light shining into the darkness.
Carivaggio required defense by his ecclesial patron because he dared to portray the calling of Matthew as a contemporary event happening in 17th century Rome. There were no halos around Christ or Matthew to indict their saintliness. They were dressed in fine attire, looking like ordinary, everyday Italians; how could this be a “Christian” painting?
Yet, I, and others, think Carivaggio had it right. We should shamelessly apply this biblical story to ourselves and our time. We are the sinners too preoccupied by the demands of our consumer capitalist culture to perceive Christ’s searing, demanding, and electing gaze. We are implicated in acts of injustice against God’s people and planet. We prioritize profit and convenience over and against the flourishing of creation. Just this week, the senate approved the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the debt ceiling deal. The fossil fuel pipeline will cut through the Jefferson National Forest and hundreds of streams, damaging wildlife and rendering the Appalachia community further dependent on dirty energy.
The injection of carbon into the atmosphere will contribute to the human greenhouse effect, causing rising sea levels, droughts, flooding, and other extreme weather patterns which burden and pain communities worldwide. We are already experiencing it, as the Canadian wildfires rage, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes and putting millions across the East Coast at risk as they inhale harmful air. We have succumbed to Empire-thinking which sanctions violence and puts the immediate interest of the state above all else. Where are our eyes looking? We are in a dark room, the sick in need of a physician.
We should shamelessly apply this biblical story to ourselves and our time. We are the sinners too preoccupied by the demands of our consumer capitalist culture to perceive Christ’s searing, demanding, and electing gaze. We are implicated in acts of injustice against God’s people and planet. We prioritize profit and convenience over and against the flourishing of creation.
One of my professors, Dr. Will Willimon, told me Caravaggio’s painting depicts the human implications of the mystery of God’s incarnation, the oddness of it. This painting gets at the sense that incarnation keeps happening, God keeps intruding into human history to come alongside us. I believe God is here, now, with us in the Anthropocene and determined to heal the sickness among us, the sickness we have inflicted onto creation. Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow me.” He does not say love me, or believe in me or worship me, but follow me. Though a scandal, the incarnate God enlists and commissions the scoundrels for discipleship. Senators like Joe Manchin, who included the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the debt ceiling agreement to line their own pockets, are not excluded from it. There is hope that the Messiah is a friend of tax collectors and sinners, that our complicity with Empire in the age of climate change is not the end of our encounter with the living God. Yet, in order to begin anew with Jesus, Empire must be left behind. Matthew reminds us that no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24).
If God is already incarnating, intruding, and turning his gaze toward someone like you and me, and like Joe Manchin, then he anticipates our response to the call beyond the idols of money, power, and pride that we cling to. Will we shift our focus and look up? Will we accept the call? In the 21st century, following Christ the physician, learning what it means that God desires mercy, must include a dramatically altered way of living with the environment around us. It must include a radical commitment to stop climate change. It will not be easy, but we might be transformed along the way, and we might have the privilege to say we accepted the call to restore creation, that we were caught within the Lord’s gaze.
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
Genesis 1:26 (NRSV)
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have 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.”
I often find myself lost in wonder thinking about what it means to be created in or “as” God’s image. I’m certainly not alone in that question as Christian theologians as early as Irenaeus have found it worth asking with each coming century. As I’ve gotten older though, it’s felt less and less like a noun, like a quality I continually possess. It may be more of a verb, as I ask myself, “Am I image-bearing today?”
One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ellen Davis, reminds me that the divine image is not a widespread biblical characterization of human status. In fact, it’s rarely mentioned in our Holy Scriptures, which may denote more of “a possibility, unique but unspecified, rather than the established and permanent condition of human existence.” I find this notion constructive in our desire to understand God’s creative intention, particularly because the Christian fascination with image bearing has misappropriately endorsed unlimited human power over and against nature. Too often we have used this biblical language for exploitation rather than loving service to the created order. The Genesis narrative does not depict an anthropocentric, but a cosmocentric view of creation, in which humans are blessed with the high responsibility to bring flourishing to every living thing. Dominion is better understood as an exercise of skilled mastery in order to bless and nurture. We fail to mirror God if our power does not bring life, if harmony is not its ultimate function.
One of my Old Testament professors, Dr. Ellen Davis, reminds me that the divine image is not a widespread biblical characterization of human status. In fact, it’s rarely mentioned in our Holy Scriptures, which may denote more of “a possibility, unique but unspecified, rather than the established and permanent condition of human existence.” I find this notion constructive in our desire to understand God’s creative intention, particularly because the Christian fascination with image bearing has misappropriately endorsed unlimited human power over and against nature. Too often we have used this biblical language for exploitation rather than loving service to the created order. The Genesis narrative does not depict an anthropocentric, but a cosmocentric view of creation, in which humans are blessed with the high responsibility to bring flourishing to every living thing. Dominion is better understood as an exercise of skilled mastery in order to bless and nurture. We fail to mirror God if our power does not bring life, if harmony is not its ultimate function.
Dominion is better understood as an exercise of skilled mastery in order to bless and nurture. We fail to mirror God if our power does not bring life, if harmony is not its ultimate function.
Andrei Rublev's Trinity Icon (c. 1400)
Creation is not a one time event, but an ongoing function of the Trinity. We participate in the nature of the divine by accepting the invitation to image-bear and care for the world around us. As June commences Ocean Month, I am reminded that 98% of waters around the continental U.S. lack any type of marine protected area. I am reminded that humans are not serving, but damaging and polluting the oceans we are dependent on and which bring God glory. Our ocean crisis is a moral problem which requires our creative intervention, the courage to step into that role which God has already called us to.
How will we respond and honor the dignity bestowed upon us, the risk God has taken in making us “little less than divinity” (Ps 8:6)? How will we renew our commitment to bear the image of God and restore the integrity due to God’s oceans and marine life?
How will we respond and honor the dignity bestowed upon us, the risk God has taken in making us “little less than divinity” (Ps 8:6)? How will we renew our commitment to bear the image of God and restore the integrity due to God’s oceans and marine life?
How will we respond and honor the dignity bestowed upon us, the risk God has taken in making us “little less than divinity” (Ps 8:6)? How will we renew our commitment to bear the image of God and restore the integrity due to God’s oceans and marine life?
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.
About this Blog
This blog shares the activities of Creation Justice Ministries. We educate and equip Christians to protect, restore, and rightly share God's creation.
Archives
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
June 2022
March 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
June 2019
May 2019
March 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
June 2018
April 2018
February 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
February 2016
Categories
All
Climate Justice
Conservation
Energy Ethics
Indigenous Peoples' Rights
Oceans
Public Lands
Racial Justice
Resilience
Season Of Creation
Superfund Sites
Water
RSS Feed
