10-7-12
Jerusalem
21So the Lord
God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of
his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and
brought her to the man. 23Then the man said, “This at last is bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of
Man this one was taken.” 24Therefore a man leaves his father and his
mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
I for one
believe that when God was handing out best friends, Men won. What do women get? Shiny rocks.
Woohoo. What do men get? We get dogs.
We get living, breathing creatures that care for us when we are sick or
depressed, who play with us, and who have been medically proven to decrease
stress and to increase life spans. Yep,
sure beats an overpriced piece of compressed coal. Unless of course you live in my house, where
the dogs are the woman’s best friends…. Then she just wins all around, with her
diamonds and the dogs.
Pets
give great companionship. In fact, most
pet owners form a bond with their pets.
It is natural, since we take care of them, play with them, bathe them,
and basically treat them as we do children, except for diapers,
thankfully. And I am firmly convinced
that this is due to how we were created and how all creatures were created. Our reading from Genesis today tells us that
all creatures were created in an effort to create a partner for Adam. Each when created with the hope that Adam and
the creature would care for one another and work together. Of course, none of them were the perfect
partner for Adam. After all, none of
them were talking to him and none were the same as Adam.
Adam needed a human partner, one who felt the
same kinds of emotions and had the same types of abilities and had enough in
common with him in order to be a true partner.
But even though they were not the
perfect partner, all the creatures are still linked to humanity, still created
to be a part of creation with us, neither above the other. There is another connection as well in this
story, which is Adam’s naming of each and every creature. We don’t normally name things that don’t
matter to us and things that we have no real connection to. Naming something shows care for it, whether it
be the naming of a child, or a car, or a soldier’s gun, that naming strengthens
the connection between the namer and the named.
It is for all these reasons that we
are bound to our fellow creations. And
it is why we are so quick to have emotions when a creature is harmed. Think about all the action movies out there
where human after human is killed, and there is hardly any emotion to it at
all. We have become numb at times to
violence against our brothers and our sisters.
Yet who here did not cry when Old Yeller or Bambi’s mom are shot? And when you heard the recent news that a
calf was lit on fire, who did not feel intense anger and disgust? There have been letters to the editor about
the need to hunt down whoever committed this horrendous crime, yet when a
person is murdered there is much less outrage.
This is not to say that we do not care about our brothers and
sisters. Rather, it is that we have a
connection to all of creation, whether we acknowledge it or not. We care for creatures because God created us
to care for them.
Indeed, God calls us to be in
harmony with all of creation. It can
easy to say that our faith is all about us and God, all about what happens
after we die. But the reality is that
God calls us to life, calls us to focus on the present day and not just the
future. And in the present we are called
to harmony, instead of chaos and destruction.
We are called to caring, instead of indifference. We are called to be partners with creation,
instead of its master and instead of using it solely for our own pleasure and
devices. We are called to partnership,
for that is how we are created to be. It
is Sin that tells us otherwise, that tells us that we are above the rest of
creation and that we are free to use and abuse it how we see fit. It is Sin that tells us to ignore the plight
of our animal brothers and sisters, our fellow creations, instead of advocating
for their welfare. Today we are joined
by two animal rescues, Safe at Last Dog Rescue and the Humane Society of
Columbiana County. I’m sure that they
can relate to you stories of how humans can be unkind and terrible to our
fellow creations. But I’m sure they can
also tell you about the healing that happens in their lives as well, through
being alongside these creatures and seeing them learn to thrive again and to
find happy homes. They can tell you how
every day people have made a vast difference in other’s lives. And I can tell you that their work is indeed
a ministry that falls into the very heart of God, the caring for all of
creation.
And so are we called to act with
care for this world that God created, which we are a part of. This is why we pray for creation in its many
forms each Sunday during the prayers of intercession. We are called to live not just for the
future, when Christ will come again and there will be a new heaven and a new
earth. We are also called to live in the
now, with the wonderful earth that God has created, that we live in, and that
we will pass on to our children and children’s children. We live in the present and do what we can to
make this world better for all of its inhabitants, because we are called to be
God’s hands in this world, showing love and compassion to God’s creation, that
which God made out of love and called good.
May God bless us and all of His
creation, and may God help us to live in greater harmony with all that he has
made, so that God’s love may fill this world.
Amen
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