The Journey of an Accidental Environmentalist, Part 2

God Loves the Trees

Near Cottonwood Lakes, John Muir Wilderness

I had told the foundation representative that we cared about trees because people needed them, not because God loves them. I still make no claim to understand the hierarchy of God’s concern. However, I have learned what should have been quite obvious all along: God loves and takes delight in all that has been created.

The opportunity to learn from the people I have met on this journey has been one of its most significant blessings. These have included theologians, who have taught me of God’s loving relationship with creation, biology teachers and naturalists who have taught me how God speaks through the incredible intricacy and interdependence of nature, and local farmers who have taught me some of their knowledge of how it all works together. It has been thanks to these associations that I rediscovered my long-forgotten love for the outdoors, deepened my appreciation for nature, and enriched my sense of God.

I also began to realize that taking care of the earth is a key theme in the Bible. So much of what we see depends on the lens (or unconscious bias) we bring, and I had been taught to read the Bible with a unique focus on the story of personal salvation. But scripture tells a far broader story than just God’s relationship with me personally, and even more than just the story of God’s relationship with humans. Although we only get glimpses, we also see the relationship between God and all of creation.

 Others have outlined this with far greater authority and detail than I can do here,* but the “green trail” through the Bible is significant. (There is even a version of the Bible where all of the passages relating to the environment are printed in green!) Even after I began working with Plant With Purpose, I regarded Bible studies and sermons on the environment with mild suspicion. They often seemed to be an attempt to retrofit a new narrative into the text and a distraction from the main story, which was about personal salvation. However, the Bible begins with the creation of the earth and ends with the restoration of the earth for a reason.

In Genesis 1, God pronounces creation good as it is being created. Then, when God is finished, and the earth is at its most unspoiled and pristine, Genesis 2:15 says that God took Adam and placed him in the Garden to serve (abad) and protect (shamar) it. The word abad, which is often translated in this verse as tend, dress or work, is frequently translated elsewhere as serve. It is the same word that is used later by Joshua, when he says, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) The word shamar, which can be translated as protect and other times as keep, is the same word that is used in the familiar blessing, “the Lord bless you and keep you.” (Numbers 6:24-26)

Understanding this gave me new insight into what was literally the first assignment ever given to humans. God says to Adam, “Take care of what I made.” (The second assignment, by the way, is naming all of the animals, a task that continues unfinished to this day, and gives me new appreciation for taxonomy as a Biblical calling.) To me, though, the most remarkable thing about Genesis 2:15, is that right from the very beginning, humans are given the opportunity to be participants in what God is doing. 

Land and place retain their importance throughout the Old Testament narrative. Much of the Law given to Moses deals with the relationship between humans and the environment. This includes laws for leaving croplands fallow, for caring for domestic animals, for respecting wild animals, and for recognizing that the land still belongs to God. Old Testament Scholar, Dr. Sandra Richter, covers this with unique insight in her book, Stewards of Eden.

The mystery of God’s interaction with creation, as well as the audacity of humans in presuming to speak for God, is laid out in Job 38 through 41. Job and his friends are struggling with the justice of what has occurred in Job’s life and ultimately ask God to give account. God’s response is amazing, beginning with the classic line: “who is this, who darkens council by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2) (Basically, “you have no idea what you are talking about.”) For the next several chapters, God goes on to talk about what is going on behind the scenes in creation, and we get a glimpse of the tenderness and care God has for the creatures that fill it, as well as the understanding that God has a relationship and love for all that has been created, completely independent of God’s relationship with Job, or any other human beings.

 39 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
   and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
   or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
   when its young cry out to God
   and wander about for lack of food

A similar theme comes through in Psalm 104. Earlier, in Psalm 24 we are reminded that the earth, which we have treated so dismissively, is still the Lord’s, together with all that it contains.

In the New Testament, Paul tells us that creation is a testimony to God (Romans 1:20), and in fact, throughout most of Christian history nature has been understood to be God’s general revelation, a companion to the more specific, special revelation of the scripture. 

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That is one of the reasons I bristle slightly when creation is referred to as “natural resources,” as if it were merely our supply closet.

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All of that to say, the earth and indeed all of creation has intrinsic value, beyond its usefulness. As humans and Christians, we have been arrogant, and centered ourselves in the story. Part of the lesson of Job is that, although Job is an important part of the story, he and his friends need to be reminded that there is so much going on that they will never understand, and which isn’t about them.

That is one of the reasons I bristle slightly when creation is referred to as “natural resources,” as if it were merely our supply closet. For that matter, even referring to the earth as the environment, implies that it exists only as the backdrop for our activity. It is the stage, but humans are the actors. When we view it that way, we look right past the extravagant and almost endless diversity of God’s creatures, to say nothing of the rest of the natural world.

Awakening to biodiversity, the intricacy and interdependency of ecosystems, and God’s hand in nature has dramatically increased my horizons. I have thought of this as analogous to thinking you know a friend or colleague, perhaps in a work context, but when you are invited to their home, you see a whole new side of that person that you never imagined. Perhaps they are a piano virtuoso, or a talented painter and suddenly you realize that you actually didn’t know them very well at all. That has been my experience. All of the beauty, complexity and creativity present in nature comes from someone whom I once thought I knew.

I am reminded of George Washington Carver’s words, “To me, Nature . . . is the little windows through which God permits me to commune with Him, and to see much of His glory, by simply lifting the curtain and looking in. I love to think of Nature as wireless telegraph stations through which God speaks to us every day, every hour, and every moment of our lives.” **

I have begun, at a very surface level to see some of the millions and millions of stories that God is telling, right under our noses, every day in a planet teeming with life.

For example, as a backpacker, I have often watched the Clark’s Nutcracker, a noisy gray bird that hangs around campsites in the Sierras and Rockies, without ever being aware of its amazing story. Far from a bird-brain, the nutcracker has an incredible spatial memory. It collects pine seeds, carrying up to a hundred at a time, and then buries them in separate hiding places or caches. Over the course of a season a single bird might collect 100,000 seeds and bury them in up to 20,000 separate locations. The truly remarkable thing, however, is that the bird can then find those hiding places later, even when they are buried deep in the snow.

Photo: Jeremy Christensen/Shutterstock.com

The bird hides more seeds than it can eat, so at the same time, it is effectively dispersing and planting the pine trees. In fact, it is one of the primary ways that the whitebark pine is planted.

Here was an incredible, almost unbelievable story that God was telling right in front of my face, and I never gave it a second thought, despite the fact that I was actively involved in “appreciating nature.” Furthermore, it is one of literally billions of stories that God is telling through creation.

I often think our forays into nature are the rough equivalent of a child walking into an art museum, glancing at an overall gallery and declaring it “pretty” without ever considering the individual paintings, or what a particular artist might be trying to convey. The classic example of this is pulling over at the Tunnel View overlook in Yosemite, and after jostling for a parking spot, giving that incredible vista three minutes, before heading on down to the Ahwahnee for lunch and some souvenir shopping. How much artistry, how many millennia of God’s work have we just dismissed? How many of God’s stories did we just ignore?

I also wonder how often have we chosen to dismiss or destroy a lesser landscape because it lacked a breathtaking view. At the very least we should approach it with a measure of humility. And if we paid a bit more attention, we might more easily recognize just how much creation is groaning, but I will save that for Part 3.

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*See for example Sandra Richter, Steven Bouma-Prediger, and Douglas and Jonathan Moo

**Darrow Miller, “Agriculture and the Kingdom of God,” in Biblical Holism and Agriculture, eds. David J. Evans, Ronald J. Vos, and Keith P. Wright (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2003), 157.