Dominion: Ruling (AS or OVER) Servants
“Dominion: Ruling (AS or OVER) Servants”
Genesis 1:20-2:3 Psalm 8, Psalm 24:1 Matthew 28:16-20
Trinity Sunday, Year A, June 7, 2020
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Andrew Kennaly, Pastor
Here at First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, we try and live out our faith and practice what we preach. One of the ways we’re connecting with the community is by creating an outdoor sanctuary, the Community Peace Garden. We are not alone, but congregations across the country are in parallel movement on this, confirming God’s Spirit at work in new ways that build on creativity in local, organic ways.
A Presbyterian church in New Jersey, for example, noticed someone writing to the local newspaper that “something should be done with ‘the useless piece of property across the street from the church’ and that it should ‘be paved over.’” The church did NOT heed that advise and, in fact, created The Meadow Garden. Instead of being a place where “garbage was being dumped” and “weeds were choking native flowers that once bloomed,” the neglected and abused property was returned back to nature. Meadow Garden is now several plots, some dedicated to vegetables, some for herbs, while others are native plants and flowers. Five gardens are dedicated to help nature’s pollinators – including butterflies, beetles, and bees. The property now has five bee hives and the “pastor-turned-beekeeper now collects and bottles the honey for [the] church family and community.” There are also chickens that roam the property, even though some church members wondered if the eggs were safe to eat because they didn’t come in Styrofoam egg cartons from the store.
Land in that area of New Jersey just outside New York City is continually “gobbled up by developers.” Since 2014, “The Meadow Garden has not only become a refuge for [people] in need of a little green therapy in an ever-growing asphalt jungle, it has also provided educational and spiritual opportunities for all ages,” like teaching people about eggs and honey and flowers and pollinators.
This is just one church among several listed in an article describing how “a church’s property is increasingly becoming a valuable ministry to its neighbors. No matter how large or small the property, churches can find ways to turn their space into creation labs, that is, going beyond the community garden trend or just planting a few flowers out front and [actually] offering educational opportunities to learn how to care for bees, regenerate soil, welcome back native flowers – and perhaps, more importantly, provide outdoor sanctuaries for people to reconnect with nature and with one another.” (An article in Presbyterians Today, May/June 2020, by Donna Frischknecht Jackson, page 30, first appearing through Presbyterian Mission Agency, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/pt-0520-outdoor/).
An asphalt jungle or a Meadow Garden. One view wants to pave over what’s perceived as a “useless piece of property.” Another view sees intrinsic value, the preciousness of soil and things growing. One view is utilitarian based on humans. The other takes a broader look at other creatures and their important place and roles in earth’s processes. Considering it useless, by paving over the land, one dominates it, and indeed can profit from it’s development as urbanization makes parking lots, buildings, or roads.
Finding value in other ways, of another quality involves considering the land as a gift from God, an important part of relational ministry; one partners as co-creators. Not only are these two ways of looking at the same land, but these are two ways of living as human beings on the earth. Dominating or serving.
In Genesis God’s creation story is shared in a couple different ways. There are two accounts of creation: chapter 1 is very formal, repetitious, orderly, and humans come later in the story after most other things are created by God and called good; in chapter 2 humans are created first, then comes the unfolding, dramatic story with interacting characters. We didn’t read the first section of chapter one because it’s kind of long. We skipped to verse 20, and then God creates “humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”
On this Trinity Sunday it is not lost on us that this language is in the plural. God is not speaking in singular, and the image humankind is created in involves variety. It is also not lost on most people that this short section of chapter one includes several references to “dominion,” usually followed by the word “over” and includes other things, like “subdue.” What do we make of that?
In Hebrew, the language of the Hebrew scriptures, or the Old Testament, this “dominion” usage is similar to “the authority of masters over servants (Lev. 25:43) and kings over their subjects (Ps 72:8); so it does grant humanity a potent authority over the animal world.
But,” as the New Interpreter’s Study Bible (NISB) mentions as it explores the word “dominion,” the word does not in itself define the exercise of this power, since it can be used for either benevolent or harsh rule. In the context of Genesis 1, where human beings are viewed as God’s representatives in creation […], dominion must be understood as the same kind of rule God would exercise in the natural world, a world God created good in all of its parts.” (NISB, NRSV, Abingdon Press, 2003, excursus: dominion or dependence?, OT, page 8)
In the other creation story of chapter two, humans are told by God to cultivate the soil, literally meaning, to serve, the soil. Servant leadership, representative of God, promoting variety, diversity, inclusion, regeneration, resiliency, and responsibility in life-giving ways; this is the core of what dominion involves. Domination and control are absolutely not God’s intention for humanity in treating the larger creation, or itself. As God’s image enfleshed, as spiritual beings having a human experience, as God’s representatives charged with the very important authority of dominion, it is to reflect a caring King, a humble Master, and a loving Creator.
“The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” This is how the Psalmist summarizes our calling as Earthlings, keeping ownership in proper perspective. God’s ownership is not in terms of commodification, but for relation; not in terms of manipulation or control, but participation and collaboration. As caretakers, this is the nature of God we’re called to reflect, to live into, to celebrate.
Echoing these themes of variety, relationship, and responsibility, especially in trying times as a society, the Presbyterian Church (USA) Stated Clerk shares a video message this past week. He reminds us that “race is not for segregation, but diversity.” (https://vimeo.com/424168164) The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, says, “…racism in and of itself is a false construction. Because we who believe in God Almighty and Jesus Christ cannot believe that the races in the United States makes us different and segregates us but that actually the race actually lifts up the diversity of who we are.” In his talk, he remembers several African Americans who have been killed, especially those from his city of Louisville, Kentucky. He calls us to get active and involved, to engage through believing human relationships are possible, challenging powers and principalities that are moving us toward division. He says in order to prove that the United States is a better nation than one of division and racism, we can only prove it by “countering with an ethic of love. […] Killing and shooting and demonizing individuals is not love and therefore anything that is oppositional to the will of God is not of God.”
Everyone has within them the capacity to separate or integrate. Domination or serving. Control or collaboration. Learning to claim a larger unity that can hold diversity and various expressions, each reflecting some aspect of God; this is part of the Christian journey as we follow Jesus, the one who teaches us about our True Self, our true nature as human beings created in the image of God, united in diversity with all God’s creatures.
One God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this is Trinity inviting us deeper into mystery; eternally embraced in a dance as love pours out from one to another, freely given without fear; not dominate, but to serve. May we courageously live an ethic of love, for this is our calling, love is who and how we are created to be. As we live into this ethic, following Jesus, may the humble, vulnerable, deep love of Christ, live through us, NOW, and forever. Amen.