Trinity Parish Church - Lent 1 - February 10, 2008

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

The Rev. Rachel Endicott

This past Advent-tide, we had Adult Education speakers who came to speak with us about our carbon footprint.  They shared about the ways in which we might want to consider our treatment of the environment.  John De Graaf came and challenged us about our concepts of time and our buy-in to consumerism.  The next week, Loretta Jancoski, former Dean of the School of Theology at Seattle University came.  She spoke passionately about the way in which we could personally and collectively change the way we utilize resources in the environment.  In her presentation, she started, however, from an overtly Christian theological perspective.  She started by taking the scriptures, the Bible readings, from the day she was speaking and exegeting them, exploring them from a perspective which encouraged those gathered to think about God as creator and our continuing role in creation.

While I'm guessing most preachers this morning will be preaching on temptation, on sin and grace - and don't get me wrong, I do believe our discussion of sin in our society gets short shrift - I found myself quickly living into Dr. Jancoski's admonition to read the biblical texts through eyes of one who is aware of the creative power of God and the way humankind, the children of God, take part in that.

We started our reading this morning with a passage from the 2^nd chapter of Genesis.  Just prior to what we heard, we have the whole story of God creating all that is: stars, sky, universe, world, water and land, plants, animals and finally humankind.  And remember, each time we're told that what God has created is good.  Not that it's bad, neutral or even OK.  But surely that it is good!

And is with this still ringing in our ears, that we launch into our passage for today.  We are told that "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."  In our hearing of this sentence, I think we often truncate it in our common hearing to simply, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden."  How many of you run around with an idea of those first human beings lounging in the garden?  I think perhaps even as children, we read children's versions of the Bible with pictures that pretty much represented Adam and Eve playing or simply being in the garden...I don't think I've ever seen one where they are representing with hoes in hand!

And yet, that's what our text says...it says that the man is to till it and keep it.  Tilling, not a word often used in our 21^st century, is to turn over, break up the soil, allow the process of new life and growth to happen.  The first man, representative of us all, is to nurture, tend, and watch over that wonderful thing which God has placed there.  He is not passive in this partnership with God, but active...he has been given a task to do, a part of the ongoing growth.

But most of us don't till the soil.  We aren't called to be farmers.  As those of us in an urban parish in an urban area, we don't often till the soil, unless container gardening on decks are considered tilling.  But the premise still holds.  How do we continue to nurture the good earth which God has given us?  How do we continue to participate in growth and life of the planet?  How do we keep and value that in the world which is good?

Now, earlier this week, I went out for dinner and a concert with a friend of mine, Sandy.  Both Episcopalians, over dinner, we somehow got onto the topic of Lenten disciplines and practices.  Sandy shared what she was doing as a Lenten practice.  She said simply that she was going to carry a cloth shopping bag in her car and use it when she went shopping, rather than having to answer the age old question of "Paper or plastic?" with either one, but bringing her own bag.  Part of Sandy's spiritual journey this Lent is tied into this sense of her participation in the health or destruction of the environment.

Maybe this Lent is indeed the Lent of giving up grocery bags...  For my daughter's class project for their fundraising gala, they're designing and painting reusable grocery shopping bags.  On Ash Wednesday, the local Bellevue paper reported that Whole Foods is eliminating plastic grocery bags.  What would it look like if - as a church community - we individually joined this push and took upon ourselves, at least for Lent, to forego "disposable" grocery bags in favor of reusable bags that leave our environment without the waste generated by all those bags?  Estimates are that Americans alone discard 100 billion plastic bags annually, and of those only .6% (not 60% or 6%, but .6%) are recycled.¹  So, join the Lenten movement and - who knows - maybe it'll become a habit and carry over into the rest of the year as part of your stewardship practices.

In our lessons today, Genesis isn't the only place where we're prompted to read through environmentally-conscious eyes.  In the Gospel of Matthew, we find Jesus moving from place to place.  And the places are significant. We're told that "After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil."  His baptism, if we remember from a few weeks ago, was in the Jordan River, the river which gives life to a swath of the country through watering the surrounding areas and providing fish to feed those around.  Jesus moves from this good place of bounty out to the wilderness, a place of little, populated by stones, rather than the rich bounty brought into focus by life-giving water.  The stones I believe not only are the focus of temptation by the devil, but are symbolic of the barrenness that can be bought to creation if we're not careful.  I'm sure that you can think of ways in which our often heavy-handed use of creation is causing places that were formerly fertile to become barren and simply places of stone, sand and rocks.

With our winter snows in the mountains heavy upon us, it's hard to focus on the coming of spring.  But our Lenten life, our time to slow down, should give us an awareness that as we move towards Easter, we move towards spring.  Even yesterday, coming back from the vestry retreat at 5:30 or so, I was aware that - although grey - the sky was not entirely dark.  If we were farmers, we might indeed be looking at using the winter rains to prepare the ground for spring planting.

But as urban, or perhaps suburban people, I'd like to suggest that we use this Lenten time to think about our place in creation as the earth lies fallow, waiting for the lengthening days and coming of Spring.

Additionally, as we go through Lent and beyond, I encourage you to continue to read scripture with an awareness of what it might tell us about our continuing call to stewardship of God's world.  Let us use this time to give thanks to God for letting us participate in the ongoing care and nurture of the world.  Let us use this time to ensure that for future generations, it is indeed declared good?

¹ Worldwatch Institute, as reported by Lindsey Larin, Bellevue Reporter, Wednesday, February 6, 2008, p. 16.