By Rev. Doug Bland, preached at Earth Ministry’s 16th Annual Celebration of St. Francis: Creation-Care Sermon Contest on October 2, 2010.
One Friday night last winter, a deafening noise came from the living room, where the volume on the TV was turned up full blast. When I walked in to check it out, the atmosphere was electric. My 15 year old, Forrest, was watching WWF tag team, smack down wrestling. It was apparently a big match. Forrest was sitting on the edge of his seat. The Hardy Boys, Jeff and Matt, the archetypal good guy brothers were up against their arch enemies, the dastardly Undertaker and the arrogant Jack Swagger.
From the center of the ring, dressed in a tux, sweat pouring from his brow, the announcer looked to an auditorium that was packed to the rafters with screaming fans (sort of like church on Sunday morning). He asked that iconic question. You know it. I want you to remember it: “Arrrrre youuuuu reaaadddyyy to ruuummbbbbllllle!?!?” The crowd went wild. Forrest jumped up on the couch, beat his chest like a gorilla, and went through a series of poses to show off his muscles. I remember thinking, if we could just channel that energy for a worthwhile cause, for building community for doing eco-justice, what a difference we could make.
Two weeks later I was meeting with the Earth Care Commission for the Arizona Ecumenical Council. We were thinking about the environmental workshop we were planning for Earth Day, when it hit me like lightening: “I’ve got an idea. Let’s use the motif of tag-team, smack-down wrestling. We can call it ‘Grappling Green: Fighting for the Earth/Wrestling with the Holy.’ (There was a stunned silence which I chose to interpret as approval, so I continued.) “One at a time, in 10 minute bouts, we can have experienced environmental and religious leaders teach us how to wrestle dastardly foes like Climate Change, Species Extinction, Materialism and Greed.”
It turned out that committee silence was not necessarily affirmation. Some people, with more sense and better taste, suggested that it might be (I don’t know) a bit coarse, a little over the top, perhaps a smidgen too violent for our pacific inclinations. But were a gracious and flexible group who decided to give it a try. It actually worked quite well.
I had the opportunity to preach at the event—mostly, I think, because the rest of the Committee still couldn’t think of quite what to say. I suggested to them then, as I do to you today, that the wrestling match for the sake of the earth is not a new idea. It’s at least as old as the creation stories in Genesis. You remember that there is not just one creation story. There are, in fact, two. The Bible gives us two worthy opponents with different perspectives on how we human beings are to be stewards of God’s creation.
Picture it this way: In one corner, weighing in at a distinguished 350 pounds and wearing his Sabbath-go-to-meeting best is the Priestly writer, a.k.a. “The Big P.” As described in Exodus, in priestly garb he’d wear a sky blue robe decorated with bright red pomegranates and fringed with gold bells. Every time he moves he sounds like hundreds of tiny wind chimes blowing in the breeze. Draped over his shoulders is an ephod (like a cape/ apron combination) of dark red and gold. He sports a mitered hat and a golden signet ring on which are etched the 12 tribes of Israel on 12 different stones. I imagine “D-O-M-I-N-I-O-N” is imprinted on his wool breastplate.
You remember that, according to “The Big P,” God created the world just by speaking: “Let there be light! And there was light.” On the second day God said “sky,” and it was so. On the third day God spoke the “dry land and water” into being. Then God spoke “sun,” “moon,” and “stars,” then the “birds,” and “beasts” and “fish”, until the sixth day when God proclaimed “male and female.” On the 7th day God spoke “Sabbath,”—the holy conclusion of the story— a time for peace and enjoyment. The way the “Big P” tells it, the world was made with great dignity, power and order—–and it was good…good…very, very good!
Meanwhile, in the other corner, is his wiry contender. Going barefoot, wearing leaf-green tights, an earth-tone singlet, and sporting a crown of freshly picked flowers, is the Jahwist. I’ll call him “Mr. Green.” The way that “Mr. Green” tells the story, the Creator took some dirt and shaped Adam—the Earth creature—out of the dust of the ground. Then God took a rib from the Earth creature (literally “the side”) and created the man and the woman to be partners. Next God placed the human beings in the Garden to till and to tend, to work and to watch, to serve and preserve.
So there you have it—two very different stories about how the world came to be. It’s been easy, in recent years, to identify the Priestly account—especially 1:28, the command to multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over all the rest of creation—as the environmental bad guy in this match, the root of all ecological evil. That makes “Mr. Green” the environmental hero, out there with verse 2:15, “serving and preserving,” “tending and defending.”
In professional wrestling, old “B” westerns and today’s politics that’s how it works; there are perfect heroes (our avatars) and there are dastardly villains (our enemies). As fans (i.e. fanatics) we want to know: Who is the good guy we can cheer, and who is the bad guy we can boo? But in real life and in the best stories the truth is more complex than that. When it comes to caring for God’s Creation, it’s not just a question of jobs or trees. It’s too simplistic to reduce the wrestling match to either the “economy” or “ecology”—after all, they both inhabit the same abode. They spring from the same word, oikos, which means “household.”
The key to understanding the two creation stories and what they might teach us today is found in the different times and circumstances when they were written. Biblical scholars believe that “The Big P” wrote in the 6th century B.C.E., as the people were in exile. The first creation story was written to deal with the problem of despair. Having lost their homes and their land and their Temple, they were tempted to hopelessness. Against the backdrop of chaos and despair, “The Big P” told a story of purpose and meaning: “On the first day…on the second day…on the third day…and it was good. It was good. It was very good!” His message was: Don’t despair. You are not helpless, the victims of powerful forces beyond your control, whether it’s the oppression of Babylon or the caprices of nature or economic collapse. In the name of the Creator of the Universe, you are given dominion.” You have choices and, like your Creator, the power to do good. Remember, God spoke and the world was created. Don’t lose your own voice!
Mr. Green wrote in a much different time, maybe about the time of Solomon, when “dominion” had gone crazy. King Solomon built a house for himself that was more extravagant than God’s house. He’d cut down all the cedars of Lebanon, ripped up the earth to mine precious stones, and made his people serfs to pay for his exorbitant building programs. In response, “Mr. Green” told a story to critique royal autonomy gone loco. He wrote to protest the rebellious pride of the human being who refused to live in right relation to the creation and the Creator. “Work and watch!” he said. “Tend and defend!” he insisted.
Against what shall we defend? Now it was not so much the forces outside of ourselves—the power of nature that leaves us feeling helpless or foreign nations that cart us off to exile. Instead he called us to defend against our own destructive tendencies, power turned corrupt, a sacred dominion that had turned into a malignant dominance. We were destroying the Garden! Some one needs to defend it! (Jeremy Benstein, The Way Into Judaism and the Environment, pp. 47ff, Jewish Light Publishing, 2006).
It would have been so easy for the editors of scripture to choose one story and say, this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth! Thank God they didn’t. They knew that both of these worthy opponents had important things to teach us, and each generation needs to wrestle with these issues anew. But they didn’t include them just as an interesting exercise in Biblical exegesis. They wanted us to get involved the struggle. Brothers and sisters, hear me: You’ve got a dog in this fight—a dog and a polar bear, and a salmon, and melting glacier and rising sea levels, a the potential of millions of environmental refugee, not to mention your children and their children and their children.
So here is the situation: It’s a wrestling match. We are fighting for the earth. We are grappling with the despair that says “We have no power.”—“One person can make no difference.”—“It’s too late.” We are also fighting the arrogance and greed in our own selfish hearts and in our own materialistic culture, which says “We’ll just use it, and throw it away.”
It is important that these two stories contend with one another very vigorously. You see Mr. Green and The Big P are in training. I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but the Hardy Boys lost to their arch enemies. But there is good news. It just a rumor, a distant rumbling, but I have it on good authority that Mr. Green and The Big P will be matched up as a team, fighting together against The Undertaker and Jack Swagger. Now that will be a match!
For whom will you cheer? Will you give a shout out for “The Big P,” with his message of order and purpose and hope against the forces of chaos and despair? Or will you throw your support behind “Mr. Green” and his call to “tend and defend”? Which of these two stories do you think we most need to hear today?
….But there is an even more important question. It’s not just about you and me sitting up in the bleachers, spectators just watching, being entertained by the wrestlers in the ring below. . It’s not about “Mr. Green” or “The Big P.” The question is for you and me. It’s that iconic question that our God asks us in the voice of the wrestling announcer. You know it. Say it with me now:
“Arrrrre youuuuu reaaadddyyyyyy to ruuuummbbbbllllle!?!?”