Let all creation praise—by
not polluting!
Readings
for Year A—2013-2014
Care for Creation
Commentary on the Common Lectionary—Year A by Kathryn Schifferdecker
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 45:1-7
Psalm 96:1-13
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22
In this week’s Gospel reading from Matthew 22, the
religious and political leaders seek to trap Jesus. They ask him if it is
lawful to pay taxes. If he answers, ‘yes,’ he will get in trouble with the
religious authorities. If he answers ‘no,’ he will be considered a threat to
Roman authority.
Jesus asks for a Roman coin and poses the question,
“Whose image is this, and whose title?” When they answer, “The emperor’s,” he
says, “"Give therefore to the
emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are
God's” (22:21).
The
distinction between God and the emperor reaches back to the Old Testament,
where there are differing opinions concerning human kings. In 1 Samuel 8, when
the people of Israel demand a king, God says to the prophet Samuel, “They have
not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam
8:7). The people don’t need a human king, because God is their sovereign.
Nevertheless, God grants their desire and instructs Samuel to anoint Saul, then
David, as king. And, of course, God eventually promises David that one of his
descendants will always sit on the throne (2 Sam 7), a promise that eventually
leads to the belief in a Messiah, a “son of David” who will redeem Israel.
The
psalm appointed for this Sunday, Psalm 96, belongs in the first chorus of
voices, the chorus that proclaims God as king: “Say among the nations, ‘The
LORD is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will
judge the peoples with equity’” (Ps 96:10).
This
proclamation, “The LORD is king!” is great good news to the created world, and
creatures, even inanimate creatures, respond with joy:[1]
Let the
heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad!
Let the sea thunder and all that
fills it!
Let the
fields exult and all that is in them!
Then all the trees of the forest
will shout for joy
Before
YHWH, for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will
judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.
(Ps.
96:11-13; cf. Ps. 98:7-9)
The
LORD’s coming in judgment may seem to us at first reading a strange reason for
the world and everything in it to shout for joy. “Judgment,” after all, usually
implies punishment of some kind. For human creatures, the thought of judgment
day probably evokes more fear than exultation; but from the perspective of the
non-human creatures—who are the chief singers in these psalms—the fact that God
is coming to judge the earth is a very good thing indeed.
The
trees, the fields, the seas, and all the animals that fill them, are singing
the Hallelujah Chorus because they see salvation coming. They are singing
praise to their Creator who comes to judge the world, to set things right, to
remove the sin and defilement of which the prophets speak. Our sin defiles the
earth, according to the prophets, and the earth and its inhabitants suffer. We
human beings, along with the rest of creation, were created to praise our
Maker, but when we damage the earth and its inhabitants, their ability to
praise is diminished. A polluted river cannot praise God with full voice. “The
heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1); but not as clearly when they are
clouded with smog. The extinction of a species silences a unique voice in the
chorus of praise.
Rainforest
destruction, global warming, pollution of air and water—these results of human
sin affect human beings, especially those who are poor and vulnerable, those without
the means to protect themselves or to move away from unhealthy habitats. We sin
against ourselves and our poor human neighbors when we engage in
environmentally damaging practices. Psalm 96 reminds us that we sin also
against our fellow non-human creatures and our Creator when we engage in those
practices. The sin of environmental degradation is sin not only because it
endangers or damages the lives of human beings; it is sin also because it
diminishes creation’s ability to praise its Creator. “Then all the trees of the
forest will shout for joy / Before YHWH, for he is coming, for he is coming to
judge the earth.” For the fields, the sea, the forests, and all the creatures
that inhabit them, the fact that God is coming to judge the earth is very good
news indeed. In that day, human sin with its pollution and defilement will be
wiped away, and the creation will at last be able to sing with full and clear
voice in praise of its Creator.
This proclamation, “YHWH is king!” is
also, in the end, good news for human beings, as well. “He will judge the world
with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth” (Ps 96:13). Judgment in
righteousness and truth will expose all our petty lies and self-deceptions, all
our seeking after the things that are Caesar’s, all our greed and grasping. And
then, stripped of all that weighs us down, we too will be able to join in the
chorus of praise rising from the mountains and seas, the plains and forests, to
the God of all creation. “O sing to YHWH a new song; sing to YHWH, all the
earth!”
For additional care for
creation reflections on the overall themes of the lectionary lessons for the
month by Trisha K Tull, Professor Emerita of Old Testament,
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and columnist for The Working Preacher, visit: http://www.workingpreacher.org/columnist_home.aspx?author_id=288
[1] Much of what I’m saying here about
Ps. 96 is published in an article I wrote entitled, “’And also many animals’:
Biblical Resources for Preaching about Creation” in Word and World 27:2 (Spring, 2007), 210-223. In the piece on Ps.
96, I relied on memories of a sermon I heard by Ellen Davis during my student
days at Yale Divinity School. Davis, of course, has been a leader in ecological
hermeneutics for many years.