Paul
and the Rebellion
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the March 5, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“For
the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by
the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be
liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of
the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in
the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:18-22, NIV
Whether one sees the first few chapters of Genesis as
myth, metaphor, or a literal account of how everything came to be, the idea of
Eden conjures up images of an idyllic place where harmony and peace reigned.
Death was apparently not a part of that place, becoming an interloper when man
chose to no longer trust the One who had created such a heavenly paradise. But
once death came, it came with a vengeance, leading to the near extinction of
the human race along with all the animals. Only a seminal few were preserved in
an Ark of gopher wood drifting on the chaotic seas of the great flood. Unfortunately
the seeds of brokenness were also preserved on that sturdy vessel. Soon after
the flood ebbed and grapes could be again harvested on the earth, brokenness
brought about division among that tiny colony of men and women charged with
refilling the Earth with life. So much was lost in the flood to provide the
chance for a new start, and too soon that new beginning was derailed.
As mankind went, so went the rest of Creation. Perhaps this
is because man, in his selective obedience has chosen which commands of God he
is eager to fulfil and which he is not. For instance, the command to be
fruitful and multiply[i] man has obeyed so well
that now the earth has over seven billion men, women, and children vying for
its limited resources. This is in spite of the pain associated with child
birth. Perhaps far too many enjoy the activities surrounding procreation so
much they rarely ask, “Can I feed and educate this child I am creating?” Of
course this problem is not helped by those religions and cultures that wish to
limit sexual activity solely to procreation so that individuals are faced with
the draconian choice of either giving up the joys of sexual intimacy or
continuing to bring children into the world who have little hope of having
enough to eat. Contraception can provide at least a partial solution, but to
far too many that avenue has been denied.
Another command, coming about as a result of mankind’s
fall into sin, was one that many to this day demand obedience to. That was the
command that man should rule over woman.[ii] For thousands of years,
men have used that as an excuse to deny women power and control over their own
lives. Many generations of women have fought to ameliorate the evils of that
reign. Men, who are often no better than the women they dominate, have expended
great effort, even using the powers of government and law enforcement to keep
women in their place. As a result, women have too often cried out to God for
relief from their oppressors and their blows, oppressors whose mantra, over and
over again, is “Submit!” Perhaps in this, men are merely reflecting the demands
of the devilish one who has come to rule over them, once they turned from their
Creator. This evil has persisted even within the church. Men, struggling
against the loss of any power or control over women, may fight desperately to
prevent women from being ordained as they might have been in recognition of the
Holy Spirit’s calling them to ministry.
Yet, a third command that mankind has eagerly fulfilled
is the one that granted him permission to slay and eat the animals.[iii] When one travels around the
globe and visits food markets in the various countries, it soon becomes
apparent there is little that lives on the face of the earth that has not found
its way into the mouth of man. Some of these creatures are so disgusting that
one cannot help but wonder what prompted the first person to eat it. As a
result, many have become diseased and even died from eating such an
unrestrained diet. Parasites, bacteria, viruses have all found their way into
human tissues through animal vectors. In Leviticus, chapter eleven, some
restraints are given for diet. But even these simple restraints are thought to
be too much of a limitation of individual liberty for many, so they continue to
follow their appetites, making their bellies their god and attempt to ameliorate
the damage through pharmaceuticals in spite of the cost. With proper diet these
perhaps would not have even been necessary. Sadly, man’s unfettered appetite
has driven many species to extinction, a high price to pay for gluttony.
Man’s insatiable appetite not only harms creation
through eating the animals, though. It also has led man to destroy thousands
and thousands of square miles of habitat for the animals. The paradox is that
this further depletes the numbers of those animals that man is seeking to hunt,
kill, and eat. Whether it is the depletion of seafood stocks because of the
continuous dumping of plastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other poisons
into our lakes, rivers, bays, seas and oceans, or the loss of harvestable
wildlife through the destruction of the terrain that supports them the loss is
immense. For instance, the March, 2016 issue of Smithsonian magazine detailed
how the world’s huge appetite for palm oil was destroying habitat in Borneo,
habitat that is vital to the Orangutan. The demand has caused major
corporations to destroy jungle habitat as in our picture above, and replacing
it with oil palm plantations, displacing the species living in those jungles.
All of this perhaps only to replace the native corn oil in products made in the
United States with palm oil, and for similar reasons in other countries.
Large swaths of tropical forests have been mown down around
the world, displacing animals and even indigenous peoples. While there are many
activists in the United States who work to reverse the trend, our history has
not been stellar in this regard either. We drove the American Bison to the
brink of extinction. We also cut down much of the vast Eastern hardwood
forests. Even in my own Pacific Northwest, until relatively recently, clear
cutting of pine, fir and cedar forests was common practice. Perhaps there
should be little wonder when other countries look at the path the United States
has taken to power with their unrestrained consumption of natural resources and
then want to do the same, hoping to enjoy a similar rise to power. The
competition for the scarce remaining resources around the globe continues to be
a source of conflict. Developed countries want to claim the resources of those
who remain less developed, while the latter wish to retain those resources for
their own development. The natural world suffers in the crossfire of those
conflicts. No wonder, as Paul wrote in the scripture shared at the top of this
commentary, Creation seeks liberation from its bondage and groans with pain.
All of this has grown from the seeds of mankind’s initial
foray into selfishness in Eden. The great controversy that erupted then has
continued to the present. When we see the species dying out, the habitat
disappearing, the diseases that afflict us due to our unrestrained desires, we
may be able to see that this cannot continue endlessly. Robert Browning
famously wrote “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a
heaven for?” While this sentiment may have grown out of the sense of manifest
destiny felt by many in America in the 19th and the 20th
centuries, what happens when there is nothing left to grasp or reach for? Only in
that heaven Browning mentioned is there presumably an unlimited supply. That is
a hard concept to wrap one’s head around when we live in a world of limits. At
one time, the population of the Earth was small enough that the resources may
have seemed limitless, but we know better than that now.
Perhaps the greatest question for those who are here
awaiting the Parousia is, “Should the promise of a new Earth cause us to give
up on the current one, or should we engage with the problems of today and seek
solutions?” Karl Marx once accused religion of allowing people to be complacent
about current problems because of that hope of heaven. Is it possible to carry
the gospel to the farthest reaches of this planet while still caring for that
same planet and its creatures? Or should we ignore what is happening to the
planet and its creatures because if things get bad enough, Jesus would surely
come. While these are all possible directions we might take, perhaps the most instructive
example to guide us is the compassion Jesus demonstrated. Would the One who
would go in search of the lonely, lost lamb not share that same compassion for
all the creatures, including us? If the answer is yes, perhaps then we should
walk as Jesus did. Maybe the world would be better for it, even in the midst of
the great controversy.
