Who is the “them” in this sermon excerpt? An unfortunate group of people? A community in some Third World country? No. The pastor in this case is referring to the trees, waterfalls, oceans, and other living things around us.
That and other provocative insights can be found in this sermon by Reverend Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. I urge you to listen to it with an open heart and mind.
In the sermon, Reverend Keller unpacks the larger meaning of Genesis 9:1-17 in ways you have probably not heard before. There has been a tendency I’ve long noticed for Christians to highlight only the covenant between humanity and God in this chapter and to neglect the significance of the fact that the covenant is also with all of life. But Reverend Keller asserts that it is actually outlining three great relationships we must pursue — with Creation, with fellow humans, and with God.
Reverend Timothy Keller
Here is one other sequence of Keller’s words in the sermon:
“The Bible says Creation is speaking to you — the stars, the waterfall, the animals, the trees. They have a voice.They’re telling you about the glory of God. And its your job as stewards of Creation, as stewards of nature to make sure they keep speaking, to not let their voice go out. It’s your job to help them be themselves…. It’s your job to join the choir.”
We are in a world full of life and energy, in other words, and that life has been part of the God’s story and has its own unique value to God. What’s more, we are not complete if we are not attentive and in positive relationship with that life.
I continue, by the way, to be impressed by Keller’s preaching and writing.
One of the more insightful books I’ve read about the Christian books was his Walking with God through Pain and Suffering which I studied during a particularly difficult period of my life. He consistently reveals ways of understanding God and life in ways that are rooted in the Bible and yet have a nuance and spirit to them that are uniquely rich and robust.
P.S. I want to give special thanks to Ray Archuleta for recommending that this sermon to me. I attended a full-day session on soil health farming presented by Ray Archuleta and Gabe Brown at the 2016 MOSES Organic Farming Conference in February. Two things struck me about Ray during that day of instruction: his unflagging passion (seasoned with wit and powerful stories) for building the life of soil as the central focus of good farming and his recommendation of the book The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation by Richard Bauckham. I recently reached out to him, and we had a wonderful conversation over the phone about his Christian faith.
