Land, Sea and Plants Gen.1:9-13
Introduction
Do you ever have one of those days when you wonder how on earth you are going to fit everything in? There are a whole multitude of tasks, all of them seemingly urgent, many with externally dictated deadlines? Some of us live our entire lives like this and it is not healthy. When I have one of these exceptionally full days I am often reminded of one of the story books we used to read to our children “Postman Pat’s Busy Day”.
Without in any way wanting to be irreverent one could describe day 3 of creation as being “Creator God’s busy day!” On day one God created light, day 2 the sky but here he creates sea, land and plants. In fact it does look like two days crammed into one in that the familiar pattern of creation through the spoken word, naming and declaring the goodness of what has been made is repeated. Vv 9-10 “Let the….and it was so. God called…God saw that it was good” cf vv 11-12 “Let the….and it was so. God saw that it was good”. The astute among you may have noticed that God does not name the plants. Later on in Gen.2:19-20 we find God handing the responsibility of naming creatures to Adam and I wonder if the same thing happened with plants?
This section marks the transition from the first days of forming and the later days of filling. The creation of sea and land marks the end of separating and gathering, the creation of plants marks the start of making and filling – displacing the void. Using the same framework as last week let us look firstly at how God speaks to us through land, sea and plants then at our responsibility as stewards of the same.
God speaking through land, sea and plants
Sea
One of the noticeable features of Celtic Christianity is the role that the sea plays in the lives of the saints. In Biblical imagery the sea is often depicted in negative terms – a place of chaos and destruction. The Celtic saints embraced the sea, their search for a more severe, ascetic life led them to seek a “Desert in the Ocean”. Embarking in their fragile coracles they would abandon themselves to the will of God. Thus it is that many of the early Christian sites in the U.K. are coastal – Iona, Lindisfarne, Bardsey and so on. I wonder how they heard God speak through the sea?
In a poem attributed to Columba we read:
“I hear the heaving waves chanting a tune to God in heaven; I see their glittering surf
….
I Hear the waves breaking, crashing on the rocks, like thunder in heaven. I see the mighty whales.
I watch the ebb and flow of the ocean tide, it holds my secret, my mournful flight from Eire
Contrition fills my heart as I hear the sea, it chants my sins, sins too numerous to confess
Let me bless almighty God, whose power extends over sea and land, whose angels watch over all
In this poem Columba expresses both a general revelation of God through the seas – they speak of God’s power – but also a more specific one. They remind him of his enforced exile from Eire and his many sins. How do the seas speak to you? (personal eg)
Land
Now I can hear some of you saying “its all very well asking us to hear God speaking through the sea but its miles away from here” OK – when God made the sea He also created the dry land. How does God speak to us through the land? Last week we looked at skyscape, we have just thought about seascapes what about landscapes?
I wonder what images come to mind at the use of that word – pictures by famous artists perhaps. One of my favourite landscapes is that view one gets when going out of London on the M40 going through the cutting in the Chilterns and, on a clear day, seeing a wonderful vista of fields and farms.
Land and landscapes find frequent reference in Scripture – hills, mountains, valleys, deserts, fields and forests. How does God speak to us through them? Again there is both general and specific revelation. In a general sense land speaks of God’s permanence and power. The psalmist pictures land and sea joining in praise to God “Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all who live in it, Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy” Ps.98:7-8 How does God speak to us personally through the land?
Plants
It is interesting to note that in these verses about plants particular mention is made of seeds and fruit. We value plants for all sorts of reasons and they feature throughout Scripture – from the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden to those with healing leaves in Revelation. The one aspect I want to focus on here is fruitfulness. God speaks to us through the fruitfulness of plants to be fruitful ourselves. You may have noticed the reference to harvest in our gospel reading.
Application
Today is father’s day in case you hadn’t noticed. As I was preparing this sermon “Fathers for Justice” were protesting on some politician’s roof. It made me think what the response would be if I tried to start a “Fathers for creation-care” group? Just as the traditional model of fatherhood has changed from absentee discipliner (wait til your father comes home) to co-carer so our understanding of God’s mandate to humans to “have dominion over the earth” has changed. To rule over creation is to care for it as God does. As God’s chosen representatives here on earth we above all others should be modelling thoughtful care of the world he has made – sea, land and plants.