Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament by Ellen Davis
- Chapter 16 – “Good-faith Springs Up from the Earth: Learning Ecology from the Bible”

Thesis – The Bible equips us theologically to think ecologically about the world.

Overview

The Old Testament, and the creation narratives in particular, have a prophetic call for the church around the ecological crisis of our day. Ecology is the “study of relationships” (185) and the OT is all about our relationships – human, divine, and creation. We learn that we are humans made of humus and as such have a unique responsibility with and for the soil.  We are to “work” and “watch over” (192) the earth.  This is a call to righteousness – or right-living and right relationship – for the sake of others, particularly those who are dependent upon us.  Our right relationships then have direct implications for how we grow and eat food.  There are, not surprisingly, props given to Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson.

Quotables

“The Bible can teach us or (better, perhaps) help us to understand all the fundamentals of ecology.  The Bible can enable us to graps the depth dimensions of the ecological crisi because the ecological crisis is essentially not a technological crisis, but a theological one.  It is a massive disordering in our relationshi with God, the Creator of heaven and earth.” (185)

“The religiously resonant language of this first job description from Eden suggests the remarkable teaching that in showing proper regard for the fertile earth, we meet the two great goals of all Torah observance: serving God and protecting the week.  This indeed is Torah of the earth.” (195)

Notoable References

Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson, eds., Meeting the Expectations of the Land (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984).

Implications

First, I need to say that reading this one chapter makes me really want to read the rest of the book.  I have a growing respect for how God interacts with Israel and creation in the Hebrew Bible.  My hunch is that this book would provide both a great overview of the OT and the implications for ecology theologically composed.  I’ve also come to hold Ellen Davis in the same mental category as Walter Brueggemann and John Goldingay as preeminent and helpful scholars and guides for the OT.

Second, I this chapter is a great foundational piece for how to conceive of our relationship to God and creation – all within the framework of a careful reading of the Bible.  One would be hard pressed to assume that this is simply a liberal, left-leaning diatribe about “saving the earth.”  Our care and tending of creation – the soil, in particular – bespeaks of our core values and beliefs in much the same way as our checking account is a theological statement about what we really believe and value.

Oak Tree by Alan Creech

Success is clearly not numerical growth.  It may involve numerical growth, but it is not exclusive to that.  An oak tree is not successful if it merely grows larger and larger.  In fact, even if it did grow larger and larger that would not be the oak tree’s ultimate aim, purpose, or telos.  Surely part of an oak tree’s purpose – and by extension, definition of success – would be to reproduce.  Making more oak trees makes an oak tree successful.

However, we can’t stop there.  Just making more and more oak trees would eventually become self-defeating.  A good forest has biodiversity as integral to its ultimate success.  So an oak tree is only successful if it contributes to the overall success (in this case, think sustainability) of the forest/ecosystem/biosphere.  In other words, it plays well with others.

How might our friend the oak tree translate into campus ministry?  I think we need a ecological approach to ministry.  How might a successful campus ministry contribute to the overall biodiversity of a college campus, of local churches, of other campus ministries?  Maybe success is living sustainably in the social, spiritual environment in which we are situated.

As a leader of a United Methodist Campus Ministry it is important for me to know how those in authority over me define success.  Here’s this from the Mother Church:

The General Board of Higher Education and Ministry is the lead agency in providing assistance in developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world – the first of the Four Areas of Focus of The United Methodist Church.

Leaders of four of the denomination’s general agencies are shown here during a joint presentation to the 2008 General Conference about the Four Areas of Focus

These Four Focus Areas are meant to sharpen the mission of the church and direct critical aspects of our ministry in collaboration:

• Developing Principled Christian Leaders
• Congregational Development
• Ministry with the Poor
• Improving Health Globally

“We live in a world that once had courageous Christian leaders, but now cries out for them – the kind of women and men who are set apart to show by example how to live faithfully in bold discipleship and to engage a world starving for the Gospel,” the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, GBHEM’s general secretary, said during General Conference 2008.

How can these 4 areas guide our thinking for what is a successful campus ministry?  I’ve blogged about these elsewhere, by the way.  And while these are all related to making disciples of Jesus Christ, I wonder if these are leading indicators or trailing indicators (like unemployment numbers for this economic recession we’re in).  If we made disciples would we then see these things happen?  Or would doing these things make disciples?  The answer is probably both, but I think it is an important question.

What are your thoughts?  What is success for a campus ministry?

- Ryan Koch (at Third Street Stuff, favorite coffeeshop in Lex) – he’s the Executive Director of SeedLeaf – “The purpose of Seedleaf is to increase the amount, affordability, nutritional value, and sustainability of food available to people at risk of hunger in central Kentucky.”  And he’s part of the Communality community.

- Will & Lisa Samson – also part of Communality and both authors.  They co-wrote Justice in the Burbs (could be good book study in PRidge, NKU, or Asbury Church) and Will just came out with Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess.

- Nancy & Matthew Sleeth – authors and Wilmorians.  Matthew wrote Serve God, Save the Planet and is a former ER chief of staff from New England.  They got all Jesusy, downsized to Wilmore, and are Green advocates for the Church.  Nancy has a new book coming out Go Green, Save Green.  I’m pretty excited that we get to have dinner at their house and see how they live green in Wilmore.

Later this week I’m looking forward to meeting with Devin Schenk and Chris Curran, both faculty at NKU and involved with living ecologically sound lives and environmental sustainability and preservation.  Likewise, I’m eager to meet Edward Goode, new pastor here in Cincy with Presbyterian Church of Wyoming (suburb of Cincy).  I’m headed downtown in few minutes (noon on Monday) to have lunch with a couple prophets….

Actually, this exciting week started yesterday.  I had the honor and privelege to speaking at Asbury Church in Northern Kentucky.  We talked about Matthew 13 and some of the seed parables there.  The mp3 will be up on here soon (I’ll post it on this blog and Facebook when it is).

Here are a few links, including the videos I used, from the sermonizing that may be helpful for those who heard/hear it:

Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living, by Rueben Job – book

1. Do No Harm
2. Do Good
3. Stay in Love with God

Swarm Theory, article in National Geographic by Peter Miller

“how swarm intelligence works: simple creatures following simple rules, each one acting on local information. No ant sees the big picture. No ant tells any other ant what to do. Some ant species may go about this with more sophistication than others. (Temnothorax albipennis, for example, can rate the quality of a potential nest site using multiple criteria.) But the bottom line, says Iain Couzin, a biologist at Oxford and Princeton Universities, is that no leadership is required. “Even complex behavior may be coordinated by relatively simple interactions,” he says.”

YouTube – 300,000 Starlings in motion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzlcH2q6Vo]

YouTube – Timelapse film of growing cress

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky1kBLwCBHg]

Scriptures:

Matthew 13:3-9

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Mark 4:26-29

John 12:20-26

and, for those who were there, don’t forget to plant those wildflowers!

Composting maggot close-up

Originally uploaded by aaronklinefelter

These guys rock! They are amazing composters and processors of food and bio waste. They live in what started as a worm composting bin (but the maggots ate them out of house and home).

By the way, these guys are Black Soldier Fly maggots (learn more here).  They are safe, disease-free, super-eaters (see this site – http://www.thebiopod.com/).  Oh, and our diapers (the wet ones, not the poopy ones) are compostable (made by Nature Babycare, we love them and we’ve never had a blowout or leak!).

Click that link to watch a great video seminar by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm (you won’t be sorry).

Quite possibly, this is who I want to be when I grow up!  Click above and read.