Thursday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 338 

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth. Dread fear of you shall come upon all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon all the creatures that move about on the ground and all the fishes of the sea; into your power they are delivered.

The Covenant with Noah and his descendants is different than that made with Adam and Eve. This charter couple who set the pattern of marriage despite their original sin, enjoyed the trust and confidence of animals, and did not eat meat. Although their second son Abel was a shepherd and sacrificed sheep, they were farmers, not hunter. 

The rest of the Bible shows little interest in Adam's innocent governance of the animals and displays a religious enthusiasm for eating meat. Animals are chary of humans and some are hostile. Tobit's dog is the only pet animal to appear in the scriptures. (Wits throughout the centuries have enjoyed speculating about that dog.)

Some hostile critics, complaining about the ecological devastation that began with the Industrial Revolution, have blamed the Church and its Bible for the decrees in Genesis (1:26 and 9:2) that men should have dominion -- or dominate--the Earth. They suppose the Industrial Revolution might never have happened except for those unfortunate words. 

Alas! Would that the Bible with its ordinances and decrees were so influential! They blame religion also for warfare, unwanted babies, and the battle of the sexes. 

 

In the light of polluted land, air, and soil, rising sea levels, disappearing estuaries, shores, and islands, and mass extinctions, we would do well to seek a better appreciation for the Creator's command to have dominion over all forms of life. Whether it's divinely ordained or not, we clearly have the power and should govern the Earth with evangelical wisdom. 

In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis's has rightly reminded the world that wasting natural resources is precisely the same thing as wasting human beings and their potential. If billions of people suffer overwhelming poverty it's because we're also impoverishing our beloved home planet. The self-described "evangelicals" who hope to skip off to heaven while their atheist colleagues go in search of earth-like exoplanets risk eternal damnation in this world and the next. Our once and future Eden is here on Earth. 

The problem, of course,  is as enormous, deep, and ancient as Original Sin. A technological fix is no more realistic than pie in the sky. We must turn back to the Lord who's got the whole world in his hands.  We must find the way to righteousness in our revealed faith and our own hearts. 

What should we do on this Thursday morning? Pray, admit our sins both personal and collective, ask for guidance, and expect to be guided in our musings, thoughts, impulses, and decisions. 

The Lord will not surrender his people to sin nor will he abandon this world to a foreordained doom. Rather, he calls us:  

Come now, let us set things right,

says the LORD:

Though your sins be like scarlet,

they may become white as snow;

Though they be red like crimson,

they may become white as wool.

If you are willing, and obey,

you shall eat the good things of the land;

Isaiah 1:18

 

Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
together their young shall lie down;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the viper’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.
They shall not harm or destroy on all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea. Isaiah 11:6-9