Patricia Tull’s Horizons Bible Study
Let Justice Roll Down: God’s call to care for neighbors and all creation
Lesson 9: Sustaining Creation’s Health for All, Psalm 104
My college, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College (now University), required that all students take a science course that included the study of ecosystems. It changed the way that I looked at the world, realizing everything is interconnected and interdependent. Who would have thought the course would make such a life-long difference?
We see the interconnectedness of life everywhere. Insects help break down vegetable matter so that the soil is enriched, and insects are food for the birds. If the number of birds declines, then there will be a bug infestation that threatens crops and, thus, our food supplies.
Coral reefs are some of the most “biodiverse and productive ecosystems on earth,” writes Renee Cho in Columbia Climate Schools “Losing Our Coral Reefs.”
“They occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor, yet are home to more than a quarter of all marine species: crustaceans, reptiles, seaweeds, bacteria, fungi, and over 4000 species of fish make their home in coral reefs,” Cho writes. Coral reefs are in danger, primarily threatened by global warming, which ultimately endangers us.
Instead of a world in which the balance of plants and animals is out of kilter and species in peril across the globe, God’s intention for life is different. Psalm 104 paints a picture of a complex, God-created, God-ordered world.
The psalm begins with wonder and awe before God. God’s wardrobe is light, and God travels on the wind. God sets the earth on its foundations, covers the world with oceans, pushes up the mountains and scoops out the valleys. God fills the seas with porpoises, penguins and puffer fish. God bubbles up springs and rivers, and antelopes, anteaters, panthers, porcupines, and people drink their fill of clean water. God makes the grasses to grow for livestock and grain for animals and people. God’s world is one of flowing abundance: wine to gladden the human heart and oil to moisturize the skin. God creates shelters for the birds, badgers, bears, mountain goats and gophers. God plays with whales. God gives us the seasons marked by the moon and sun. God provides us with the breath of life.
In this view of a God-breathed world, chaos shrinks because we see the order God has provided. James Mays wrote in his book, Psalms, “ … the creation of the world is less an act of producing its material reality and more an achievement of control to produce order and function.
It recognizes a dynamic in reality. The world always depends on the authority of God. The bounds are set against the chaotic waters (v.9) but the limits hold because the Lord reigns.”
It is not easy for us to believe that the Lord reigns when chaos, inhumanity, cruelty and deep divisions in our country and world fill the news. It is also difficult to envision the Lord’s reign when we view existence in fragmented ways through our roles as scientists, developers, business people, medical helpers, teachers or parents. We see God through our narrow viewpoint. As Mays comments, “We imagine ourselves autonomous, distinct from the world and different from its creatures, disposing of it and them, not accountable to any transcendent person. We are learning slowly that we damage, live in alienation from that to which we belong and threaten the future of life.”
When we remember that we are one creature among many and that every living thing is connected, we can gain a perspective that can help all things live in balance. When we feast on the wonders of creation, relish the clear night and the milky moon, taste the goodness of easy companionship, or watch shadow and light play hide and seek, thanksgiving can rise in us, and thanksgiving is an antidote to fear, cynicism and hopelessness. Yes, the world is in turmoil, but beneath us are the foundations that our Creator laid.
Novelist and poet Wendell Berry writes in “The Peace of Wild Things” of the times when despair about the future grips him. At those times, he goes out into the night,“And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
We all need the peace that comes from resting in the incredible world that God has created. We need it to gain perspective and hope and commit to action. We need to remember that there is someone who guides life. And in response to God’s goodness, we praise God, which is the other wonderful antidote to the anxiety of modern life.
