Earth Day
The text is John 10:10-16. It does not seem like an Earth Day text. It’s about thieves and hired workers and wolves and the good shepherd. Shouldn’t we be contemplating the story of creation found in Genesis—God looked on all that God made and blessed it and call it good. Or Psalm 8 which begins: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” Or maybe James Weldon Johnson’s wonderful poem “The Creation.” We ought to read that at least once a year. The opening line is enough: “And God stepped out on space, and God looked around and said, “I’m lonely–, I’ll make me a world.”
Earth Day is a time to remember we are stewards of God’s creation. A Native American tradition says we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we are borrowing it from our children. That’s a theory of creation that makes sense to me. When we think about creation, we should be thinking about what the earth will be like in the seventh generation from now.