Stewardship

Stewardship 

In the Beginning

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

God looked over everything he had made;

it was so good, so very good!

 ~  Genesis 1 (The Message Translation)

Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat... God took the Man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order. ~ Genesis 2 (The Message Translation)

There is debate if Adam and Eve were two real people, or if they’re literary examples of humanity in our earliest interactions with God. Similarly, some believe the Garden of Eden was a specific place on Earth, and some believe the Garden of Eden represents the entire Earth. Regardless, we see that God created mankind in his image. He created a garden. He put man in charge. It’s a story that explains what God intended for humanity.

After visiting Hana, Hawaii, I imagine it to look like the Garden of Eve. Dense, tropical forests where passionfruit vines grow among the shadows and birds call out to each other in the afternoon sun. Pineapples sprout from the ground and the coconuts that drop from trees are nature’s first electrolyte drink. Bananas burst from every tree, satiating and sweet, and starfruit grows naturally from bushes, refreshing and crisp. Around every corner there is a new adventure, every crevice is teeming with life. 

The Garden of Eden was God’s special place to come and meet with humanity, where they went on daily walks exploring the garden, tasting the food, and enjoying intimate friendship. Strangely, God didn’t keep control of the garden. He gave it over to Adam and Eve, to “work the ground and keep it in order.”

I’ve wondered what the final straw was for Satan to rebel against God. 

Was it that God’s blubbery love for humans was beneath the expected conduct of an all-powerful God?

Was it that God created matter when God and angels are spiritual beings? 

Was it that God made humanity in his image, giving them the ability to imagine and create?

Was it that God created two genders when God and angels are genderless? 

Was it that God allowed human beings to have full responsibility for God’s garden?

Because really, it’s outrageous that God would allow humans, vulnerable to failure, to care for his special garden when he had a horde of capable angels who could have cared for it perfectly. It’s the equivalent of allowing children to wear your priceless, family-heirloom, diamond necklace to their Kindergarten graduation. If you’re one for logic, it simply doesn’t make sense. That scenario can only make sense if it’s an outrageously generous King, drunk on love for his children, who wants to prepare them for their future destiny. 

I’ve always thought Satan must be big on logic. 

The Family Business

Imagine you had a family business. It’s a prosperous company and you’ve put your heart and soul into it and it has flourished. Everyone loves your business, it’s provided for your family, given jobs to the townspeople, and stimulated the country’s economy. Your children have worked under you for decades. They’ve watched you since they were young and you’ve been patient to teach and guide them. You’ll retire soon. You intend to give the company to them next year.

If you believe your children are capable of taking over the business, you’d allow them to make real decisions that could grow or harm the company. If you believed in them to be your equals, you’d give them access to the business’s finances to invest or squander. You wouldn’t hold any responsibility back, for good or evil, even though you would lose control. 

You would want your children to love it as much as you do, and to do that, they needed to own it. There’s a level of delight that can only be experienced when you’re holding something wonderful in your hands, when it belongs to you, and not just looking over the shoulder of another person. That is what God did for Adam and Eve. God wanted them to be in charge of his creation. He wanted them to delight in the garden as much as he did. 

God’s “family business” was for mankind to care for the Earth and everything in it. In return, it would provide everything we need. It’s what we were created for. It was the plan of an outrageously generous father. We were meant to care for Earth while living in an intimate relationship with him and each other.

Humanity’s Responsibility

The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. ~ Genesis 2 (The Message Translation)

The Bible says that mankind could eat the fruit from the Tree of Life and live forever. Joshua Ryan Butler, author of “Skeleton in God’s Closet” interprets the Bible’s Tree of Life to be an umbilical cord between heaven and earth. {get an excerpt from book}

It connected earth to life-giving heaven, providing everything that was needed for Adam and Eve to make the Garden thrive. When Adam and Eve sinned, the cord was cut. Not only did sin disease humanity’s soul, but the earth itself was now separated from heaven, from a system of eternal life to a system of entropy and death.  If our relationship with God hadn’t been severed by sin, I think we would have done an amazing job of taking care of the Earth and everything in it.

After “The Fall,” having been made in the image of God, we have the enormous ability to harm the earth and that’s exactly what we’ve done. If you believe in global warming or not, we can still agree that Agent Orange is a human invention. Polyfluorinated and poly-fluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), aka toxic forever chemicals, are a human invention. Nuclear waste? Humans. City-sized warehouses? Humans. Massive carbon dioxide emissions? Humans. Deforestation? Humans. It’s not the plants or the animals that created toxic chemicals or ravaged ecosystems. It was us. Humans.

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and then exhaled disobedience. ~ Ephesians 2 (The Message translation)

Destruction is part of humankind’s DNA, ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, though some cultures have been more irresponsible than others. Sin broke us. Corrupted us. Without the regenerative work of God in our lives, and without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we’re destined to continue sin’s legacy of entropy, and destruction- spiritually and as Earth’s stewards.

Christian Stewards

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. ~ Ephesians 2 (The Message translation)

As Christians, we still struggle against sin and we live in a broken world, yet we have the spirit of God living within us. We are no longer slaves. We are new creations, alive in Christ. We are living confirmation that the kingdom of God can exist on Earth here and now. 

We can’t get back into the Garden of Eden until Jesus makes the new heaven and earth. But apparently, it’s still God’s will for the Earth to provide for humanity, and it seems it’s still our responsibility to care for the Earth until God provides something else. As Christians, we should be diligent stewards above everyone else. We should be the most grateful, the most respectful, and the most protective in caring for the Earth. 

Being a Christian means we have an important role in God’s family business.