So this past Thursday was St. Francis Day, but we remember it today with the blessing of the animals because, as we all know, St. Francis really liked animals and they really liked him. However, the readings for today are not actually the reading for St Francis day but commemorate that most holy and exciting of occasions Pentecost 20 – I hope that everyone remembered to get out their Pentecost 20 decorations. So while the readings and the blessing of the animals are in no way related it does seem that, if I were conspiratorial in nature, the readings are telling the animals not to get too uppity. I mean just listen to this bit from Hebrews, “‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.’ Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control.” So remember that you animals; you may be coming here for a blessing, but in reality you are really under our feet. [Hopefully there are no animals here with low self-esteem who will now have to spend the next nine months in some sort of Canine version of Jungian therapy in order to once again feel balanced and whole.] But with that out of the way I do want to look a bit at what the author of Hebrews is getting at and humanity’s special role and relationship in the cosmos.
So let’s start with the subjecting part. As you might imagine this understanding has been somewhat controversial as of late with certain environmental and animal rights types. The criticism that gets levied is that built into the DNA of Christianity is a sort of conquer and defeat mentality which doesn’t, to quote Frank Sinatra, “Care a feather or a fig” about the rest of creation because we are the ascendant creature in creation. But I don’t think that is what it really means. In fact if those critical of it took some time to really understand it they might agree with the sentiment. For it is not a call to disregard or trample creation but rather it is a way of explaining the special role and honor that God has given us. And that special distinction and honor is that we are to be in charge and to act towards the world in the same way that God acts towards the world. So what does that mean?
We obviously know that God is more powerful than we are and we also know that God loves us and in the most central act of the Christian faith sent his Son to die for us. As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “[Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” This is the way God deals with those things that are subject to him, he loves them at tremendous cost to himself. What this mean by extension is that this is the way that we are to deal with things that are subject to us. But the question that should naturally come up is what is meant by this? Are we supposed to sacrifice our lives so that our pet turtle might live? I will let you decide the answer to that one, for as with many things, it is not always meant to be taken literally but encompasses a mentality and a way of looking at the world.
Since we do sort of remember St. Francis today I want to think for a moment about his example in terms of our relationship to creation. The quick outline of his story was that he came from a rather affluent family but decided that he wanted to give up everything to follow God’s will. We all know the stories about his life, how he supposedly gave his father his clothes and walked off naked or how he preached sermons to the animals, with birds perched on his shoulder. St. Francis in some ways took the line from Philippians concerning Jesus, which states, “Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,” and adapted it to his circumstances. What I mean by this is that while Jesus certainly performed miracles and walked on the water, his day to day living was just like that of the disciples. He walked places, got hungry, tired, dirty and all of the other things associated with being human. He didn’t become human and then live in this world in a way that showed him being above the world. St Francis similarly decided to live in the world in such a way as to be in harmony with it. Just as Jesus did not separate himself from the normal workings of the world neither did Francis. And so what I think we are to take from this in context with our dominion over creation is that we are not to use this ability to control creation as a way to separate ourselves from the rest of creation. Francis maybe went further than most by being in harmony with all of nature, but the starting point is not alienating ourselves from nature in such a way that it also alienates us from the rest of humanity.
The example I came up with to explain this is either brilliant or idiotic, I have not decided yet, but it has to do with a kidney transplant. When someone gets a kidney transplant there is, according to the Columbia School of Medicine, a 10-20 % chance of a patient experiencing an episode of rejection. What this means is that the body can perceive the new kidney as a foreign object and seek to protect the body by attacking it. Interestingly I found in my reading about kidney rejection that such an episode does not mean the transplant was a failure because there are ways of making it work out, but back to my example. It seems that when we insert ourselves into the world we need to be like the kidney that the host does not reject. In other words we need to function in the world in a way, like the transplanted kidney, that make the whole better. We need to live harmoniously with nature and that is part of having dominion over it.
In the book we are reading for Sunday School there is a story of a wise old abbot who is visited by four obnoxious young men.Also present in this visit is a theology teacher.After the abbot has patiently dealt with these young men and they go on their way the theology professor asks the abbot how he was able to tolerate such obnoxiousness to which the abbot replies, “Have you ever wondered how God could tolerate you?”That is what God’s dominion looks like and what we are called to do when we have dominion.We do not push away or separate ourselves from nature and from one another.We as part of creation are supposed to be in harmony with it, which includes not just nature but our fellow humanity.I think it is best summed up in 1 Corinthians when Paul describes the attributes of love saying, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”May we have dominion over the earth and the coming new earth in this way, which is the same way that God has dominion over us, both now and forevermore.