Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Year B: The Earth is the Lord’s
Laurel Dykstra
Despite the psalmist’s bold proclamation, “The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything that is in it,” the ecological themes in this week’s lections, are more background than foreground. Divine care for creation, the pervasiveness of water in scripture, and the persistent association of prophets with the more than human world, all feature in the readings and are worthy of at least brief homiletic exploration. But the preacher who intends to focus primarily on ecological justice this week, will need to draw from their own watershed context and the broad themes of the books and genres, more than the assigned verses. Amos, Psalm 24, the letter to the Ephesians and the Gospel of Mark all have worldviews and perspectives on the more-than-human world with relevance to climate change.
Commentary
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I believe the understanding of Psalm 24 as an entrance liturgy associated with the ark of the covenant accounts for its placement in the lectionary to accompany the Samuel passage.
Verse 24:1
The key passage for eco-preachers is: the earth is the lord’s, therefore the earth does not belong to human beings and we are not given permission to do to it as we wish.
Erhard Gerstenberger notes that the preposition that begins the verse implies that while Yahweh is the agent of creation, creation is also relationally connected to Yahweh and/or creation is for Yahweh. Two principles here challenge an anthropocentric world view: 1) creation exists primarily “for Yahweh,” 2) there is kind of ongoing divine interest and engagement with creation, Yahweh communicates through creation.
Verse 24:2
Water imagery echoes the first account of creation where wind/spirit hovers over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kappla notes that water is not created but is a pre-existing entity. Divine ordering out of chaos can be seen a demonstration of power and a contrast to other Near Eastern origin stories.
Verses 3-6
David Cohen argues that these verses offer a vision of humankind as co-agent with God in re-creation what God originally intended. This co-agency depends not on humans but God, whose ultimate goal is for the whole of humankind to carry “blessing” and “rightness” into creation.
Verses 7-10
God is envisaged as the agent of the eschaton. Cohen describes this as Yahweh on the move, the one who possesses creation, welcomed into creation by the created.
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In the book of Amos is a connection between the voice of YHWH, the response of Earth, and the fate of human beings. Human beings are frequently compared to the natural world. Hilary Marlow calls the voice of Earth the “other prophet” in the book.
According to Robert Ellis the environmental perspective of Amos revolves around: an ecology of goodness; an ecology of pain; and an ecology of goodness made new.
Verse10
Amaziah, loyal to the king declares that the land is not able to bear the prophet’s words. While elsewhere the land appears to uphold and carry out the words of the prophet, Amaziah still acknowledges the wisdom, sentience and agency of the land.
Verses 14-15
Amos denies his status as prophet by claiming his role as one engaged in agricultural and animal husbandry.
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A sentient active, responsive vision of the land is integrated into these verses
The more than human world, especially the land is integral to a vision of justice and right relationship, land is a reciprocal participant in the flourishing of righteousness
Verse 9
divine glory dwells in the land
Verse 11
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Verse 12
The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
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Brother Keith Nelson of the Society of St. John the Divine finds in the first four chapters of Ephesians a comprehensive Christian ethos for climate action, rooted in the mandate to “speak the truth in love” (Eph 4:15-16). Framed in the scale of the cosmos pervaded with divine presence, he sees Ephesians’ call to wholeness and repentance inviting a new ecological self, the church and individuals are awakened to our climate justice vocation.
Verse 10
all things on earth will be gathered up, the earth, its interdependent components and inhabitants are ultimately valued and not disposable. This verse is resonant with Psalm 24:1 -the earth is the Lord’s
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Dong Heyon Jeong’s focus on animality, vegetality and colonization disrupt typical anthropocentric readings of Mark. He sees the Markan Jesus as the colonized messiah with a complex and ambiguous relationship with the more than human world.
The passage is a sort of flashback explanation of Mark 1:14
Verses 14-15
Elijah and John the Baptist are Jesus’ forebears in the wilderness prophet tradition
Verse 21
Ched Myers notes that Herod’s celebration includes every strata of the Galilean ruling class: political, military, economic
Verses 22-28
The complex machinations of social power, Jewish law versus Hellenization, sexual politics, power within families, abuse and manipulation, violence, face-saving are all relevant to a decolonial, climate justice reading that looks at more than “environment.”
Verse 29
John’s burial is echoed by that of Jesus Mark 15:42-47
Teaching and Preaching Ideas
If the Earth is the Lord’s, then what should Christians do about Climate Change?
Both Psalm 24 and the epistle to the Ephesians can be understood as calling God’s people to responsibility, to take action to care for God’s creation. This is an important and hopeful message for communities that are new to climate action, unsure what Christians should do, or how ecological justice connects to their faith.
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it. Psalm 24:1
In Psalm 24 it is clear that any discussion of the environment begins and ends with the clear understanding that God is the one who brought creation about, and the one who has ultimate ownership of all creation. The earth does not belong to human beings and we do not have license to do to and with it as we wish.
Psalm scholar Erhard Gerstenberger notes two principles in the Psalm that challenge an anthropocentric world view: 1) creation exists primarily “for Yahweh,” 2) there is kind of ongoing divine interest and engagement with creation, Yahweh communicates through creation.
These observations invite the preacher to ask: What is God communicating, through creation, in our bioregion? Are we listening? How do we respond?
David Cohen of Vos Seminary in Australia argues that the psalm will not allow people of faith, to avoid their responsibility to the environment. “If God owns all creation, and we
are God’s people, then caring for and conserving the environment is a natural corollary. While people of all faiths and people of no faith might share a concern for the environment, Psalm 24 provides a clear articulation of why people of faith should care.” and indeed act, carrying the blessing and rightness of verse 5 into creation.
The psalm culminates in an eschatological vision of Yahweh on the move, the one who possesses creation, being welcomed into creation by the created.
Cohen says the Psalm imagines a profoundly hopeful divine-human partnership
where we, as divine image-bearers, carry both a blessing and a mandate to put the world right, together with God. As people of faith, we care for the environment because God cares for it.
In the fullness of time to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth. Ephesians 5:10
This verse is the most explicit reference to creation in this week’s epistle, but Brother Keith Nelson of the Society of St. John the Divine finds in the first four chapters of Ephesians a comprehensive Christian ethos, a wholistic hopeful vision, for climate response. Given that the lectionary has us reading from Ephesians for 7 weeks, Nelson’s take on Ephesians ecological big picture is worth preaching on at least once during that time.
In Ephesians 4:15-16 we are enjoined to speak the truth in love in order to build up the body in love. For many of us the most difficult truth that we need to hear and to speak is the extreme state of the climate emergency and our own culpability in it.
The preacher might ask their community if there are particular beings (animals, waterways, trees) speaking to us in love. And if so what are they telling us? Asking for?
How when we know the information, the statistics do we hold this in love?
Ephesians is framed in the scale of the cosmos, a cosmos which is pervaded with God’s presence. The fullness, the wholeness of the church is described in bodily language—wholeness, growth, interdependence, diversity. And this wholeness calls and invites us to a new (ecological) self.
So we can ask what a new and worthy self might look like,in light of the Climate Crisis?
Nelson suggests this self would be:
“Created according to the likeness of the Creator;
rooted and grounded in love;
loving one’s neighbor as oneself, having extended the definition of neighbor to all things in heaven and earth.
And that new self is not alone but part of a body, the body of Christ and the body of earth -a church awakening to its ecological vocation.
“We each occupy a vital niche in this global web. What we do matters, but what and how we love from the center of a new self, matters most of all: how we love every molecule of soil, every tree, and every human life for whom Christ “descended into the lower parts of the earth” and “ascended far above all heavens, so that he might fill all things” (4:9-10).”
The preacher can share examples of their own beloveds from the more-than-human world or ask for examples from the congregation. These might be incorporated into prayers or litanies.
Explorations of a community’s specific ecological vocation could also be the subject of preaching and prayer.
Both psalm and epistle invite hopeful action rooted in our relationship with a God who is creator and lover of creation.
Waters of Justice, Justice for Waters
In the continuous lectionary the theme of water appears in Psalm 24:2
for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.
This verse, with its echoes of the creation story prompts examination of the biological importance of the evolution of life in and from the seas. In evolutionary time. -how is life on earth founded on the seas.
It also invites contemporary reflection on the preacher’s local water ways, watersheds,
With the opportunity to ask:
what are the local sources of drinking water and water the food that you eat?
what do waters provide: food, transportation, silt, fish?
In what ways are these waters nurturing and in what ways (as the psalm is intended to show divine mastery over waters) are they threatening?
In what ways are they threatened? -pollution? Development? Drought?
If you are in respectful and mutually beneficial relationships with local Indigenous communities, other faith communities this might be an opportunity to share a relevant water-teachings from those traditions.
For the preacher drawing from the thematic lectionary track, a central and evocative image in Amos, a book with a profound ecological vision, is
5:24 let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Chuck Summers points out that Most of the streams in Israel, are seasonal, streambeds or wadis remain dry until the rains come. Soon thereafter they are dry again. This familiar dryness is contrasted with justice that is intended to flow constantly like a steady river or a never-failing stream.
Reflect on the quality of water seeking/moving to the lowest place like justice, solidarity, and the preferential option for the most impoverished.
What are the waterways where you live? What seasonal waterways or constant waterfalls do you know? Is your own, your communities commitment to and experience of justice a seasonal stream or a year-round waterfall?
In the gospel we hear about the water lineage of wilderness prophets.
Elijah fed by ravens, hiding out in the wadi Cherith (a seasonal tributary of the Jordan).
John, preaching repentance on the Jordan
Dressed in camel hair (dressed as Elijah) and eating wild food
And then there is Jesus, -water walking, storm calming, fish conjuring Jesus
In Mark Ched Myers points out that grammatically Jesus is baptized by John not in but into the Jordan effectively making him a part of his watershed. Then a bird drives him into the wilderness where he is with the wild animals.
(If preaching from the Gospel, it is important to mention that in the complex machinations of social and sexual power under colonization, both the wilderness prophet John and the sexualized young daughter of Herodias are victims. And to draw parallels and ask questions about similar intersections in the present from a climate justice perspective.)
Focus on John the Baptist gives an opportunity to consider the sacrament of baptism. Jay Beck and Tevyn East, of Carnival de Resistance and Dreaming Stone Arts and Ecology Center, have riff on John the Baptist that poses the question, “when our water is polluted what does that mean for our sacrament of baptism?”
we all must be baptized in dirty water
because all the water is dirty
we have fouled our wells
the well is poisoned. toxic. sludge.
we have damned the water.
we damn the water
we damage the water
this baptismal call is a warning that your sanitation will not transform you!
your underground sewer systems do not hide the rising stench of your spiritual decay!
This is not a call for more programs or for technological advancement. this is not shopping advice about how to consume responsibly. this is a call to put your face in the mess you’ve made and feel the grief of the waters.
Voice of the Earth
For preachers following the thematic track, the excerpt from Psalm 85 portrays the more-than-human world as active and responsive. The land especially is a reciprocal participant in the just and right relationship among God, humans and creation. When righteousness flourishes the land flourishes. The land expresses God’s goodness.
Divine glory dwells in the land
Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
righteousness will look down from the sky.
The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. (Ps 85:9-12)
This week’s reading from Amos makes reference to the sentience of the land,
the land is not able to bear all his words (Amos 7:10) and the prophet’s rootedness in relationship with herds and trees (Amos 7:14-15) but the book of Amos has a much broader ecological vision. This is one of only two opportunities in Year B to preach on Amos bringing the books ecological and justice vision into conversation with our own watersheds and local ecologies.
Two examinations of Amos can help with this.
Robert Ellis characterizes the environmental perspective of Amos as three ecologies: an ecology of goodness, rooted in God’s creation of a cosmos that is trustworthy, generous, and interconnected; an ecology of pain that arises initially from abuse of the land and humans connected to the land by the wealthy elite, and is compounded by God’s bringing natural disasters and military invasion; In the final ecology of goodness made new, God’s people are replanted in their land and experience political stability, peace, and agricultural abundance.
It is important not to endorse a theology that explains climate change or extreme weather events divine collective punishment but to consider the way that biblically and in the present there is an understanding that harm has consequences in the natural world and that social and economic justice are inseparable from ecological justice. -treating people, land and animals as resources.
The preacher can ask where we see and feel an ecology of pain in our local contexts -naming particular extinctions, pollution.
A we reflect on cosmic goodness as initial state we can ask: what is our role, how do we participate in the ecology of renewed goodness?
Hilary Marlow’s ecological reading of Amos focuses on the importance of voice and the way that the voice of the natural world is part of a cosmic dialogue between creator and creation. She notes the direct parallels between the voice of Earth and that of the prophet: Both hearing YHWH with Amos speaking in response to it and Earth speaks following YHWH’s call. Both bear witness to God, Amos repeats the words YHWH gives him; the natural world reflects the very nature of YHWH. Amos pronounces YHWH’s judgement and the Earth fulfills it. Marlow calls the voice of Earth the other prophet in the book of Amos.
Taking the example of the psalmist and the prophet there are many questions we can ask our congregations about the agency of the more-than-human world:
How is the earth speaking now, where we live? Are these words of pain, of invitation, a call to action?
Amos claimed not to be a prophet but one who cared for herds and trees -how might attention and apprenticeship to sheep, cattle, trees might prepare a prophet?
Where in our own local environment do we notice Earth (or Water, or Trees)’s voice? How does this reflect God’s voice? What is it telling us? Are we listening? How are we answering? How/are we using our own voices prophetically?
How might human and more than human prophets sustain one another?
Sources and Resources
Jay Beck and Tevyn East, “Baptized in Dirty Water” https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2018/07/12/wild-lectionary-baptized-in-dirty-water/
David Cohen, “Possession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law: Psalm 24, the Environment, and Human Responsibility” Torch Trinity Journal 14 (2011) 23-37.
Stephen Colbert, “King of Glory” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oASYa-Wkroc
Susan Harrison, “Salome’s Whispered “Me Too”” The Mother God Experiment https://www.mothergodexperiment.com/salomes-whispered-me-too/
Dong Heyon Jeong Embracing the Nonhuman in the Gospel of Mark, Society for Biblical Literature, 2023
Dreaming Stone Arts and Ecology Center https://dreamingstone.org/
Hilary Marlow, “The Other Prophet! The Voice of Earth in the Book of Amos” in Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics, eds Norman Habel and Peter Trudinger (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008) 75-83.
Ched Myers, “What Does it Mean that Jesus “Apprenticed” with John the Baptist?”
Radical Discipleship https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2017/12/07/what-does-it-mean-that-jesus-apprenticed-with-john-the-baptist/#more-1073
Ched Myers, “Prophetic Genealogies and the Cost of Discipleship” Radical Discipleship https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2015/07/09/prophetic-genealogies-and-the-cost-of-discipleship
Keith Nelson, “Truth in Love: A Christian Ethos for Climate Emergency” https://www.ssje.org/2021/08/01/truth-in-love-a-christian-ethos-for-climate-emergency-br-keith-nelson/
Chuck Summers “Maintaining the Flow of Justice” Seeing Creation http://www.seeingcreation.com/tag/amos-524/
Contributor Bio
Laurel Dykstra is the founding priest of Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community, a church that worships outdoors and seeks to help Christians in the lower Fraser watershed grow their skills for Climate Justice. Laurel’s latest book on interspecies loneliness, Wildlife Congregations is newly out from Hancock House.