Actually, she's not a celebrity, just my beloved pastor from Lake View Presbyterian Church back in Chicago. But having a blog these days makes one want to celebri-everything. Perez Hilton is the new black.
Anyway, Joy suggested that I read the Bible several sections at a time- drawing from the major collections in the Old and New Testament. So each day I read a bit from the Torah, the History, the Poetry and Writings, the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Epistles. It reminds you that the Bible is a mosaic, the individual tiles connect to create one unified picture. Thanks, Joy. (Check her out Sunday mornings at 9 and 11 at Lake View Presby in Wrigleyville!)
As I get back into the swing of things I'm doing a quick review of my pre-holiday reading and I came across something in Job that surprised me. I've read Job several times and I always react to it differently. Last time around I remember feeling irritated with the whole situation. Job's family was dead, his friends were jerks, and then God comes and lectures him. I mean, Job's consolation prize at the end of the chapter is the least God could do for using righteous Job to teach millions of Jews and Christians a lesson.
But this time around I noticed something. My former heretical reaction aside, I began understand the reasoning behind a popular opinion on God's speeches to Job. God is communicating something very important to Job (and us) here; He is bigger than all our concepts of Him. He comes to assert, "I am the Lord" and that's it. But that really does say it all, doesn't it? I am the Lord. The alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end. What more do you need to know?
Which is where God pauses to get on His green soap box. In explaining to Job the role of creating and caring for the world, God doesn't merely talk about His relationship with humans, but with the natural world that He created and cares for, as well. He proceeds to lovingly admire His many natural works, a reminder of His pleasure during creation, "It was good."
God loves on the sky:
"Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of the one whose knowledge is perfect, you whose garments are hot when the earth is still because of south wind? Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror?"
Job 37: 16-18
God loves on the ocean:
"Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.'"
Job 38: 8-11
God loves on animals:
"Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? Can you number the months that they fulfill; and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch to give birth to their offspring, and are delivered of their young?"
Job 39: 1-3
I must say, I was surprised I had missed this part. Last time around I was so distracted by my annoyance at God that I completely missed His little public service announcement. God loves all His stuff. The sky, the land, the sea, the animals, the rain, the snow, the morning, the afternoon, the evening. After all, he made it! And when He says to Job, "Where were you when I wallpapered the sky, when I fenced in the ocean, when I watched each animal give birth? Oh yeah, I forgot. You weren't even born." God establishes His supreme love and care in creating this place and also that even the righteous Job can be humbled. And when it comes to the green dilemma we have on our hands now, I think it's time we be humbled, too.
I'm actually repeating myself when I say God is green because inherent in God is His love for creation. God did not create the "bars and doors" of the sea for us to pollute it. He did not "spread out the skies, hard as a molten mirror" for us to cloud it up. He did not "command that the eagle mounts up and makes it nest on high" for us to cut it down.
Job is a book that centers around the question of whether misfortune really is divine punishment. In light of this book, and the environmental issue, I would say that it is pretty obvious that we are not on a punishment/reward system. In the real world, nice guys still "finish last" and righteous people like Job befall misfortune constantly. The bad guy doesn't always caught. And illness and hardship are not saved only for the guilty. It is easy to sit back and wait for God to fix the world's problems, with the notion that justice will be served in God's own time. But I think God made us capable and intelligent for the same reason He gave us free will. We have the tools to make God's "will be done."
Something tells me that God isn't going to reverse global warming. But He has given us the ability to do it ourselves, He gives us the strength and the courage to do it, and even a bit of scripture to back it up.
God isn't green.
Green is God.
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