Peace with Creation: God Will Tend a Garden Again

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The Bible is full of “echoes of Eden.” Of course, we read about the Garden of Eden in two separate accounts in Genesis One and Two, where God is the loving creator, a Potter forming and creating, and commanding and tasking humanity with our vocation as gardeners of the garden. But that is hardly the last time we experience these themes. The echoes reverberate throughout the pages:

• The Torah, including the texts that we read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, speak of the joint gifts of Land and Law, echoing the first gifts of Eden, and sharpening the direction for how we are to care for the earth, with the ultimate goal of mutual flourishing.

• Last week, we read from Isaiah 55, which was meant to evoke Genesis 1 and 2, as God says “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” The “word” evokes the first time that God spoke creation into being, and the Hebrew word that is translated “accomplish” here is the same word that is used in Genesis 1-2 for “create” or “form.” God is still creating. Still forming. Still speaking into existence. Our task then is prophetic hope, walking the line between denial and despair.

• The creation psalms, like Psalm 148 that we read responsively this morning—and so many others—reminds God’s people to worship the God of creation.

• John 1, which we also read this morning, is a clear echo of the Genesis story, even opening with the same words, “in the beginning,” placing the co-creator Christ in the picture from, well, the beginning.

• Chapter by chapter, book by book, generation by generation, the Bible echoes with the initial gift of Eden. And now, we get to the end of the whole Bible, the last chapters of the last book. Revelation 21 and 22. Listen for the echoes of Eden.

Revelation 21.1–6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
⁴ he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for^[e] the first things have passed away.”

⁵ And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 22.1–5

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; ⁴ they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Jeff Tkach says that we are separated from the soil. He works at a place called the Rodale Institute, which has for seventy years worked to understand the soil and humanity’s relationship to it. Tkach says that in broad terms, we have been “divorced from the soil.”

For most of human history, he suggests, we have had a pretty intimate relationship with soil. In a teaspoon of healthy soil, there are about 9 billion healthy microorganisms, and doctors and scientists are realizing that this microbiome is remarkably close to what exists in our bodies when they are healthy. We are realizing that when Genesis says that we are born from the soil, it is actually pretty scientifically accurate. For most of the whole of human history, we have stewarded that connection. Soil was worked with hand tools to grow food in ways similar to what the Torah commanded. Crop rotation. Land laying fallow. Cover crops to fix nitrogen and rebuild the soil and its complex systems of microorganisms.

But then, about 150 years ago, Tkach says, things began to change. Over time, we had begun to plow through the soil, which actually causes damage to soil. Soil is alive, held together by a thing called glomalin, inhabited by all of these microorganisms and macroorganisms…in one square foot of healthy soil, there are about 70 earthworms. Soil is alive. But dirt is dead. Dirt is what is left when soil is plowed and mechanized and industrialized. About 150 years ago, we began to plow in more industrialized and consumer-centric ways, and in that short time, our growing patterns have degraded half of the planet’s healthy soil. We are rapidly processing our soil into dirt.

But that was only the beginning. After WW II, America began developing herbicides, and the year 1975 is considered a turning point. This is when herbicide use became more widespread, and entrenched in our food system. Since that year, our food sources have been flooded with this antibiotic material, changing the biology of the ground, and thus changing our biology as those who eat food from that ground. Tkach says that we can see, beginning in 1975, a marked increase in chronic illnesses, cancers, Parkinsons, Alzheimer’s, autism, anxiety and depression and other mental health issues. We have changed the soil, and have thus begun to change our bodies. Again, none of this should be a surprise to those of us who have read Genesis and the Torah: we came from the soil and it is the soil which sustains us. Until it doesn’t. Scientists suggest that if we don’t fundamentally alter our current patterns, we have about 60 growing seasons left on planet Earth.

What on earth does this have to do with the book of Revelation? More than you might think.

Revelation is a hard book to understand, right? First of all, it is apocalyptic writing, a genre known for using symbols and numeric codes to stand for things in real life. Without having a cipher for these codes, we are left scratching our heads at what all of these symbols mean. But secondly, it is tough because most of us have been asked to see the book through this interpretive lens that was invented about…150 years ago. (See?!?) About the same time that our relationship with the soil began to change, we needed to change our interpretive theology to fit this change. This is the first time in the history of the Church that we started using concepts like “the rapture,” and “pre-tribulation or post-tribulation” and “millennialism.” So now, when we pick up the book, it usually comes with some version of this lens in the backs of our heads, confusing us even more. In fact, remember for last week’s sermon, I talked about how helpful the Two-Way had been in understanding the Isaiah passage? Do you know what help they gave me for Revelation? “Good luck!” No, that’s not really true. They had some really great things to add, but they did suggest that any time we open this book of the Bible, it’s an uphill battle, fighting through layers upon layers of historic interpretation.

Into the fray, I want to invite a man that we called “Smokin’ Joe.” Rev. Dr. Joe Lunceford was one of my religion professors at Georgetown College, and we called him “Smokin’ Joe,” but never to his face. I took an entire semester from him about the Book of Revelation, and it changed my world. Now, “Smokin’ Joe” was largely considered the campus heretic, especially to all those kids who were running around having their pants scared off by the Left Behind book series, which is largely based on this 150-year old interpretive lens. He challenged this lens and its inherent danger of making the book all about ME. This interpretive lens suggests that Revelation is only about one specific context, date, and time. Our job is to try and guess when that specific date and time is, and then get ourselves ready for Jesus’ return. That’s why in the last 150 years or so, someone is always saying that they have figured out THE date. Their argument is always something like: “It has to be right now. Look around you. The world is falling apart, there is injustice in our time, and there are tyrannical and sinful leaders ruining everything!” The corollary to this date certainty is that you have to pack up and get ready by this date, or you’ll be…left behind.

To that, Smokin’ Joe would suggest, “yes…and…” The book is indeed relevant to our time and place, but it has also been relevant to other times and places. In fact, no one would have bothered to write down and preserve these ideas if they only mattered this specific moment. Instead, the book has been relevant to many other times and places, over and over and over again. It is a story about the world falling apart, and injustice in our time, and tyrannical and sinful leaders running the show. Then, and now. And every generation in-between. So, instead of insisting that “I live in THE time of Revelation,” might we say “I live in A time of Revelation,” in one of the many times that injustice exists, tyranny exists, sinful leaders and their systems seem to overtake the world.

So what happens when we shift our thinking from “THIS IS ALL ABOUT ME AND MY LIFE IS SO HARD AND I HAVE TO GET READY BECAUSE JESUS IS COMING TO GET ME OUT OF THIS MESS!”? Perhaps there is another way to read Revelation, without us at the center. And I think it starts with the echoes of Eden at the end of the book. Did you hear them? A new earth. A spring. The water of life. A tree. Fruit. Leaves. In between these two sections there is a long section that I didn’t read about twelve different gemstones, pulled from the earth and adorning the new Jerusalem. And through the middle of it all is a river, the River of Life, flowing bright and beautiful. All of this is Eden language. Eden imagery. Echoes of Eden.

But did you notice where all of this is going to take place? All the way…right here. A new Jerusalem. A new heaven on Earth. A new Eden, rebuilt and reclaimed and redeemed. In other words, if you are taking a train out of here, you are going to miss what God is doing right here! Look how Sandra Richter, the Biblical scholar who is on the team of translators for the NIV, says about Revelation 21 and 22:

“…the iconography John deploys makes it clear that unlike the disembodied existence most Christians envision ‘heaven’ to be (an existence in which we are destined to float around the heavenlies for all eternity playing harps among the clouds), ‘heaven’ is in reality Eden restored….the New Testament is teaching us that ‘heaven’ is this very earth resurrected, healed of its scars, and washed clean of its diseases…. God still intends that the resources of this planet be utilized for his purposes. And according to the apostle Paul and John the Revelator, God’s most central purpose for his garden is to redeem it.”

Use that lens to read back through the rest of the book of Revelation. Instead of it being a book about how you better get your ticket out of here, it becomes a book about how God is eternally at work rebuilding and redeeming here. Is there crisis all around us? Yes. Is there injustice in our world today? Yes. Are our leaders arrogantly breaking the commandments of Scripture and abusing the entirety of the created order, especially the most vulnerable for their own sake? Just read the news. But is God suddenly unable to redeem? Is God somehow powerless to the evil of our generation? Did God say that this crisis is too big for him to do anything about it? Or is God saying, “This is my Eden, and they aren’t in charge here! This is my earth and I’m not done with it!”?

Use that lens now and let’s talk again about dirt. Did you think I forgot about the dirt? Are you starting to see how these two are connected? If you think that Revelation is a commercial for train tickets, to grab yours and get it punched before God totally loses control of this place, then you aren’t going to care much about the 9 billion microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil. You aren’t going to care if we cannot grow crops anymore in 60 years. You aren’t really going to care if it is soil or dirt. But if you think that this is God’s test garden for the new Eden, if you think that God actually has it in him to redeem this place, if you think that what God has in mind in the last chapter is a garden with trees and stones and a river running through the middle of it, then this stuff matters. And you are going to change your behavior and your mindset and even the way you practice your faith.

Jeff Tkach agrees, by the way. The Rodale Institute, where he works, believes that if we did this stuff in the last blip of our existence, we can undo it. They told Lincoln that slavery could never be undone. They told King that Jim Crow would be eternal. It may feel like too big of a problem to fix, but peace-makers, shalom-makers, don’t’ think that anything is too big for God! Here are some things that we can do to join God’s redemption:

• Get to know a farmer. He says, “the greatest spiritual act” that we can do it get to know a farmer, who he calls intrepid souls that are stewarding soil, some of the most intelligent, nature-connected people on the planet! Go to the farmers market this week, walk up to one of the booths, and thank a farmer for what they are doing.

• Buy more “organic” groceries. I know that they are more expensive, but they will become less expensive as the model shifts from what we are doing now to more sustainable practices. In their test gardens, they find that long-term, organic farming practices have higher yields, cost less, and actually reverse global warming. Healthy soil brings us another step closer to Eden. What if Christians could be part of the early adapters to make this shift happen?

• Learn more. A lot of us have no real idea where our food comes from. Their website, rodaleinstitute.org, is a good place to start.

• Finally, take off your shoes.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you couldn’t wait to get your shoes off and run around in the yard? Tkach suggests we reclaim that feeling. Take off your shoes and go walk in the grass. On the soil. In the sand. Dip your toes in the mud of the Kaw.

Tkach points out how many layers of things we put between us and the earth. I am bad about this…even when I go out on a trail run, I have layers of socks and rubber soles, and a rock plate in my trail runners. But scientists are learning how important this simple act is to our own physical health. It changes the way that we connect to each other. And it inspires us to feel more grounded and connected to the earth that God created. This week, take off your shores, stand on the earth that God created, and remember again that we are people of the earth.