By Dr. Rev. Clara Rushbrook

We have the well-known accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and
again in Proverbs 8 and in the book of Job, marvelling at the wonder and
goodness of creation.

We have psalms that speak of the earth declaring the glory of God, of
the trees and the fields clapping their hands. Of God’s care and concern
for all of creation.

But these texts have also been interpreted and used in a way that has
enabled us to justify our exploitation of the planet.

Specifically the phrase that has been used in this way is the idea of God
telling humanity “to have dominion over” or to “subdue” the land, plants
and animals.

Sometimes this has been translated as to have “stewardship over”. Its a
slightly softer translation but still leads to us having a paternalistic
relationship where we have the power over the rest of creation.

Also, it has often been interpreted that as humanity is created last in the
Genesis 1 accounts that somehow we are the pinnacle of creation. We
have thought of ourselves only as the imago Dei – or the image of God,
rather than as also imago mundi, or the image of the world.

But others have interpreted and translated the Genesis texts differently
and in a non- hierarchical way to suggest that we are part of God’s
created order, utterly dependent upon it and that our role is more that of
a caretaker or a gardener.

Part of the problem is that Christianity was born into a very dualistic and
hierarchical world view where spirit was seen as above nature, soul was
seen as more important than matter and where the physical realm was
seen as evil. But this is not what the Biblical narratives tell us – here they
say that creation is good, it is very good.

Much of my PhD research was on learning from indigenous cultures and
spiritualities which have a very different understanding of our relationship
with land. In these world views land is not a commodity which we own.
Rather, we belong to the land. The land is literally understood to be the
bones of our ancestors, whilst also being held in trust for 7 generations
to come. Land is sacred, an expression of or embodiment of the divine
which I’d suggest is much closer to the understanding that we have of
the Genesis narratives.

What does it mean to see the 4 leggeds and the 2 leggeds as our
brothers and our sisters, as our siblings as an extension of our family?
What does it mean to honour the earth and to take only what is needed
for our survival instead of exploiting it for prophet. What does it mean to
live in harmony with the earth, with God’s creation.

Sallie McFague uses the metaphor of the World as the Body of God – if
we see the earth as sacred and as God’s body – how does that shift our
understanding and the ethics of how we relate to the natural world
around us?

Jesus meets Mary after the resurrection in a garden – in fact she doesn’t
recognise him because she thinks he is the gardener. We talk about the
tree of life and of Jesus being hung on a tree – and here we have him
again, walking in the garden in the post resurrection narratives.

Jesus throughout his ministry uses images from the natural world in
order to teach his disciples and us. The kin-dom of God is like a mustard
seed, a pearl, yeast kneaded through the dough. The lilies of the field
neither labour nor spin but even Solomon in all his glory is not dressed
as one of these. Jesus likens himself to the shepherd, the vine.

Jesus says when you care for the least of these among us you care for
him.

So where does re-wilding fit into the Bible and to our faith. I would say
that this is the thread that runs all the way through from Genesis and on
into the New Testament and beyond.

In our church liturgies we give thanks for the gifts of bread and wine, the
gifts of the earth, each time we celebrate communion. We use water in
our baptismal ceremonies. And in our funerals, we return to the earth –
dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

We celebrate the word made flesh each Christmas in the incarnation of
Jesus. We watch nativity plays where the baby is placed in an animal’s
feeding trough.

We celebrate new life in Christ along with the renewal of the earth each
Easter marking this by sharing easter eggs and hot cross buns. We mark
rogation Sundays praying from the crops and celebrate the bounty of the
earth in our harvest festivals. Pentecost is the festival of fire and the
coming of the holy spirit. We are enlivened by the breath of God which
flows through the whole of creation.

Imogen and I led worship at the Luther King Centre where I work just
after the Re-Wild Action outside St. Paul’s cathedral. We shared a godly
play of the creation story and then looked at how our earth has become
polluted and how nature has been depleted and destroyed. And we
invited our staff and students to write yet more theses to add to the 95
Wild theses.

So I just want to end by sharing a couple of these:
God is every living thing that has been, that is now and that is yet to be
and therefore, nurturing and sustaining the earth is doing the same to
God.

Remember o mortal that you are dust, the same dust as the stars that
spangle the night skies… remember of mortals that you are carbon
based life forms and that carbon is both a blessing and a curse in your
hands… remember o mortals that God declared all creation to be good…
star dust and all dust…

We have managed to destroy the earth that is deeply connected to us.
As we spend time in worship we have a gutteral response that “This is
not right” We need to change not tomorrow but now.

May we recover a wild and anarchic approach to land and its uses,
giving up our domination of it, and risking a greener and bluer dynamic –
the flow of the sea, the death and rebirth of the seed.

Anglican theologian Andrew `shanks reminds us that the systems that
hold our environmentally negative behaviour in place are so ingrained
that hypocrisy is inevitable in any actios we take, but the choice is to sit
back and do nothing or get our hands dirty. The Church of England has
the choice to do something real and tangible. We must act.