Biblical Commentary: Second Sunday, Seasons of Creation Year C
(Animal)
The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade, PhD
Job 39:1-8,
26-30
Psalm
104:14-23
1
Corinthians 1:10-23
Luke
12:22-31
Once again,
wisdom is the byword for these passages in Scripture that open a conversation
about what humans consider worth knowing and valuing in the world, especially
regarding animals. These texts would be
ideal for a Blessing the Animals Sunday where the congregation can be invited
to bring their pets, farm animals, or pictures of their favorite creatures to
the service. Consider having a
soundtrack of animal noises in the background during the prelude or at key
parts of the service, invoking the presence of our other-than-human sisters and
brothers in God’s Creation.
Both the
passages in Job and Psalm 104 engage in a positive theology of nature wherein
animals are not just passive receptors of God’s grace, but actively doing God’s
work with their very existence. The
processes of their life in the ecosystems God established testify to an
enduring truth: God’s work never fails. What
does fail, however, is human willingness to recognize the intrinsic value of
the animals and plants who share our home on Earth. Too often animals are seen as nothing but our
servants, entertainment, subjects of scientific experimentation, or food
sources.
I once
toured a “factory farm” that included warehouses of hundreds of turkey poults
wandering motherless and shivering across sterile, hay-strewn concrete
floors.
Outside were acres of large pens
packed so tightly with young turkeys they could barely turn around, the scene
reminiscent of dismal German concentration camps.
When I asked the farmer whether it bothered
him to see the turkeys in such a state, I received a blank look. These turkeys were nothing more than a cash
crop for him, no different than the rows of genetically-modified corn stalks in
his fields. He was not an evil man by
any means, and in fact was a faithful member of a local church. But I had to wonder about the emotional
disconnect the enabled him to ignore, deny or otherwise not register the
suffering of these animals in his care.
And then I
had to wonder at my own emotional disconnect when I next went to the grocery
store and picked up the sterile, plastic-wrapped package of turkey meat hanging
from the thin metal prong in the refrigerated aisle. Which of the young turkeys huddled in the
warehouse would I now feed to my children?
All of a sudden, meat-buying became uncomfortable because of what I had
come to know about the turkeys.
“Consider,”
urges Jesus in Luke 12:22-31. Katanoeo, in Greek. It means “perceive, remark, observe,
understand, fix one’s eyes and attention on.”
In Job 39, God asks the man if he “knows” about the animals in the world
around him. Yada
in Hebrew. It means to “know, learn to
know, use one’s mind, to be acquainted with.”
The function of Wisdom in this week’s readings, then, is to help us to
perceive God’s Creation in a way that is not self-serving, but self-decentering. Preachers of these texts might consider
sharing their own story of a time when they came to a point of uncomfortable
awareness of the suffering their own purchasing decisions made when it comes to
animals. Examples abound: seeing a
Youtube video of chickens with their beaks cut off in tight cages; pictures of
deformed dogs from “puppy mills” gone awry in the business of supplying pets; the
conversation with the vegan who confronts us with their ethical reasons for
refusing to eat meat.
The role of the Church in the twenty-first
century, according to Thomas Berry, is to help shape a future that is based on
human-Earth relations. “The future of
the other two relations [human-divine and inter-human] depends upon this third
relation, our human capacity to recognize our place in the structure of the
universe and to fulfill our role within this setting."[1] Berry states that our “ultimate concern” must
be “the integrity of the universe upon which the human depends in such an
absolute manner."[2] Berry coined the term "Ecozoic Era"
to describe the period he would like to see emerge when humans "would be
present to the planet in a mutually enhancing manner. We need to establish ourselves in a single
integral community including all component members of planet Earth."[3]
This can only happen, says Berry, when humans
come to see their place and role in the universe as completely dependent on the
habitats, flora and fauna of Earth, all of which have intrinsic value not
dependent on human needs or wants. Accepting
this limited role is the first, and most difficult, step that humans must
take. The next step for healing the
damaged planet is based on an operating principle of creating continuity
between the human and the non-human in every aspect of human life, from
institutions and professions to programs and activities. If these two steps are taken, Berry sees hope
for humanity’s and the planet’s survival.
Of course, the world will see this kind of
animal-ethics-activism by people of faith as “foolishness,” as Paul’s First
Letter to the Corinthians reminds us. The meat-processing corporations that profit
obesely from our addiction to meat would much rather have our Blessing the
Animals service end with petting the pets and returning home for Sunday dinner
complete with hormone-injected roast beef.
Likewise, those in our congregations whose livings depend on our
subjugation and consumption of animals for their livelihood will not take
kindly to a heavy-handed “law” sermon that leaves the congregation with
feelings of guilt for their sins against animals with no recourse to the
Gospel.
So what would God’s grace look like for human
and animal in this sermon? For me, it
came from a vegetarian friend who once gave me an option between giving up meat
completely and throwing up my hands in frustrated despair at my own
meat-aholism. “Just try one day a week
without eating meat,” she suggested. A
meat Sabbath! A day of rest for my body
from having to process protein. A day to
eat lower on the food chain. A day when
one animal will not have to die in order for me to live.
Wisdom spoke through my friend that day, I
recalled, as I stood before the plastic-wrapped turkey on the metal prong. I pulled my cart away, and turned back to the
produce aisle.
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