Dominion or Stewardship

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

This weekend I took my son and this time my bride also came with us to partake in the event of watching Avatar.While some have said the message is "liberal" I couldn't disagree more. It was a good story with great brand new cutting edge graphics. Some conservatives have said it diminishes or even casts aspersions on our military and our efforts in the Middle East. Ridiculous!

Our mlitary is amazing and our soldiers are throwing their own bodies on the line to protect us. God bless them. Amen! The two events couldn't be more apart.

We are not "invaders" rather we have been engaged in self protection. On the issue of Iraq, there is plenty of room for debate. But not for me, and that conflict is for all intent and purpose coming to a close.

But what cannot be in dispute is our (mankind) treatment of this earth and some of its people. Ideology is an opinion if the instances have very little basis in truth. And this issue is replete with actual occurences and indeed is not far off our own history.

From the Aramaic translation we get a more accurate picture of our life in conjunction with the earth and all its life and life being;

Genesis 1:24-26

And God said, "Let the earth produce living souls in harmony with its nature, herds and four-legged animals and creatures of the earth, according to their kind," and it was so. And so God created the creatures of the earth according to their kind, and the herd animals according to their kind, and all the four-legged animals according to their kind, and God saw that they were beautiful. And God said, "We shall make the human being in the image of our likeness, and they shall have authority over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the herds and all the creatures of the earth and all the four-legged animals that walk on the earth."

Yes, God gave us authority over the entire earth and it creatures but did that mean our sovereign right meant we could do irreparable harm to it? Remember the shrewd manager in Luke 16.

Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' "The manager said to himself ‘what shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg—I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' ”‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' "Then he asked the second, 'and how much do you owe?' ”‘A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied.”He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Instead of getting all the money owed to his master from debtors. He lowered their bill so they could afford to pay the manager and in kind their debt to the master. The master commended the manager’s thinking. He not only got most of the debt paid but he made friends among the debtors. But unfortunately many do not do so with the clear authority we’ve been given by God over the earth. Instead many are driven to squeeze every last drop the earth and its inhabitants have to give to fill their own coffers. This is unwise.

This kind store up wealth here only, and in doing so they lose their treasure in heaven. How we treat this earth and its creatures of all kinds matter to God. Do not forget that in the original Aramaic text all living things have a soul! There needn’t be a question of this any longer. But the Native Americans and the Bison of that era were all decimated to make room for the nation we now call home. This is historical fact, not an opinion.

If anything, what I come away with from watching Avatar beyond just having a great movie experience is we should take care of our earth not in a liberal fashion but to balance all things. It’s our right to eat, build, and use the resources of this earth but to do so with the knowledge God wishes us to do so in harmony with its nature, Genesis 1:24. Sometimes taking less gains us so much more; this is not liberal, but good sense. It is authority used with stewardship and is no doubt pleasing to God, who is Master of all we have authority over.