Season of Creation - ”Subdue the Earth?” (Sun, Sept 16, 2018)

 

Sermon title: "Subdue the Earth?" (Season of Creation sermon series) 

Sermon text: Genesis 1:1-31

 

Sermon excerpt: 

Perhaps another way to think of our role in subduing the earth as God’s partners is to remember the image of pruning in John 15.

“I am the true vine,” Jesus tells his disciples, “and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

My friend Chris continues to say, “As God subdues that in us which leads to death rather than life (sin), so too we subdue in nature that which leads to death, turning it around so that it yields life.”

So part of being created in God’s image and acting as God’s partners in managing creation is to allow ourselves to be pruned as well as to be a pruner, one who nurtures and encourages that which creates and sustains life, protecting what (and who) is defenseless and pruning away the branches that do not bear fruit.