A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
8th September 2024
There is a rule for preachers with children
that you shouldn’t begin every sermon
with an illustration about what your child did this week.
Well, Bloomsbury, you’ve been spared that over the years…
But Liz and I do have a couple of God-children,
as well as some nephews,
and today I’m going to tell a story from our God-daughter’s childhood.
I hope she’ll forgive me,
but given that she’s currently doing a year of volunteering in Colombia,
I think it’s unlikely she’ll actually ever find out!
But anyway, here goes with the story.
Over the years,
our wonderful God-daughter has demonstrated the ability
to be something of a theologian,
not to mention a fairly sophisticated ethicist.
At a very young stage she decided to join her father in his vegetarianism,
eschewing the occasional chicken-burger and bacon sandwich
which keep her mother off that particular wagon.
But this love for animals and respect for all living creatures
took something of a turn for the worryingly extreme
not long after we began our stint as her God-parents.
What happened was that she contracted conjunctivitis
- never a pleasant illness at the best of times,
and a trip to the doctor resulted in a prescription for antibiotics and some eye-drops.
Well, the antibiotic tablets were duly if reluctantly consumed,
but her parents faced enormous difficulty getting the eye-drops in.
It became clear that this was more than the normal dislike
for having things put in one's eye, that we all share,
and eventually her mum exclaimed in exasperation:
"It's almost as if you don't want the eye drops to go in!!!"
Well, she went silent at this point...
And, it turned out, this was exactly the problem.
She didn't want the eye-drops in her eye.
When asked why not, she replied that it wasn't fair...
Fair on who?
Fair on the bacteria causing the conjunctivitis, that's who!
The bacteria, she said, have as much right to life as any other living creature,
and it’s not right of us to take action which would kill them.
So, there followed an explanation about the role of the human immune system,
and the fact that the bacteria were going to get it in the long run anyway.
But, she said – that’s fine, no problem, that’s nature.
And this is where it started to get interesting…
She would happily watch David Attenborough’s nature documentaries,
with lions killing and devouring Bambi-like gazelles,
and that’s fine, because it’s nature.
But the idea of a human taking a wilful action to kill an animal – any animal –
from cows and chickens to, it seems, bacteria,
posed, for her, a fundamental ethical problem.
Death isn’t the problem. Killing isn’t the problem.
This is no child-like attachment to the cute and the cuddly.
Rather, I think our God-daughter
was trying to get to grips with something important,
something which we might call
the fundamental nature of human fallenness.
Why was it that, in her childish ethical world,
it was OK for a lion to kill and devour a gazelle,
but not for a human to kill and cook a chicken?
Why was it OK for the human immune system to destroy pain-causing bacteria,
but not for a human to put antibiotic cream in her eye to hasten the process?
Well, in response to her reluctance, her mother told her, with great clarity,
that what she needed to do was to ask Simon and Liz!
Talk about a pastor never being off duty!
It seems that the role of God-parent
construed as ethical and theological consultant
is far from straightforward!
Well, what answer would you have given, I wonder?
How would you have explained to a small child
that while Eden-inspired vegetarianism (1:28-29) might be an acceptable choice,
refusing antibiotics simply isn’t an option?
I think that what we’re coming down to here,
is something profound about the fallenness of creation.
Let’s think for a moment about David Attenborough…
I’m sure you know his style of wildlife documentary.
The viewer is taken on an emotional journey upwards through the food chain,
from the small and cuddly to the large and predatory.
We begin with the fluffy bunny, innocently nibbling the grass in the field.
But then along comes the fox,
silently and swiftly stalking up behind our little furry friend.
Suddenly Flopsy realises she’s in danger, and tries to make bolt for the burrow,
but evil fox is far too fast, and the bobbing tail seems more like a target than ever
as the fox gets his jaws firmly round the bunny’s neck.
But then our focus shifts, as we follow Mr Fox stalking off with the prey in his mouth,
and we realise that he is taking it back to feed the young cubs in his den.
The camera magically tracks him and we see his little cubs,
who would certainly die without their meal,
and we start to feel that maybe the rabbit didn’t die in vain.
So, the fox-cubs grow in strength,
and in time they venture outside of the den to frolic in the woods…
but then, on the horizon, we spot Wily Coyote, waiting to pounce,
and so the cycle of death continues.
And what is interesting to me in this presentation of nature
is that we are all the time being invited
to pass moral and emotive judgements on the natural world.
The rabbit is cute but the fox is evil,
the fox-cubs are innocent but the coyote is wicked.
We find ourselves naming evil and good in the created order.
And here’s the question…
Just as Schrödinger’s cat is only known as alive or dead when the box is opened,
might it not also be the case that the natural world
only takes on characteristics of evil or good
when we observe and name it as such?
A fox killing a bunny isn’t an act of violence until we name it as such.
Watership Down only works because we have the capacity
to endue the created world with the characteristics of good and evil
that ultimately exist only within ourselves.
A natural disaster is only a tragedy when humans name it as one
– without our presence on the earth,
events such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes
are simply natural phenomena which result in the death of some animals.
They only acquire moral significance because we invest them with such.
It is our capacity to name and comprehend good and evil within ourselves
that results in our understanding and naming
of the natural world as good and evil also.
Without our intervention, nature is just nature.
Good and evil in nature are human constructs.
And so, the fallenness of humanity results in the fallenness of creation.
We who consume the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil
have acquired the capacity to become like God,
and so we both create and destroy the goodness of creation
through our very understanding of it.
Just as in the Genesis creation story
God gave humanity the ability to name every living creature on the earth,
so also, after eating the fruit of the tree,
humanity acquired the ability to name creation as good and evil.
And so we see creation inexorably falling along with its keeper.
The innocence of God’s creation is named as evil,
and that which was created good is re-interpreted as tragedy.
The goodness of creation is undone,
as evil enters the world through the human thirst for knowledge.
It was Francis Bacon who asserted that ‘Knowledge is Power’,
and in saying this he struck the heart of the Genesis fall narrative.
Of course, what Bacon said so succinctly,
the Wisdom Literature of the Jews had already hinted at:
Proverbs (24:5) warns that, “wise warriors are mightier than strong ones,
and those who have knowledge [are mightier] than those who have strength”
This human search for knowledge gives us so much power.
Power for good, but also power for evil.
Power to kill, but also power to give life.
No longer are illness and death simply a part of the cycle of life,
a part of the goodness of creation
– they are instead understood as enemies to be fought.
The death of a friend of mine to meningitis at the age of 21
can only be understood by me as a tragedy – as something wrong in the world.
And of course, had his illness been diagnosed sooner,
and had antibiotics been administered earlier,
his survival would have been a cause for rejoicing
– an unambiguously good thing.
And yet when an animal dies unwatched in the forest to an unknown virus,
this is simply nature taking its course – it is neither wrong nor a tragedy.
The difference between the two lies in our capacity
to understand and name good and evil.
As we name it, so it becomes.
This is what distinguishes us from the rest of the animals in
– we are the only created being with the capacity to eat the fruit of the tree.
This is what makes us human.
And having taken the knowledge,
having acquired the power,
we also, of course, assume the responsibility.
Knowledge, you see, brings its own consequences.
It was only after eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
that man and woman gained the capacity to comprehend shame.
Up until that point, they walked naked in the garden – innocence personified.
They weren’t shamed in their nakedness
– because without the knowledge of good and evil,
their nakedness wasn’t shameful.
After all, when did you last see an animal try to cover itself in shame?
Just as the goodness of creation was named as evil by humanity
– so also the state of human innocence is ended
with the consumption of the fruit of the tree.
Knowledge begets not just power but guilt.
And as we take God’s good creation and name it evil,
there is much to be shameful of.
We have placed ourselves at war with God’s good creation
and in the fighting of this battle,
we damage the created order irreparably
Instead of living in harmony with nature
– part of the God-given cycle of life and death –
we rather find ourselves toiling to survive
fighting disease, afraid of death
determined to overcome creation at all costs
determined to exercise dominion in our own interests.
The state of humanity in our present is experienced,
as a time of innocence lost.
This is what the Genesis narrative is seeking to explore.
We may occasionally catch glimpses of innocence within ourselves,
but our overriding experience is of shame, and loss,
and of far, far too much knowledge to ever go back.
The flaming sword behind us makes sure of that.
And so we find ways to cope.
We make clothes to cover our shame,
we construct ways of containing our knowledge.
Household codes, the Ten Commandments, the Levitical law,
habeas corpus[1]
All attempts to put clothes on ethical nakedness.
And this unlocked human thirst for knowledge is so inexorable,
and the power and the guilt that it unlocks are so pervasive,
that we have to find ways to contain our lust for knowledge.
We have to find ways of not always seeking an answer to the question of
“What will happen if I push this boundary?”
We have to find or impose limits on human inquisitiveness.
We have to find ways of recognising that with the knowledge comes power,
and with power comes responsibility.
Jesus recognised this power and responsibility
when he twice said to Peter and the disciples,
“whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19; 18:18).
And he faced his own temptation to misuse great power for selfish purposes
when he confronted Satan in the wilderness.
Sometimes it really does seem that we have become like gods
with the power to name good and evil.
And the solution suggested by Jesus to this tendency to power
lies in giving back to God
the authority that is truly his alone.
It lies in taking a step back from idolatry,
and giving God his due.
As Jesus said to Satan in the wilderness:
'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'
And as he said to the scribes and the Pharisees:
Love your neighbour as yourself,
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength.
Worship, you see, isn’t about making God feel good about himself
– it is about undoing the fall,
it is about recreating a new humanity
where once again God is in his rightful place.
It is about restoring order to creation.
There is no going back to
– as Genesis puts it, the flaming sword behind us bars the way.
But there is a journey forwards into new creation,
and it is the role of the church to lead humanity in that journey.
We are those entrusted with the task of binding and loosing in a Godly way.
We are those entrusted with pointing to love of neighbour and love of God
as the clothing for human ethical nakedness.
We are those with the message of God’s intervention in the person of Jesus,
who died to redeem death, and rose to restore creation.
We are those who live the assurance
of a renewed heaven and a restored earth.
We are those who, with John of Patmos,
hear the voice from the throne in heaven saying:
Rev 21:3-4
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;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
So, where does all this get us with the problem
posed to us all those years ago
by our young God-daughter?
What should we say to our friends by way of advice
as their child refused antibiotics on principle?
Sadly, in due time, each of us must grow from the childish innocence,
which so closely echoes the innocence of
into a more adult, fallen, responsible, expression of humanity.
And once we get there, there can be no going back;
the innocence of childhood is remembered as a golden age
with a flaming sword between there and now
One of the great disappointments of growing up, it seems to me,
is the realisation that
the realisation that innocence doesn’t last.
One of the tragedies of maturing
is the recognition that all is not right with the world
and that we ourselves have played our part in that tragedy
The growth into guilt and shame, into toil and responsibility
is part of the human condition
We each of us eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
we each of us find ourselves naming God’s creation as evil
we each of us find ourselves at war with nature
we are each of us complicit in creation’s fall
It comes to us all, in the end.
Part of me wondered whether, given time,
she’d be popping antibiotics
without so much as a second thought
After all, it’s inevitable that all of us mature in time,
departing from a child-like understanding of the nature of the fall
and of the relationship between humanity and the created order.
And so, with some sadness,
we simply ended up saying to our friends about our God-daughter,
‘Don’t worry – it’s just a phase - she’ll grow out of it’
[1] The literal meaning of habeas corpus is "You shall have the body"—that is, the judge must have the person charged with a crime brought into the courtroom to hear what he's been charged with.
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