The Earth

Psalm 24:1-2

The Psalmist of old wrote, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.”

The Environment and Religious Faith

What does the environment have to do with religious faith? The Psalmist would reply, “what is there that does not have to do with religious faith?” Religious faith is inclusive of all things, all things living and non living, “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful: The Lord God made them all.”
For this world is not ours. “This is our Father’s world”. Before the universe was so much as a twinkling in God’s eye, it was God’s. God brought this world into being. God is the source of all life. The world and all living beings are related to God as creation, creature, and Creator. The earth is the Lord’s.
The earth is the Lord’s, and the Fullness Thereof. Nothing we do, nothing we feel, nothing we believe, falls outside of God’s interest, God’s compassionate care, and God’s will for his creatures and creation. Including the way the Creator’s creatures use or misuse the creation.
The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. And, the psalmist would add, Humanity has a Unique Status in the Order of Creation. Men and women stand Between God and her world.
Again, the Psalmist’s writes: “When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which You have made; what is Woman that You are mindful of her, Man that You care for him? Yet, You have made humanity little less than God… You have given humankind dominion over the works of your hands…”

–Reverend R. Charles Grant, D.Min. [The Earth is the Lord’s, a sermon delivered at Bon Air Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA April 29, 2007 ( Scripture references: Psalm 8, Psalm 24:12, Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31, Romans 8:19-24)].