September 1 is the day the Christian East celebrates its liturgical (and cosmological) New Year. According to Byzantine tradition, 2008 (C.E.) inaugurates the earth year 7517. This date, of course, is not mandatory for Christian belief, and indeed, can be easily dismissed through scientific evidence. We should appreciate how the Byzantine tradition dated the age of the earth, because this will indicate why Christians should follow the sciences and use its speculative powers as much as they can. When scholars determined the age of the earth, they used the scientific evidence of their day, which, of course, is easily dwarfed by the scientific evidence we have today. Christians are not expected to reject the facts produced by the sciences. Instead, Christians always have looked to learn from them, as long as their evidence is not being manipulated. We might question the implications of the facts, but the facts, when determined, are not to be disputed. When trying to determine the age of the earth, it is quite easy, of course, to show how superior modern scientific methods are to those employed by ancient Byzantines; if there were a contest between the two, modern science would win by default.
Nonetheless, this does not mean we should ignore the liturgical calendar and the values we can get from it. The most important feature of the day is not when the earth was created, but that it was created, that it had a beginning from God. And because it was created by God, it was good. And God gave to us the task of being its guardian, giving us dominion over all that was over the earth (cf. Gen. 1:28). The earth, and all that is within it, has been created out of God’s love, and our proper response is to show to it the kind of love God would have for it. Despite the fact that humanity, after its fall, has used its dominion over the earth in an act of tyranny, Christians, because they have become something new, have more expectations put upon them by God. Restored to purity in baptism, we are expected to look after the earth and tend to its needs. “With the Church as our spiritual home, our concern and care for others logically extends also to our care for all of God’s creation.”[1] Christians must never neglect this responsibility, because, as the parable of the talents shows, a talent squandered is capable of being taken away and given to those who act out God’s desires. “So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:28-29). If we dismiss our responsibility and task, God will look at what we have done to the earth, and take away our ability to control it; in such situations, chaos ensues. “From our spiritual home in the Church and our relationships with our Creator and one another, we are able to contribute to the global initiatives on the environment and offer a spiritual perspective that wisely and methodically gives greater meaning to life on our planet. As the Church is our home, let us also recognize our earthly home and our responsibility for it. “[2]
In this way, we find in the lives of the saints constant confirmation of the proper relationship which should exist between humanity and the rest of creation. Sin brings about chaos, sanctity brings about harmony. Saint after saint can be shown to interact with, and pacify, the beasts of the earth, humanizing them in the process – was it not so that St Francis of Assisi caused the wolf of Gubbio to become an honored friend of the village it once terrorized? Did not St Anthony of Padua talk to the fish and get them to praise God, showing that they too are loved by God to heretics who wanted to abandon creation and fly off as spirits into a heavenly void? Were not the animals, such as brother bear, the friends which kept St Seraphim of Sarov company in his hermitage? Through holiness, the proper relationship of the animal kingdom with humanity is shown: they are neither identical nor different from us; the saints could and did treat animals as their equals, because they also share a common destiny with us, God.
This, of course, means that humans are responsible for more than themselves. If our actions destroy the earth, we are not the only ones who suffer; all that lives on the face of the earth will experience hardships because of our sin. “At a time when we have polluted the air we breathe and the water we drink, we are called to restore within ourselves a sense of awe and delight, to respond to matter as a mystery of ever-increasing connectedness and sacramental dimensions.”[3] When we come to understand ourselves, and the evil which we do and how it affects the world we live on, then we know me must change our ways, do good, and work to heal the earth. Only those who deny sin and its power can deny the effects humanity have over the earth. While secularists worried about global warming understand how human action has brought the earth to this perilous state, it is only those who who understand the deadly power of sin who knows why we act as we do, and know that we must root out sin from our lives if we want to bring real change to the earth. When we sin, we seek out some lesser good for ourselves, something which we think will satisfy our desire, but instead, we find our desire is increased and sin becomes habitual. Desire for oneself over the common good is one of the great foundations of sin. Our consumeristic society tells us such desire is good, because it needs that desire to perpetuate itself. When left to its own, consumerism will always eat away at the earth; whatever is produced will never meet one’s desires, and so new things are needed, and more of the earth and its resources will be used to create them. The solution is Christ who, in his very self, gives us the water of life which can quench any thirst. When we drink of it, we are capable of overcoming the culture of death, a culture which is given support by the unreasonable desires of those in power. When we drink of Christ, and let him penetrate our very being, we will begin to follow and create a new culture, a culture of life, a culture which is not founded upon unreasonable and unending desire, but justice.
Footnotes
[1] Archbishop Demetrios, “2008 Encyclical of Archbishop Demetrios For the Beginning of the Ecclesiastical New Year.”
[2] Archbishop Demetrios, “2008 Encyclical of Archbishop Demetrios For the Beginning of the Ecclesiastical New Year.”
[3] H.H. Patriarch Bartholomew. Encountering the Mystery: Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 99.
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