Kingdom Building

August 26, 2019

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 2:4-13

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
   that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
   who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
   in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
   in a land that no one passes through,
   where no one lives?’
I brought you into a plentiful land
  to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land,
   and made my heritage an abomination.
The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
   Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
   the prophets prophesied by Baal,
   and went after things that do not profit. –Jeremiah 2:4-8

The Amazon rain forest is burning out of control and is otherwise shrinking from corporate farmers claiming the land to grow more crops. The Amazon rain forest produces 20 percent of the oxygen in our planet’s atmosphere*. We are defiling the land to our world’s detriment. We cannot sustain life without oxygen.

God gifted us with a plentiful land over which God gave us dominion and we are not doing our part to sustain it. Dominion means a supremacy in determining and directing the actions of others or in governing politically, socially, or personally**. When we chose to define dominion as license to do whatever meets our greed-driven desires, we have only ourselves to blame for the consequences of our actions.

Prayer: Creator God, forgive us for turning our backs on the grace of your gifts. Guide us to a clearer understanding of our responsibility for the care of the earth and give us the courage to give up our greed-driven desires as we work for a sustainable earth. Amen.

*https://www.sciencealert.com/the-amazon-is-burning-at-a-record-rate-and-parts-were-intentionally-set-alight
**http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Dominion

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.