Welcome to Keep the Ground. Keep the Ground is based on Genesis 2:15 where Adam is instructed to work the ground and keep it. It will look at our responsibilities to the earth and what can be done to preserve it.
It is now April, and with it have come the April showers that will bring the May flowers. We have gotten some heavy rain, with more forecasted for the next several days. With spending more time inside to avoid the rain, there is a good opportunity to reflect not only on the garden and how it will grow this year, but to look at the world as a whole and see how we got to where we are.
Scripture: What is never satisfied
“The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.” - Proverbs 30:15-16
Without much reflection it can be seen that the words of Solomon still ring true today, and at the risk of adding to scripture, I would almost say there is a fifth that never says “Enough”. This would be the exploiter.
What do I mean by the exploiter? I mean the person who is willing to make a profit through whatever means possible so long as in the end a profit is made and money lines their pocket. While there are several different ways this might look, it comes down to two major types of exploitation. Human and Resource.
Human exploitation is one that we are often more aware of. We hear stories of bad bosses / owners who make tremendous amounts of money in a year, and then when things happen in the company, or the economy at large, the people at the bottom are let go without remorse. We also hear about other types of exploitation where people are forced to work in difficult and dangerous positions with no hope of ever moving up in the world and paid at rock bottom wages because that is all their life is deemed worthy of. Then you have the people who are exploited sexually. This might be through something as sinister as sex trafficking, or it might be through something that seems like it has infiltrated every aspect of our society: pornography.
In both of these cases, people are seen only to have value if their body can perform in a certain way. There is no respect for the person other than to see them as a means of making a profit. In the current world with the availability of different services, many choose to exploit themselves knowing that their bodies can demand a high price.
It’s no secret that the world we live in is struggling. People are fighting against people, there is division even where typically there would be unity, and the planet is filled with pollution of various kinds that disrupt the natural cycles and balances that God put into place.
The other major category of exploitation is the exploitation of resources. This is what we are going to focus on today, and in a future letter, we will discuss more how this exploitation of resources in fact exploits the people around as well.
Practice:
If you think about environmental exploitation, what first comes to mind?
Maybe you think about factories polluting the air and the water by dumping large amounts of toxic chemicals.
Maybe you think about the large swaths of land that are destroyed due to strip mining either for coal or for precious metals.
Maybe you think about rivers and oceans so filled with garbage that wildlife dies.
Maybe you think about animals that are seen as a resource and hunted to dangerously low numbers.
Maybe you think about the large mono-crop farms that are heavily sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides making the farm not a place of life, but a place where death is seen as a matter of fact.
Maybe you think about deforestation of the rainforests, or the growing desertification that is happening around the planet.
Regardless of which one you are thinking about, it is safe to say that you are aware of at least one form of environmental exploitation whether you want to call it that or not.
Deep down inside of us, we know that this isn’t right, but it is usually just chalked up to capitalism with people saying, a resource has been provided. I must find a way that I can use it and make a profit from it. We also think that this is too big of a problem for any one of us to handle, so we end up doing nothing hoping that someone else will come along who will be able to solve all of our problems and make things right in the world.
In short, we are looking for a savior, or a Messiah to come and rescue us from the mess that we find ourselves in. On this Good Friday, we are reminded of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to Earth as a baby, lived a perfect, sinless life before being brutally tortured and executed on a Roman cross so that he might pay the price of our sins. Today, on Good Friday, we remember this death that he died and we are reminded of the weight of our sins that the very Son of God had to die to provide us a way so that we could be made right with God.
On Good Friday, we mourn our sinful natures, but we have hope for we know the rest of the story. On Easter morning, Jesus rose from the dead and declared once and for all that he had power over sins and over the grave. He offers the gift of eternal life with Him to all who are willing to believe in his name.
Conclusion
While there is much more to write regarding the exploitation that we see around the world, I’m leaving things off here to remind us that in everything, our focus should be on Jesus, loving Him, and then loving others the way that he loves us. This letter will be continued next week where we will dive more into the topics raised today.
Thank you for joining Keep the Ground.
May your labor be fruitful, and your land well-kept.
— Christopher