Creature Kindness

April 2010

 

by Kim Winchell

Some kind of “hospitality gene” seems to be part of the makeup of most Lutheran women. a long, proud tradition exists of “church ladies” tending the kitchen at potlucks and funeral dinners, gathering items for Lutheran World relief, sewing quilts, knitting prayer shawls, and hosting Sunday coffee hour.
 
The qualities of such hospitality are plain to see: serving God and loving the neighbor; sharing freely with others with no expectation of something in return; offering food, shelter, comfort, and kindness to those in need, whether they are family, friends, or strangers. It is the ELCA’s tagline, “God’s Work, Our Hands,” manifested in love, kindness, mercy, and compassion, shared with others.

We are also invited, blessed, called, and even challenged by God, to extend that gracious, welcoming circle of hospitality to all of creation.
 
Our daughters grew up knowing that we kept a designated “spider jar” in one of our kitchen cupboards. When they felt some urgent distress over finding a spider in their personal space, they’d call out, “Mommy! Daddy! Get the spider jar!”

When they were older, they would even fetch the jar themselves. It became our family custom to be hospitable to spiders. After all, they weren’t in the house to get us—they were just trying to catch and eat the other bugs that got in. We assumed that they would rather be outdoors.

The spider jar (chosen for its depth, to keep a spider from running up and out onto our hand), was, and still is, frequently used to gently catch the spider and let it back outside into the bushes. It has become second nature for us.

It’s a simple kindness that can be extended to all insects (most of them harmless). It’s appreciating that they, too, are God’s creations, with a beauty and uniqueness all their own. We really don’t have to squish every bug we see.

A Sacred Trust

It is well within our Christian vocation and identity to enlarge our vision and our hearts to know, love, and relate to all creation as welcome kin. Scripture and the witness of saints of the church tell us so. St. Francis of of Assisi is a well-known model in that regard, but many others have grasped that truth.
 
And what is a heart of mercy? The kindling of the heart for all creation, for people, for birds, animals . . . and all creatures. In bringing them to mind, in beholding them, the eyes are filled with tears out of a great and powerful compassion that embraces the heart. And the heart softens, and it cannot bear to hear or see any kind of harm, or even the least sorrow, experienced by a creature. It is awakened in the heart without measure insofar as one becomes like God. (Isaac of Syria, c. 700 AD)

“. . . insofar as one becomes like God.” Such an identity is part of our biblically understood birthright. We read in Genesis 1:20—27 of God’s creation of all of the creatures, birds, fishes, etc. (and God’s blessing thereof). The text also provides the theological concept that humankind is made in the image of God.
 
Being made in the image of God shapes and calls forth how we are to relate to the rest of creation: We are to love it and care for it, even as God loves and cares for us.

God invited Adam to do the honors of naming all of the other creatures (Genesis 2:19—20). Through that gracious invitation, we are all shaped by God to be in relationship with our fellow creatures. In Genesis 1 and 2—which are wonderfully illuminated in Psalms 8 and 104—humankind’s dominion of creation is understood to be a sacred trust, a humbling responsibility, rooted in gratitude.

We and the rest of creation are meant to share together in God’s blessings of life, fruitfulness, and a “matrix of grace” (as Joseph Sittler called it in his essay A Theology for Earth, 1954). Offering some manner of hospitality to the created world that sustains us seems like the least we could do.

Through the ages, however, human sin and arrogance have so often broken our relationship to creation. We have abused the sacred trust given to us as God’s stewards. We have shirked the responsibility to lovingly tend creation. We have too often forgotten to be gracious and hospitable to our fellow creatures.

Right Relationship

As we learn in the New Testament (Colossians 1:15–20; 2 Corinthians 5:17–19), Christ, through his death on the cross, reconciled “all things” (in Greek, ta panta) whether in heaven or on earth, and bestowed on us the capability to be in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the rest of creation.

How might we begin to name and claim a hospitality that embraces all of God’s creation?
 
To name it, we could begin to share stories with one another of the ways in which we each offer hospitality to the natural world outside—or perhaps even within—our doors. Collecting and sharing these stories within our women’s groups or congregations could be a fun, heart-warming, and educational activity for Earth Day.
 
Claiming hospitality to creation can run from personal acts to far-reaching advocacy. You can live out such hospitality in many ways: feeding birds, helping rehabilitate injured wildlife; picking up that earthworm on the hot sidewalk and placing it back on some moist soil; neutering stray animals; recycling in your home or church; and advocating for cleaner energy and action on climate change.
 
This commitment grows out of an attitude that understands God’s love is for all of creation, and that we are invited into God’s dream of shalom, where peaceable, gracious, compassionate, and hospitable relationship is the truest way of living in God’s vast family of life on Earth.

Let us pray:
O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee, and that they love the sweetness of life. Amen! (A prayer of St. Basil the Great (c. 329-379)

Kim Winchell is a diaconal minister for Earthkeeping Education and Advocacy Ministries, ELCA North/West Lower Michigan Synod.