A Franciscan Gospel for a Wounded Earth
Primary Scripture: Psalm 24:1
Supporting Scriptures: Genesis 2:4–15; Leviticus 25:1–7, 23; Job 38:1–18; Romans 8:18–23; Colossians 1:15–20
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” — Psalm 24:1
Introduction: What If the Earth Does Not Belong to Us?
We have been taught a dangerous sentence:
This is mine.
My land.
My water.
My minerals.
My forest.
My oil.
My property.
My right to do whatever I want with it.
But Psalm 24 opens with an inconvenient announcement:
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”
Apparently creation never signed the deed over to us.
And perhaps that ancient declaration contains one of the most radical ecological ideas Christianity has forgotten:
We are residents, not owners.
We arrived late.
The oceans were here before us.
The forests were here before us.
The mountains were here before us.
The microorganisms were definitely here before us, and they will probably outlast our theological arguments.
So today I want to ask:
What happens to Christianity when creation stops being scenery behind the human drama and becomes part of the sacred story itself?
What if ecological destruction is not merely a scientific problem?
What if it is a spiritual crisis?
And what if God is heard today not as a supernatural ruler somewhere above the clouds, but as the insistence rising from rivers, forests, workers, farmers, displaced communities and generations not yet born:
Let the Earth live.
I. Genesis Does Not Give Us Permission to Destroy
Genesis 1 has sometimes been used to justify human domination because humanity is told to “have dominion.”
But Scripture interprets Scripture.
Genesis 2 places the human in the garden:
“to till it and keep it.”
The Hebrew verbs carry ideas of serving and guarding.
The human being is not pictured as a landlord arriving to maximize quarterly returns.
Humanity is placed within a living community with responsibility.
And the Hebrew word adam is related to adamah—soil or ground.
The earth-creature comes from Earth.
We are soil that learned to speak.
That should produce humility.
II. Leviticus Says Even the Land Gets Sabbath
Leviticus 25 contains an astonishing command.
Every seventh year:
“the land shall observe a sabbath.”
Think about that.
Not only human beings need rest.
Land needs rest.
Then Leviticus goes further:
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine.”
There is a direct challenge to absolute ownership.
Biblical theology recognizes limits.
You may use land.
You may cultivate land.
You may receive from land.
But land is never merely merchandise.
Creation exceeds our possession of it.
III. Job Discovers a Universe That Does Not Revolve Around Humanity
Near the end of Job, God takes Job on what amounts to a cosmic field trip.
Where were you when Earth was formed?
Have you commanded the morning?
Do you understand the sea?
Have you visited the snow?
Do you know where mountain goats give birth?
God describes wild animals that have absolutely no economic usefulness to Job.
That is important.
Creation does not exist merely because humans find it useful.
The wild has value beyond us.
Job discovers that reality is enormous.
Humanity is part of it.
Not the center of it.
IV. Francis Called Creation Family
Few Christians understood this as deeply as Francis of Assisi.
Francis did not speak merely of “natural resources.”
He spoke relationally.
Brother Sun.
Sister Moon.
Sister Water.
Brother Fire.
Even Sister Mother Earth.
This is not childish sentimentality.
It is theological revolution.
Because you treat family differently from property.
You do not ask:
“How much profit can I extract from Sister Water before she collapses?”
Francis changes the grammar.
Not ownership.
Kinship.
And kinship creates obligation.
V. Clare and the Spirituality of Enough
Clare of Assisi gives us another ecological gift.
Simplicity.
Our economic culture is built around a dangerous assumption:
More is always better.
More consumption.
More extraction.
More production.
More growth.
But Earth has limits.
An infinite-growth economy on a finite planet eventually encounters mathematics.
Clare’s voluntary simplicity asks another question:
What is enough?
Enough food.
Enough shelter.
Enough clothing.
Enough security.
Enough beauty.
Enough community.
The spirituality of enough does not romanticize involuntary poverty.
Nobody should be forced into deprivation.
Quite the opposite.
If some people consume vastly beyond what they need while others lack necessities, simplicity becomes a form of solidarity.
VI. Tillich: The Sacred Is the Depth of Reality
Paul Tillich helps us move beyond imagining God as one supernatural object among other objects.
God is not another thing inside the universe.
God concerns the depth and ground of being.
That means ecological spirituality does not require imagining a divine person occasionally reaching down from heaven to repair ecosystems.
The sacred can be encountered in the depth of relationship itself.
Soil.
Water.
Creature.
Human.
Atmosphere.
Ocean.
Forest.
Everything exists through relationship.
Nothing lives alone.
VII. Caputo: Listen for the Insistence of the Earth
John D. Caputo gives us another language.
God does not primarily exist as an object.
God insists.
Justice insists.
Hospitality insists.
Mercy insists.
The impossible insists.
Then perhaps Earth itself becomes one location where that insistence becomes audible.
The river says:
Do not poison me.
The forest says:
Do not reduce me entirely to lumber.
The atmosphere says:
There are consequences.
The endangered creature says:
My existence matters too.
Future generations say:
Leave us something.
God does not magically stop the bulldozer.
The call is weaker than the bulldozer.
But the call persists:
Stop.
And somebody must answer.
VIII. Derrida: Justice Includes Those Who Have Not Arrived Yet
Jacques Derrida’s language of justice to come helps ecological ethics.
Justice cannot concern only people currently sitting at the table.
Future people cannot vote today.
They cannot lobby Congress.
They cannot sue us for what we leave behind.
They have no purchasing power.
And yet our choices construct their world.
Ecological justice therefore requires hospitality toward people who do not yet exist.
We are preparing their guest room.
The question is:
What kind of room are we leaving them?
IX. Process Theology: God and Creation Become Together
Process theology radically emphasizes relationship.
Reality is not a collection of isolated substances.
Everything becomes through relationship.
God does not stand outside creation as an engineer operating machinery.
God participates relationally in an unfinished cosmos, luring creation toward richer possibilities of beauty, complexity, justice and life.
That means ecological destruction affects the whole web.
And healing contributes something new to the whole.
Planting a tree is small.
Protecting a wetland is small.
Restoring a stream is small.
But process theology takes small events seriously.
The future is constructed from them.
X. Romans Says Creation Is Groaning
Paul writes:
“The whole creation has been groaning in labor pains.”
We should be careful historically.
Paul was not predicting twenty-first-century climate science.
But his image is remarkably powerful for ecological theology.
Creation groans.
And Paul does not imagine salvation as souls escaping creation.
He imagines creation itself participating in liberation.
Christian salvation is cosmic.
The Earth matters.
Bodies matter.
Creatures matter.
Matter matters.
XI. Christ Is Bigger Than Christianity
Colossians offers an enormous cosmic vision of Christ:
“in him all things hold together.”
Not merely Christians.
Not merely humans.
All things.
Trees.
Whales.
Fungi.
Galaxies.
Bacteria.
Oceans.
Bodies.
Stars.
Whatever metaphysical interpretation we give this ancient hymn, it expands Christ beyond religious tribalism.
Christ becomes a symbol of cosmic reconciliation.
That opens Christianity toward profound religious pluralism.
Indigenous traditions have long understood land as relationship rather than commodity.
Buddhist teachings emphasize interdependence.
Hindu traditions contain deep reverence for sacred manifestations within nature.
Pagan traditions encounter divinity through Earth and seasonal cycles.
Secular ecology teaches us scientifically what mystics have often intuited spiritually:
Everything is connected.
We need not pretend these traditions are identical.
We can learn.
XII. Christian Atheism and Sacred Earth
An atheist does not need to believe a supernatural creator made a forest in order to defend it.
Perhaps the forest is sacred precisely because it does not require supernatural explanation to become worthy of wonder.
Billions of years of cosmic history are inside your body.
Carbon forged in ancient stars.
Water cycling through Earth.
Microorganisms sustaining life.
You are Earth temporarily walking around with a name.
If that does not provoke reverence, another metaphysical argument probably will not help.
A Christian atheist can still kneel before the mystery of existence.
Not necessarily before a being above it.
Before the astonishing depth within it.
XIII. From the News: The Earth Sends Us the Bill
This week, ecological theology is not abstract.
The World Food Programme has warned that the strengthening El Niño pattern could worsen acute hunger across dozens of countries, with climate-driven shocks hitting people who are already most vulnerable.
Meanwhile, communities facing drought, unreliable water infrastructure, pollution, and development pressures continue raising the same fundamental question:
Who receives the resources necessary for life, and who gets left carrying the consequences?
Notice who usually suffers first.
Not the billionaire with several homes.
The poor.
Workers.
Farmers.
People without reliable housing.
Communities already pushed toward the margins.
That is why ecological justice and economic justice cannot be separated.
Climate change has a class dimension.
Pollution has a class dimension.
Access to clean water has a class dimension.
Where toxic industries are located has a class dimension.
Who can afford to relocate after disaster has a class dimension.
The ecological crisis is also a justice crisis.
XIV. A Democratic-Socialist Franciscan Response
A democratic-socialist ecological ethic begins with a simple conviction:
Basic necessities should not become instruments of domination.
Clean water should not depend primarily upon profitability.
Safe housing should not be reserved for the wealthy.
Energy systems should serve communities rather than merely shareholders.
Workers should not have to choose between earning a paycheck and breathing safe air.
And communities most affected by pollution and climate disruption should have meaningful democratic power over decisions affecting their land and bodies.
Markets can be useful tools.
But markets make terrible gods.
If preserving a forest is unprofitable while destroying it is profitable, the market sends one signal.
Ecology sends another.
Sometimes democracy must tell capital:
No.
XV. Labor Is Part of Ecological Justice
Workers organizing for better compensation, safer workplaces, and greater democratic participation in their working lives may seem, at first glance, unrelated to ecological theology.
They are deeply related.
Both ask:
Who controls the conditions of life?
Democratic socialism says workers deserve a meaningful voice in workplaces.
Ecological democracy says communities deserve a meaningful voice over environments.
Franciscan spirituality says creation is relationship rather than domination.
These are variations of one question:
Will power flow only from the top, or will those affected participate in deciding their future?
XVI. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Revolution of Values
Martin Luther King Jr. increasingly connected racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.
That widening vision remains essential.
We cannot build ecological justice while preserving enormous economic inequality.
A transition toward renewable energy must not simply create a greener capitalism where the same communities remain poor.
Workers in fossil-fuel industries deserve secure transitions.
Communities deserve investment.
Public transportation deserves investment.
Clean energy infrastructure deserves investment.
Housing deserves investment.
The transition must be just.
Otherwise environmentalism becomes something wealthy people purchase while working people pay the bill.
XVII. Susun Weed and Relationship With Plants
The Wise Woman herbal tradition associated with Susun Weed also offers a useful intuition when handled critically and without turning folk wisdom into medical dogma:
Plants are not merely products on shelves.
We can develop relationship with them.
Learn them.
Observe them.
Cultivate them.
Respect them.
Herbalism at its healthiest can remind us that healing emerges within ecological relationship.
The medicine cabinet begins, historically, in the garden.
But reverence also means responsibility.
Plants are powerful biological organisms, not magical consumer products.
Relationship requires knowledge, respect, sustainability, and appropriate medical caution.
XVIII. Environmentalism Without People Is Incomplete
We must also avoid romantic environmentalism.
People need housing.
People need electricity.
People need transportation.
People need medicine.
People need jobs.
The answer cannot simply be:
Nobody touch nature.
Humans are nature.
The question is not whether we affect ecosystems.
We inevitably do.
The question is:
What kinds of relationships are we creating?
Extractive?
Regenerative?
Democratic?
Exploitative?
Sustainable?
Justice-centered?
XIX. The Eucharist Is Ecological
Consider the Christian table.
Bread.
Wine.
Neither falls from heaven.
Soil.
Rain.
Sunlight.
Yeast.
Microorganisms.
Farmworkers.
Transportation workers.
Bakers.
Communities.
The Eucharist is already ecological and economic.
Every loaf contains a world of relationships.
When we say:
This is sacred
over bread,
we are inadvertently declaring soil sacred.
Rain sacred.
Labor sacred.
Bodies sacred.
Earth sacred.
Maybe we should start behaving accordingly.
XX. We Are One
Francis called creation family.
Ecology calls it interdependence.
Process thought calls it relation.
Buddhism speaks of dependent arising.
Science describes ecosystems and evolutionary kinship.
Different languages.
A shared insight:
We are one.
Not identical.
Interdependent.
The oxygen entering your lungs has been exchanged through living systems.
The water inside your body has traveled through Earth’s cycles.
The food becoming your body came from soil, sunlight, water, labor, and other life.
The boundary between “me” and “Earth” is much thinner than we imagine.
Conclusion: The Earth Is Not Asking Us to Believe in It
The Earth does not need our theology.
The river does not care whether we call ourselves theists.
The forest does not require baptism.
The atmosphere does not check denominational membership.
Reality simply responds to what we do.
Pollute water—
there are consequences.
Destroy soil—
there are consequences.
Warm atmosphere—
there are consequences.
Protect ecosystems—
there are consequences.
Restore wetlands—
there are consequences.
Build sustainable communities—
there are consequences.
Plant trees—
there are consequences.
The question is not merely:
What do you believe about creation?
The question is:
What kind of ancestor are you becoming?
Will future generations inherit our greed?
Or our courage?
Will they curse us?
Or thank us?
The Earth is the Lord’s.
Which means it isn’t mine.
And it isn’t yours.
We are temporary guests.
So perhaps God insists today through a very ancient command:
Keep the garden.
Protect the water.
Honor workers.
Defend communities.
Consume less where you can.
Share more.
Plant something.
Repair something.
Vote for something larger than your private comfort.
Organize.
Resist systems that turn everything into merchandise.
Listen to Indigenous communities.
Listen to scientists.
Listen to farmers.
Listen to workers.
Listen to the poor.
Listen to the river.
Something is insisting.
Francis heard it and called the world family.
Clare heard it and chose enough.
The prophets heard it and called for justice.
Paul heard creation groaning.
Caputo gives us language for hearing the call without imagining divine coercion.
God does not magically repair the climate.
God insists:
Love this world.
The promise is weak.
The bulldozer is loud.
The corporation has lawyers.
The lobbyist has money.
But the call keeps coming.
Let there be life.
And now the question passes to us.
Will we answer?
For Brother Sun.
For Sister Water.
For Sister Mother Earth.
For the worker.
For the poor.
For the child not yet born.
For creatures whose names we may never know.
For ourselves.
For a fuller life for everyone.
The Earth is not property.
The Earth is relationship.
The Earth is home.
And perhaps when we finally learn to love it as home—
God happens there too.
Amen.
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