Love Your Mother [?] (!)

from the May 2009 “Herald”

Watching TV in the waiting room of the auto shop on April 22, it was easy to get the impression that I was the only American not celebrating Earth Day along with a reported one billion people around the planet.

I am certainly not opposed to responsible stewardship of God’s Creation, of which we are caretakers and not owners, even as Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to tend it. (The Garden apparently needed tending even before the fall into sin.) But we also must take care not to slide to the extreme of excessive reverence of the Creation in place of the Creator, as may be indicated by the bumper sticker urging you to “Love Your Mother” beside a picture of the terrestrial globe.

It is worth noting that the phrase “Mother Earth” does appear in Christian literature. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226) wrote Canticle of the Sun (also known as “Praise of the Creatures”), in which the Lord is praised through many aspects of His Creation (sun, moon, fire, water), each personified as either “brother” or “sister” according to its grammatical gender in Italian. About halfway through, it reads: “Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.” Still, “she” is our “sister,” part of Creation as we are.

The inclination to worship the earth as the source of life reaches back far into human history. The ancient Israelites were warned against practicing the fertility religions of their neighbors, which included ritualistic prostitution in the hope that the procreative act would encourage the ground to be fertile and productive. Modern “neo-pagan” movements often refer to the earth goddess as Gaia, an ancient Greek name.

Yet the true Source of life has been around longer. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” There would be no “Mother Earth” to feed us and rule us, producing various fruits with colored flowers and herbs, if it were not for the Lord, the Creator of it all. He is the one who deserves our worship and praise.

Each of us has had a human mother, as we especially remember each year on the second Sunday of May. Through her, the Lord gave us life and nourished us. Many of them also modeled the Christian faith to us. Indeed, you should “love your mother,” not only because the commandment dictates that we honor our parents, but because you are grateful for what she has done for you.

Not unlike our human parents, the earth is also used by God as a means through which He provides for our needs. We should respect the world in which we live, be grateful for it, and be careful not to trash it. We can even “love” the earth — as long as our highest love and devotion (all our heart, soul, and strength [Deut. 6:5]) is to the Lord, who made it all. To Him be all glory, honor, and praise!