Proverbs 8:22-30 John 13:20-35
The Proverbs reading lends itself to—begs for—an environmental reading. Creation itself is seen within the embrace of God, as an exquisite expression of God’s Wisdom. Divine Wisdom was present and essential in the very founding of creation, in the very forming of nature itself. Elsewhere, God calls Job’s attention to these very wonders when Job is existentially separated from God by his fixation on his misfortunes and his notions of God’s justice relationship to the world. The inscrutability of the very natural world itself can lead us directly to a contemplative awe before God that relativizes our perspective and understanding.
The difficult gospel passage, however, and I would prefer to jump over this exercise. Nevertheless, I think we can see that, as we know, and as we see in the Hebrew Bible reading, the universe has been established in God, and that (as we glean from Job) God’s creation dwarfs human conceptions of God’s justice. The difficulties posed by the Gospel reading implicate God in the very acts we most despise: the betrayal of God. Yet through the consequences of this betrayal, whatever model of redemption we might ascribe to, are redemptive. Our desire to blame Judas is met by the fact that Jesus actually sends Judas out to complete his errand.
Does that say anything to us applicable to environmental issues? Again, it seems that we are cautioned against scapegoating and vilification. I suppose we could follow my reasoning further and posit that God is behind environmental degradation for some obscure divine purpose, but I cannot make that leap. It offends me; I believe such degradation to be a grave form of sin against humans as well as against the whole of creation. What does that say about my reading of the Bible? That I have my own prejudices, my own ideas of God, and that they govern my reading.
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