For more on this week’s text from Dr. Amy Cooper Robertson and myself, listen to this week’s podcast NL;DR: The Narrative Lectionary Podcast for People on the Go.

How do we read the story of Eden in a time of environmental crisis? The second story of creation in the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen 2:4b-25) tells the story of the creation of the first human beings and their proper relationship to the world around them. This ancient text has much to teach us about our own nature and the ways we are meant to live in ecological peace with our environment.

Humans from the Humus

One of the first things I notice about this text is the surprising reason that God creates human beings in the first place. The text tells us that when God began to create there was “no plant of the field” on the earth and “no herb of the field had yet sprung up.” That is, at the beginning of creation, the earth was a barren dust bowl with only a stream occasionally rising up to water the earth (2:6). God wants to plant a garden, the text tells us, but “there was no one to till the ground” (2:5).

We often think of human beings as the stars of the creation story, but in this version of creation, at least, what God really wants is a garden. Humans are created to be the gardeners—nothing more. Desiring a beautiful garden, God creates us.

In this story, God creates human beings out of the dirt of the ground, sculpting us out of mud and breathing the breath of life into our nostrils. Our intimate connection to the ground is preserved in the Hebrew word for “human being: (adam), which comes from the same root as the word for “ground” (adamah). My professor John Hayes used to say that if we wanted to capture the Hebrew play on words, instead of referring to the first human being as “Adam” we should call him “Dusty.”

Human beings are fundamentally dirt. We are humans, crafted from the humus. The ground is our birth place and our final resting place. It isn’t something separate from us. It is us and we are it.

Our Partnership with Creation

After creating the first human, God at last plants the garden, which has been the goal all along. God brings forth “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food,” an orchard bountiful enough to sustain life and beautiful enough to inspire awe at its artistry. And we are its keepers.

The story of God creating animals emphasizes our connection to living things. According to the text, after planting the garden for the human to attend, God realizes, “It is not good that the human should be alone” (2:18). While we know that the story will ultimately lead to the division of male and female (2:21-24) to create a truly equal partner, God originally intends that animals should be “a helper” and “partner” for the human.

The term “helper” (Hebrew ezer) implies not an apprentice or assistant, but one who is able to provide significant beyond what the human can do alone. So, for instance, in Psalm 30:10, the psalmist cries out to God, “O LORD, be my helper (ozer), “and in Psalm 54:4 declares “Surely God is my helper (ozer).” A helper is one who can provide significant help—even save someone from distress. Likewise, the phrase “as his partner” (ke-negdo) means something like “corresponding to him” or “suiting him.” God intends for animals to be true partners for humans.

Indeed, humans are intrinsically connected to animals in that we are both formed from the ground and animated by the breath of God. While is obscured in most English translations, the text refers to both animals and humans with the Hebrew phrase nephesh chayyah (“a living being”). In 2:7, the human becomes a “living being” only after receiving the breath of life from God. So, when animals are called by the same name in 2:19, it suggests they have also received the breath of life from God. (While the NRSV describes as animals as a “living creature,” the Hebrew is actually the same).

Denial is Killing Us

From beginning to end, this story of creation insists on the deep connection of human beings to the world in which we live. We are made of ground. We are created to tend the plants. Animals are our partners and helpers. We are made to be at one with the garden, to tend it and preserve it as a beautiful and abundant paradise in which all living things can thrive.

And yet even here, in the first moments of creation, the seeds of our devastating ecological future are already apparent. In the midst of the garden, God plants the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Humans are faced with a choice—tend to the garden and live or try to be like gods, transcending our own understanding and destroying the garden we were created to maintain.

We know how the story will end. Tempted by the promise of becoming gods, we will soon forget who we are. We will try to transcend the limits of our humanliness. We will build towers into the sky. We will forget that we, too, are made of earth. And the earth will suffer for it. It is no accident that when humankind first violates the prohibition against the Tree, God says “Cursed is the ground because of you” (3:17). Rising oceans and rainforests aflame testify to this truth.

The urgent message of this text for today is that we are neglecting the world that God has entrusted to us. We deny our connection to the environment and think of ourselves as gods. We are afraid to remember our fundamental dustiness, denying that we are but animated dirt that will return once again to the ground.

Eden and Ecological Crisis

And so, because of us, our world is in crisis. Because we would rather be gods than gardeners, our world is afire. Because we have forgotten that we share the breath of life with that vast ecosystem of God’s creatures, the world suffers. Because we would rather be gods than groundlings, we drive the world to destruction trying to prove that we don’t ultimately belong to it. We try to separate the adam from the adamah, the human from the humus, and we hasten our own demise.

The Eden story is an urgent one for our time of ecological crisis. We must remember our connection to the rest of the world. We must remember that we aren’t gods. Our future depends on it.