5/6/56

Scripture: Genesis 1: 9-31.

Text: - “And God saw that it was good.”

Notice a recurring phrase in the story of the creation of the earth by the purpose and will of God as some of it was re-read this morning. After the poetic description of each phase of the creation, the writer of the Book of Genesis concludes: “And God saw that it was good” or “God saw that it was very good.” It would be hard for man to conceive the notion that the creation is other than good in the purpose of the Almighty.

The resources of the earth, and of the universe, are good. The sun, moon and stars are good; the air and the waters are good; the land and its contents are good. Certainly, so far as mankind can grow and prosper and multiply, it is through the use of these resources that are good for him, that he continues to exist.

But, from the beginning of man’s time upon the earth, there is harm, evil, wrong in the picture too. Now and then some catastrophe of nature overtakes some of mankind. But more often the harm that overtakes man is much of his own doing.

The Genesis writer perceives the evil in man’s nature, and in a few bold, poetic strokes paints in on the picture drawn of the creation story. The first man, and the woman, his wife, were placed in a garden that was indeed good. It was good for them; it was basically good in the intent of the Creator.

And yet the willfulness and disobedience of those people spoiled forever their enjoyment of the perfect garden. And they, and their offspring, were thereafter required to toil for their living in sweat and uncertainty, sometimes in frustration and sorrow.

Whether the story is factual history, or not, may fairly be debated by the scholars. But the story is perceptive of deep and lasting spiritual truth, and so deserves a rightful place in the sacred literature, the “Holy Scriptures,” that may help to enlighten man’s understanding, and discipline his soul through the generations.

The earth is good. The soil is good. Some of you have enough of the “green thumb” to love the soil from which you can coax the growth and beauty of green leaves and lovely blossoms. Many a gardener, many a farmer, has felt a soul-satisfying thrill in getting his hands into the moist, sun-warmed soil, turned over for preparation and planting in the spring. I can remember the fun of beginning the vegetable and flower garden with my mother after Dad had plowed. And a later generation has had similar experience.

In Pearl Buck’s novel, The Good Earth, a Chinese farmer’s life had gotten somewhat messed up, morally, during the flood season while he could do nothing with his land. After the floods receded he went out into the field when the plowing had been started. Suddenly, carried away with emotional attachment to the soil of his land, he got down and put his hands into it. He lay in the furrow for a bit of time. He reveled in the feel, the smell, the sight of the soil. And when he went back to his household at the farmhouse, it was with the feeling that the good earth had healed him of his evil hunger and moral misery.

But the continued goodness of the soil for man, depends deeply upon man himself. It depends upon how he uses, and preserves and perpetuates the benefits of the soil, of the waters, of the mineral resources found in the earth, of the life giving growth that issues from it. Man’s use of the earth is a moral matter, a spiritual concern.

There is no act of creation for which it is more instinctive to than God, than for the presence of the good earth. Human existence depends upon the soil’s fertility. Bread, the “staff of life,” issues from it. Perhaps the cave men did exist on the meat he could kill, and the bones he could gnaw. But there would have been no berries to vary his diet, nor meat for him to procure, if it had not been for the bushes that grew, and the grassed and leaves upon which the animals could feed and thrive. And these depend upon fertile soil.

Consider the miracle of growth that springs a seed to life, and maturity and fruition. Multiply it by all the grain fields of the world, and their total harvest of billions of bushels annually. The strength of a nation may be closely linked with the soundness of its agriculture. The rural church may flourish in a farming community where the soil is well cultivated. It languishes or is altogether abandoned where people have no roots of ownership, no pride of cultivation, no care or concern for the continued quality of the soil. And the rural church feeds hardy manhood and womanhood not only into the rural community, but into the cities, into the larger churches, into the government -- just about everywhere.

To sin against the land is to sin against the good life which God has put within the reach of men. The Christian Church, therefore --- not just some rural churches, but all the Church --- and every intelligent Christian individual, has a concern for the forces that destroy the land, and a concern for the forces that may preserve it and build it up.

Greedy exploitation has imperiled, and even destroyed, an appalling amount of the resources of the good earth. Whole mountainsides of timber, vast forests in this state and other states of our nation have been so carelessly and ruthlessly cut that the possibility of continued growth has been all but destroyed.

Oil wells have been drilled into the earth’s crust in such blind haste of competition that millions of gallons of fluid have been wasted, and untold quantities of tremendously useful gasses blown off to dissipate in the air. Wild life in field and forest and stream has been demolished, for temporary food supply or for sport alone, until it takes concerted effort by great numbers of concerned folk to restore it or to preserve it from extinction. Constantly there must be watchfulness against the selfish kind of private interest that wantonly wastes the resources of the good earth for temporary gain.

And, of course, widespread ignorance is just as harmful and may be even more destructive than deliberate exploitation. Great areas of the earth are robbed of their fertility because of the failure of farmers to learn those measures that will preserve and enrich the soil. Contour plowing, rotation of crops, planting to prevent erosion, water control and conservation -- these are the moral concern of every farmer and of everyone whose influence or opinion may help or hinder the farmer.

During the earliest years of my life, my father operated a South Dakota farm. The fields were so flat that irrigation was out of the question; and contour farming would be a mere academic idea. But trees were to be considered, and Father proved up his homestead claim to some of the land by planting trees on the prairie soil and keeping them alive for a time. Rotation of crops was part of the gospel of living to him -- wheat one year only, then a feed crop the next year was his unvarying rule. No planting of corn on the same plot on successive years. Further, half of his land was used for hay and pasture for a large herd of cattle. And of course there were the numerous work horses, the pigs and the chickens.

All winter long the livestock was fed -- outside when possible; inside the barns and pens when weather was severe, and during the winter nights. And the refuse of the barns was returned to the fields to fertilize and renew the soil for another year’s growth of grain. This was the winter-long routine of hard work. And that farm, as long as Father worked it, continued to be markedly more productive than some of the neighboring farms where the settlers did not know enough or care enough to rotate crops, fertilize the fields, and diversify the output.

My father lived, with health restricted in later years, to see the unhappy day when some of those acres of good earth, by that time tenant-farmed, were denuded, during drought and wind, by the great plains dust storms. And it wounded his spirit to see the soil take to the air and drift up over the fences. Precious topsoil washed away by floods, or blown away by the winds, is a permanent loss to whole populations and is a robbing of posterity. The appalling poverty of whole provinces of China, and the continuing recurrence of famine there, is due in large part to centuries of soil erosion.

These are not alone technical problems. They have their spiritual implications, and their social repercussions. As inhabitants of the good earth, we are stewards of what might be the limitless bounty of God. There could always be a concrete answer to the petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.” But if public indifference to waste and destruction of the earth’s resources were to continue, it can thwart God’s purpose of provision, and blight His promise of a fertility that is meant to bring forth abundantly for the needs of people.

All of us -- rural people and city folk alike -- ought to know that in this young nation, about 280 million acres of land are already so severely eroded as to be practically useless. Another 775 million acres are eroded to some extent and will require constant care and nurture to remain productive. And the remainder, less than half of our whole soil area, must be guarded, cared for, husbanded with intelligence and zeal if our children’s children are to continue the means of nourishment and livelihood.

People have often wondered why Palestine, once viewed by Israelites as the promised land of milk and honey, had for so long in recent history appeared so barren and dreary. Doubtless there is a political answer. Conquerors poured in, decimated the population, and upset the balance of production. Moral stagnancy played its destructive part. But a lot of the tragedy lies in soil erosions so serious that once-populous cities are buried in the moving earth, ancient irrigation systems were lost and abandoned, forested areas were denuded. Shepherds allowed flocks to over-graze the land, and the retaining grasses disappeared. The giant cedars of Lebanon were ruthlessly cut out until a mere handful of the lovely trees survive as evidence that there was such a forest.

And such success as modern Israel is having with the land depends in no small measure upon rediscovering the source of water; the mines, the minerals; replanting the trees, the vineyards, the fields; reclaiming and husbanding and fertilizing what productive soil is still there. Whole civilizations have decayed and perished with the wasting of soil and natural resources. And no new civilization grows without these resources.

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Another thought comes from today’s text. God created the trees, the grain, the soil and the streams not only for what we call practical necessity. He made the flowers also. Consider the function of beauty for the human soul. If a hunter or trapper finds one kind of satisfaction in the taking of game, a bird-watcher studying the songs, the nesting, the feeding, the flight habits of the fowl of the air finds also a deep thrill in the appreciative knowledge of nature. The gardener rejoices in the petals of the rose of the color of the daffodil. The soul feeds on the view of woodlot, of lake edge, of winding stream, of ocean surf, of towering mountains, of waving grain.

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness and the beauty thereof. [Psalm 24: 1]. And we who enjoy its benefits of bodily nourishment, of manufacturing materials, of soul-filling beauty, have a steward’s obligation to preserve, to restore, to replace and replenish the good earth.

The performance of that duty comes to us in many ways. Here in Wisconsin you and I are morally obligated to take all known precaution against the careless acts that cause disastrous fires in forest or field. We can keep cleaned up the litter that can so easily and so shamefully deface the beauty and usefulness of the countryside. Those who farm or garden can give conscientious study to good conservation practice in soil care. Trees can be cut with care for future growth. And forests can be constantly renewed for succeeding generations by continuous replanting. Industry has already made long strides in this direction. But individual, small lot owners can learn to do likewise.

We can become students of the whole great area of understanding of what constitutes good farming and good gardening for the good of the whole population. The family farm and its future is a concern of all folk, rural and urban alike.

The urban population, with its majority voting influence in a nation governed as ours is, must have a concern for fairness to the rural population. We are a nation of one farm dweller out of perhaps eight in the general population. But every one of the other seven has a moral obligation to his brother on the farm. Further, he is utterly foolish who does not understand that his very physical existence hinges on the resources brought to production on the farms -- all his food, the textiles for his clothing and industry, much of the material for his shelter; this and more comes from the farm and forest to him. If it does not come, he perishes from the earth; and if he survives wasted and dwindling natural resources, his children’s children will not.

We can have a concern for the productivity and the fair distribution of the earth’s resources. We can cultivate the love of the good earth and of the beauty to be found in it. But beyond all this let us remember in this vital relationship between soil and soul that it is the latter, the souls of people, that are most precious in God’s sight. And if in His sight, then in ours.

The Creator of the Good Earth knows that we have need of all these things, what we shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall wear. And all those things are to be added to those who seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, with dedication and with understanding. [Matthew 6: 33].

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 6, 1956.

Also in Wisconsin Rapids, May 2, 1965.