I’ve been pondering the words we hear today from genesis. “God placed Adam in the garden to till and keep it.” And I also wonder if you’ve ever been in position of being an employee-someone who works-or a supervisor or boss-someone who supervises. And something in the work went awry, went wrong, didn’t turn out the way it was expected. Or you aren’t happy with someone’s work, or you are happy with your work and the place you work.
Believe me, I’d love to just talk about plants and gardening, and knowing how many gardeners are among you, and discuss what soil amendments you use, and what kind of shovel, and where you get your seeds and what you’re planting. Believe me, I think a whole big part of what God’s job description for the earthling, the Adam, involves taking good care of the earth and discovering the love of God while we do it. But that doesn’t just have to be for us farmers and garden-keeping hunter-gatherers of the past 10000 years or so. Genesis is talking about how we all are given to work and to grow in love for God and for other creatures near us as we do.
And sometimes out working and loving get tangled, and things can get worse from there. We blame each other-he did it, it’s her fault, you don’t care. Kind of like this train derailment in Ohio. Something goes wrong, and a host of operators formerly devoted to dismantling the EPA, the Clean Water Act and Union protections discover their photo-op concern for the poor, the working class and the environment. The truth is now more of us see so many things that haven’t been kept or tilled for 40+ years. Transportation systems, public water infrastructure, rural healthcare. Things that aren’t just in Ohio, but in western Washington too. Pay attention to when people, including you yourself, exercise the skill and habit of blaming. We have enough to deal with right before us when our work gets confused, and we feel the impulse to blame others, or even blame ourselves.
What I have found very helpful is the opportunity to begin again. To begin again, to start over, to hit ‘reset’. In a work context, it can be helpful to review the job description or the mission. This might help the worker work and the supervisor to oversee and assist the worker in the good of the work they seek. Instead of blaming yourself or others, ask: what is the good we seek? What parts have I contributed to this situation? What parts have you contributed? What can we each give to start again?
Which reading Genesis can be for us this first Sunday of Lent. When we realize something has gone awry, and we feel the impulse to blame, It brings to us our core vocation as human beings in the moment. The vocation is to till and to keep. The hebrew is describe the vocation, the calling God gives humankind in the garden is ‘avad v shomer,’ to till and keep, or to work and to serve or protect or guard. Working we apply skill and energy, keeping we look to the good of the work and the worker. And don’t forget the sabbath day, to keep it holy, to keep it, to make sure it is a time when you and your family and those who work for you, and even the animals and machines get a chance to rest. Because you were once slaves in Egypt, and that means the remembrance of compassion for others who don’t have much choice about when they must work or can rest. Because God rested on the sabbath day.
But getting back to gardening…I learned recently that historically and even today among some of the Pennsylvania Dutch Shrove Tuesday was a special day to tend and repair garden tools. They’d eat a fat-fried doughnut with apple butter, and smear a thin coat of fat on the clean tools. It was preparation for season of tilling and tending, and also because through nature’s course, a helping human negligence, and at times ill will, spots of rust and dull edges have crept in. It is a beautiful and simple acknowledgement of our vocation as earthlings. Till and keep, tend the good, gentle and repair things. To do so out of growing capacity for compassion, even when things go awry, and to give ourselves and others the chance to begin again.
So this Lent, may we see the opportunities we have to simply begin again, and in them settle into the ways we are given to till and keep.