The God of the Old Testament has a curious way of speaking.
I don’t know if you have ever noticed it but it this God,
who is often,
but not always,
referred to in the masculine,
has a tendancy of talking about himself in the third person.
A bit like the queen.

So, for example, in the reading that we heard from Genesis this week God is heard to say: Let us make humankind in our image. Let us!
Now some theological scholars believe that God is talking to Godself at this point
and others believe that perhaps God is speaking to the angels
which would imply that us humans have been made in the image of,
not just God, but also the angelic hosts,
which is a nice idea.

But given that Angels have not been mentioned in the text up until this point it is,
sadly,
unlikely.
But the third option, the option that hardly anyone argues for or believes in is this,
God is talking to the animals,
‘Let us make humankind in OUR image. You and me, monkey and lion
and pelican and bear’
Which to me and I imagine to Darwin makes a lot of sense.
Because we are so obviously animal, so humble and hairy and fleshly and fantastic.
You can imagine the scene.

Here we are, once upon a time and there’s God all hot and bothered after creating the world
and there are all the animals gatherd around
and then God says ‘Lets make something new, something like all of us, something in our image.’
And all the animals nod and whistle and growl their approval
and so here we are. Ready to have dominion.
Dominion.

A funny word, one that we don’t use very often.
It can be traced back to a number of sources and meanings.
But most commonly the word has come to be associated with the concept of domination. Certainly throughout ages past  humanity has chosen to focus on this interpretation of the word in order to justify its treatment of the animal kingdom.
But the word has another meaning which arises from the latin and means home.
Theres no place like home, theres no place like home.
Lets go back to the reading.

God said ‘Humankind shall have dominion over the animals’
Or in otherwords humanity shall be the homemaker, the host, the cup of teamaker,
the scrubber of  floors and the shiner of windows, the hot breadmaker.
We shall be the protector and the gardener of this dwelling place,
this home that we call earth
and the guests shall be the creeping things
the swimming, crawling, leaping things,
the soaring, flying, running, swinging, singing animals of gods creation.
And we, as homemaker,
we will welcome our guests,
we will not imprison or starve or skin or beat..
we will not..eat?
Radical stuff?

Perhaps, once upon a time, but now science seems to be telling us that going vegetarian may be the most effective way that we
as individuals can fight global warming
As the homemaker we are charged with the responsibility
of keeping this home safe for the ourselves and for our guests.
‘Keeping safe’ means that we will not we will not destroy the natural environment to the point that
these guests and us
have no place in which to lay our heads
and it means ensuring
by whatever means we can:
be it thru energy saving light globes,
recycling, signing up for green power or even – Shock! Horror!
going vegetarian.

In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined and according to Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld ‘the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.”2
Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together
cause the vast majority of global warming.
Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide
and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

There’s no place like home,
there’s no place like home,
there’s no place like home.

So, as always, its up to us,
up to us to answer the call from deep within,
the god call
and to accept responsibility to be part of the transformation of creation.
It our home, its our choice, what are we going to do?