Genesis 1:28 tells us that God gives “dominion” over the earth to human beings and tells them to “subdue” it. We have run wild with that and, in retrospect, it sometimes seems like a poor management decision on God’s part. Entire theologies have been built around the idea that humans are the pinnacle of God’s creation and that everything else exists to serve us.
But what if that’s wrong? Suppose we are basing all of that on our own human understanding of what it means to have “dominion?” Suppose being made in God’s image means that we’re supposed to exercise dominion in the way God does and not according to human understanding? The rest of the Bible, starting just 18 verses later, teaches us something very different about the way God wants us to use power, culminating in a hill called Mt. Calvary.
Text: Genesis 1:28
Preached by the Rev. Anne Robertson at Crawford Memorial UMC on August 23, 2020