Friday 13th January
Read Genesis 1:29-31
“Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.” (NIVUK)
Some have read these verses and concluded that the perfect way to live in God’s good creation is as vegetarians. There are certainly health benefits associated with a good intake of fruit and veg, and I am sure at some point I will take advantage of those benefits, yet to conclude that life should be vegetarian from these words is to slightly overstate the case. The case itself is built on at least two premises. First, the literal words are that green plants, vegetables and fruit, are given and the implication is that it is ONLY those things provided as food. Second, by taking ‘good’ to exclude death, the eating of meat (which involves death), cannot therefore be possible. To get back to the original intention therefore is to be vegetarian.
Part of the weakness of the argument is the tendency to take things literally rather than recognise the structure of the poem. Thus far we have considered the poem to be simply a pattern of three days of ‘form’ and three days of ‘fullness’, as each new space that was created was filled. Yet close inspection of Day 3, the corollary to Day 6, shows that on the day land was created, a second word was spoken that ‘filled’ it with vegetation. The purpose of that variation becomes clear in the final pronouncement by God that the vegetation’s function is to provide sustenance for all the living creatures that would eventually be instructed to ‘fill’ the earth. This final word is less an instruction to go vegetarian as it is a statement of God’s goodness and grace. The final word is framed at beginning and end by grace… “Then God said, ‘I give you… …I give every green plant for food.” Until we see the grace that is built into creation from the beginning, rather than be distracted by the more literal interpretation, we are listening to these gracious words with our ears shut. Only then will we be prepared for the next arc in the narrative, where it is not ‘every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it’ that is provided as food – for one tree is not.
