Ecology Theology: Matthew 2

In the book of Matthew there is a story titled the “Massacre of the Innocents”. Please turn your Bibles to Matthew 2: 13-23.

In this story we see King Herod getting very angry because the Wise Men have returned from seeing Jesus, the new king. Herod doesn’t want to lose his crown so in a jealous rage he orders to have the boys in Israel ages 0-2 killed. An angel comes to warn Joseph and tells him to leave Israel and hid in Egypt so Jesus will be kept alive. After Herod dies, an angel appears to Joseph again to tell him his family could return back to Israel. They returned to Israel but found out that Archelaus, Herod’s son, was the new ruler of Judea. They decided it would be best if they moved somewhere else in Israel to protect Jesus, so they moved to Nazareth.

I want to talk about the scary part of the story. Herod has all of the boys aged 0-2 murdered because he is afraid someone will take his throne. It’s about power. In today’s society we are constantly killing our earth’s resources because of power. We want more power so we “have to make more” money, so we extract more oil. We want more money, so we cut down more trees to make way for more industry. We are “massacring innocents” when we exploit our earth. God put us in charge of creation and we have managed to hurt it. We have a responsibility to recycle, implement business practices that are healthy for our earth, and to waste less. It is up to us to try to improve our earth and to stop destroying innocent things.

Let’s make a covenant to take care of our earth.