Man is not really “homo sapiens”
A Sermon on the Day of God's Creation.
"Man – that sounds proud," one of the classics of Soviet literature once said. I would say it differently. Man was clearly too hasty in defining himself as "homo sapiens". How could one call "rational" the being who, having received such a beautiful and harmoniously arranged world, turned it into hell not only for himself but for everything else living in it? His greed and pursuit of pleasure have turned the entire planet into a torture chamber for birds, animals, trees and all living things. How beautiful, pure, and loving the eyes of animals are when they look at us! Just one such glance is a silent reproach to our conscience.
It is so painful and shameful for what people have done to this beautiful world. It is so bitter to realize that nothing can be changed.
I have no doubt that all this creation, now groaning and suffering, awaiting our transformation, will be rewarded by God for its patience. They deserve this for bearing their cross quietly and humbly, without complaint. A cross that humans placed upon them through their greed and cruelty. The entire God-created world carries the heavy burden of human sin.
But man is not only cruel to the animal and plant world. He is equally cruel to himself. Among animals, there are no sadists. There are none who kill not out of necessity, but for pleasure to savour the suffering of others like themselves. Man has indeed proven to be "very broad" (F. Dostoevsky). One end of his breadth is in the heights of angelic orders, while the other reaches the deepest pits of satanism.
Our humanity is not only measured by how we treat God and other people. It is also revealed in how we treat animals, plants and the world around us. Because loving, caring and being kind to all this is the easiest thing to do.
It is hard to love God, whom we cannot see and must only believe in. It is not easy to love people who, to put it mildly, do not evoke the slightest sympathy. But to love animals and all living things is the simplest of tasks. And how could one not love them? How callous and soulless must a person be not to be enchanted by the extraordinary beauty and fullness of God's creation. How can one not be awed and grateful to God, looking at the grace of a horse, the loyalty of a dog and the tenderness of a cat? And the singing of birds, the scent of lilacs, the rustling of waves, the canvases of sunsets and sunrises, the starry sky above and the wildflowers in the meadows. How can they not touch our hearts?
With what wisdom God created all this! With what a sense of harmony and perfection!
If we were truly homo sapiens, we would protect all of it. We would treat God's world with the utmost reverence and gentle care. We would preserve it, cherish it and multiply it. We would choose to live more humbly and modestly ourselves rather than cause pain and suffering to God's creation. But… it is what it is… I know for certain that the world around us is alive as God created nothing dead.
It is people, having lost their connection with the Creator, who have divided the world into "living" and "non-living". Christ's words that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32) apply, I believe, not only to the deceased descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but to all of creation. What appears "dead" to man is alive to God. We may not find brains or self-awareness in the sea, but Christ commands the sea, and it obeys Him. No matter how much we dig through the rocks, we will not find ears there, but St. Mark of Thrace spoke a word, and the mountain heard and obeyed the elder.
Having created the World once, God arranges and governs it. He has His own relationship with each, even the smallest element of the universe.
If someone thinks that a mosquito or a worm is too small and insignificant to be cared for, they should remember that in our current state, compared to the highest angels, humans are far smaller and simpler than an ant is compared to a human.
God's creative energies contain all micro and macro worlds. Without this, the world would cease to exist and would become that very NOTHING it is in essence. All our concepts and knowledge about the universe will never transcend the boundaries of the picture drawn in our imagination by the impulses of neural connections. And this means only one thing – we truly know nothing about the world.
All human arrogance regarding our superiority over all earthly creation is nothing more than a metastasis of the soul's pride.
And while we "sound proud", all creation is quietly "groaning and suffering", "eagerly waiting to be freed from the bondage of decay" (Romans 8:19-23). If all creation, according to the apostle, is waiting for freedom from the bondage of death, then what is it hoping for? The answer is clear – that it, too, will partake in the eternal life of the age to come.
Earthly temples built by people stand beneath the dome of the uncreated temple of God. If we had not lost our reverence for this temple, if we had learned to treat it with meekness and reverence, we would have felt the singing of angelic choirs within it. Their song sounds where human noise ceases, where the grinding roar of our civilization, with its machines, factories, exhaust fumes and all the cacophony of our hectic life is absent.
To hear it, we must go out into the expanses of the fields, climb the heights of the mountains, immerse ourselves in the solitude of the desert, or wander into the depths of the forests. And there, far from the noise of the world, we will hear the true, unceasing prayer of all creation to God. We will feel with our hearts the prayer of the tree, the bird, the wind and the stream. We might even hear how, with these hymns, the songs of angels join, who, together with all of creation, praise their Creator.
But for now, we only hear the terrifying grinding of the news cycle, tearing our souls with anguish, the wail of sirens and the explosions of missiles. But God willing, someday there will come to our world that silence which nothing impure or sinful will ever disturb again.
