Delivered on Sunday 13 May 2007 in St George's Chapel

Genesis 1.26-28

King Lear, you will remember, turned up on Goneril's doorstep, accompanied by a hundred soldiers. Shakespeare tells us that the arrival caused Goneril to write to her sister Regan. He only tells us that she wrote; he doesn't tell us what she wrote. Maurice Baring, that famous Edwardian man of letters, thought it might go along these lines:

Dearest Regan, We have been having the most trying time lately with Papa, and it ended today in one of those scenes which are so painful to people like you and me, who hate scenes. I am writing now to tell you all about it, so that you may be prepared. This is what has happened. When Papa came here he brought a hundred knights with him, which is a great deal more than we could put up, and some of them had to live in the village. The first thing that happened was that they quarrelled with our people and they refuse to obey our house rules. The other day I found them jousting in the newly planted rose garden. I went to Papa and talked to him about it a quiet and controlled manner, but no sooner had I mentioned the subject than he lost all self-control. He claims that for some reason he is being treated like a beggar; and although he has a hundred knights - a hundred, mind you! - in the house, who do nothing but eat and drink all day long, he says he is not being treated like a King! I do hate unfairness, When he gave up the crown he said he was tired of state affairs, and meant to have a long rest; but from the very moment he handed over the management of affairs to us he never stopped interfering, and was cross if he was not consulted about everything, and if his advice was not taken. Anyway, it all came to a crisis yesterday. I went to Papa and told him that the situation was intolerable. He turned heel and said he was going to live with you. I am perfectly certain you will not be able to put up with his hundred knights any more than I was. But I beg you, my dearest Regan, to do your best to make Papa listen to sense. Let me hear at once what happens. Your loving, Goneril P.S. We had a letter from the French Court yesterday, saying that Cordelia is driving the poor King of France almost mad. [1]

As we all know it wasn't quite like that in Shakespeare's story but here we have Goneril offering her side of the story. You might even say, offering an excuse, an account of why it is that although she could - only a short while ago - swear undying love for father, she now wanted to get rid of him. But it's not my fault she says. He's a dreadful nuisance; you'll see, when he gets to your place, you won't do any better.

Actually in today's society we are inclined to follow Goneril's example. A culture of blame, or even a culture of fear, leads to an apparent inability to accept responsibility and a tendency to pass the book. But what has all this to do with religion in general and with our lessons in particular. The link I want to make is specifically with the passage from Genesis, those three verses we heard earlier, describing the creation of mankind. The connection between that story of creation and the making of excuses is not immediately obvious. There is, as they say, a bit of unpacking to do.

The unpacking is, mind you, straightforward enough. When I read this short passage the first thing that stuck in mind was the phrase 'in our image'. What does mean to say that human beings are created in the image of God? Actually, a lot of ink has been spilt in answering that question and all kinds of lofty theories have been advanced. I don't want to knock any of them; I simply want to note that this phrase 'in our image' is directly linked to another 'let them have dominion'. My suggestion then, is a simple one: to say that human beings are created in the image of God is to say that they share in God's dominion. When we read the psalms we are impressed by the number of references to God's relationship to creation. In Psalm 24 we read "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it" [2] ; and in Psalm 22, "Dominion belongs to the Lord" [3]. The created order is under God's governance but when he created human beings, he made them in the image of God; he gave them a share in the dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. In other words, when God created human beings he gave them stewardship over creation: a wonderful privilege; an awesome responsibility.

Of course, human beings have revelled in having dominion over the earth. But I suspect there has been a touch of misunderstanding. I think the word 'dominion' has been understood as 'control', while it might have been better to think of it of 'stewardship'. I don't think God made human beings so that they could simply use the earth's resources as they saw fit; instead he made human beings to care for the earth: to have dominion in the sense of responsibility and care.

But control has been the overarching theme of our relationship with the earth. First, by taming it and more recently by exploiting it. In fact, such has been our exploitation that we are now on an inevitable collision course between our civilization and the earth. We are the past the time for action and yet both individually and as nations it would appear that we have no significant and agreed plan of action.

For some people, we have to act because if we don't the later generations will face famine and destruction. That is a good reason for acting. To my way of thinking though, we are obliged to act because at our creation - when God planned to put us on this earth - he patterned us in his own image; he made us so that we would care for the earth. It is in response to that God given task that we ought to save energy at home and work, to consume less and conserve more, and to be a catalyst for change. And it's something we all have to do. I don't know about you but I know how poorly I have engaged with this responsibility and I don't look forward to the day when - like Goneril - I shall be obliged to think of an excuse.

[1] Based on a piece by Maurice Baring in his Dead Letters.

[2] Psalm 24.1

[3] Psalm 22.28