Avad Shamar: Working for Creation
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)
Much was still to be done in the youth of creation.
Elohim had begun penetrating the chaotic nothingness that preceded time, but His desire was for an image-bearing species with whom he could partner to bring order and identity and life.
So God put them there - humans - in the garden, and conferred upon them their fundamental purpose, to both work and keep the land of inner-Eden - an innate purpose that continues to flow beyond Eden within us today.
But we know well that “working” and “keeping” can easily drift awry into ungodly misuse - abusing land and labor with chemicals and overwork; extracting from creation for the sole intent of consumption and accumulation, rather than generosity and conservation.
Thankfully, these Hebrew terms leave no room for such maltreatment.
Here, to work or cultivate is the word ʿāḇaḏ (avad) - which, included in its definition, is to serve, labour for the sake of another, and even to worship.
Simultaneously, šāmar (shamar) - the term for keep - also means to guard, protect, and preserve life, as well as to observe and celebrate.
Work, then, is not primarily a means to a self-centric end, but is an act of partnership with God and man to serve and preserve the natural world in such a way that brings forth delight.
Indeed, there is nothing praiseworthy about overextended labor, optimized profit margins, and purging oneself of inconvenience should it be at the expense of soil and water and animals and air and relationship itself.
Said another way, when raw materials are organized in such a way that promotes a distancing from and a deterioration of that which is elemental - elevating output over essence - we lose sight of our original call to be protectors of creation in the natural order.
The Divine has given us the proliferation of all the created world that we might encounter its abundant pleasure, yet we have also been vested a responsibility of tending to a land vulnerable to exploitation.
It’s both a gift and a duty, to be made fellow gardeners with the great Creator of all things.
So, as we enter another day of work today…
May we be filled with gratitude and connection to the ground beneath our feet, gripped by adoration for the trees and dirt and caterpillars and rainfall and neighbors.
May we see our work - both our profession and purpose - as service, to a creation with which we’ve been entrusted, and to coworkers for whom we’ve been made to care.
May we delight in the work of our hands and every form of creative exertion, planting seeds of life among a people and land haunted by death.
