Bad Stewards: Nadab and Abihur and a broken covenant Lessons in caring for God’s world “Stewards are both a ruler and servant; they exist to please their master.” The tail lifts. Water flows down as if from a waterfall, framed by the clear sky. A lone bird mirrors the tail’s flow, effortless, graceful in the air. It surfs above the ocean, the whale beneath it. As photographs go, I think it’s stunning. It is a sign of the covenant. A covenant is a legal binding agreement between man and God. Man is to be a steward over all of creation. But we have broken that covenant as a people by our treatment of the earth; we need to see again, to be reminded of the covenant. Sebastião Salgado is a Brazilian photographer. After too many years spent chronicling the darker sides of human nature, he changed course and turned his camera away from the modern man. In the wildest forms of nature and the earliest forms of human culture – remote tribes untouched by technology – he discovered things that restored his hope. That journey lasted eight years, and went on to form the exhibition ‘Genesis’ (showing at the Natural History Museum, London over the summer). Describing it as a ‘new beginning’, Salgado says that “this project is designed to reconnect us to how the world was before humanity altered it almost beyond recognition.” When I first read those words, it made me think of God, covenants and the environment. Let me explain. Like Salgado’s exhibition, Genesis 1:26 also serves as an introduction, and it also talks about ‘us’:
Stewardship stewards series - Nadab and Abihur and a broken covenant.
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