Protect and Serve

When you read the words "Protect and Serve" you may think of law enforcement ... and rightly so.  In 1955 the Los Angeles Police Department sought departmental input regarding a motto that could be both remembered and foundational for their department.  The winner was named and in November of 1963 Protect and Serve was adopted and the motto for the LAPD.  I like it, and we see that same motto appear on law enforcement vehicles all across America.  But what I discovered last week was even more informative.

In Genesis 2:15 God's word uses 2 Hebrew words ... avadh and shamar.  Shamar means to protect and avadh means to serve.  While these words are meaningful coming from the perspective of law enforcement, they mean so much more coming from God, especially since God is using these words to describe human responsibility and purpose.  Let's unpack them a bit!

Why would God ask Adam to protect (shamar) the garden?  What can he do?  If you look deeper into the word, you find that the word here is a little like tending a flock or being guardian over something that is unable to fully protect itself.  My brother is one of the people in charge of forest-protection in California.  They have been working, through proper management and control-burns, to have enough fire-breaks and underbrush-control to keep forest fires at bay.  But California is a massive state, and it has been virtually impossible for them to achieve even minimal protection for the forest there.  Wildfires have been disastrous.  Solutions have not been easy.  The garden is big ... our efforts are small.  I wonder, in Genesis, if God is pre-warning Adam of other intrusions into the garden, such as serpents?

Adam is also asked to serve (avadh) the garden.  Isn't it interesting that God asks Adam to place himself in the position of a servant in relation to an inanimate garden?  Or is it inanimate?  Does God view the garden, even the world, as something that has order, life and purpose?  God does tell Adam to subdue or govern the garden.  But in Hebrew the idea of rule and governance is caught up in the idea of being responsible for the welfare of the thing you govern.  Judges were to provide for the welfare of their people.  Micah described God's 'Great Requirement' as loving justice, doing mercy and walking in humility with God.  Jesus said, in Matthew 22:11 "The greatest among you will be a servant."  Do you think God is (through the fabric of His Holy Word) trying to tell us something profound about His intention for us?  We are not bigger that our garden, the world we live in, the people we are given, the context into which we are placed!

Someone asked Nick Saban why his process of leadership worked so well.  He said ... "Don't think about winning the SEC championship.  Don't think about the national championship.  Think about what you need to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment."  Translation ... "Do your job!"  I wonder ... if Adam, Eve, Randy, Sally, Nicey, Angel, Jason, Tina, Ryan, Andy, Jane ... all of us ... just kept this mantra before us ... "protect and serve the garden" ... how would that impact our little part of God's creation?  The truth is (whether you agree or not) God's instruction to Adam has implications about every one of us.  Environmental implications.  Social implications.  Spiritual implications.  Business implications. Life implications.

We have been given governance over 'the garden.'  We are to protect and serve.  Maybe if we took this task seriously and, on every play, just did our job, we could make a difference.  God seemed to think so!  So should we!  Randy