The sermon on Acts 8 referenced a quote by Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” and compared martyred Christians to squashed cockroaches – squash the roaches, and hundreds of eggs will disperse and hatch, thereby producing numerous new cockroaches. It all sounded profound and exciting, but the cockroach part turned up in the urban legend department.
So I’m a little bummed. I once saw a presentation about how all of creation brings God glory and how God created some creatures just for Himself, and the world really isn’t all about us. The presentation started with a man reading from the first chapter of Genesis, the part even before humans were created. I thought that part was really boring. That turned out to be the point: It was boring, because I wanted it to include humans and be about me.
I liked the presentation because it helped me to marvel at the complexity of the world that God created, and it would have been difficult for someone who claimed to follow Jesus to walk away from the presentation and think that ecology was something that Christians shouldn’t care about. Sometimes I wonder why environmentalism isn’t more important to some Christians.
And still, I’ve always wondered how cockroaches bring God glory. For awhile this morning, I thought I had an answer.
1 comment:
Joseph G. Kunkel, (Professor, Biology Department, U. Massachusetts Amherst, MA) says they are GOOD EATIN'S! "Cockroaches as a group are part of the worldwide food web. They are omnivore scavengers which clean up our environment and help recycle the organic litter that would accumulate if it were not decomposed by organisms which include cockroaches. Furthermore they serve as food for small mammals, birds, amphibians and lizards. There are over 3000 species of cockroaches and only 10 species are on the World Health Organization list of human pests. The other 3000 species are welcome members of the biodiversity on this planet. "
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