How (and why) to mow the lawn for Jesus

A brief(ish) answer for those who are persuaded that they should do everything for Jesus... but find that easier to apply to singing hymns than emptying bins.

So, how exactly does one “mow the lawn for Jesus”? It’s certainly not technique – not a flick of the wrist on the mower. No, it’s an understanding of what’s happening, and a conscious participation in that event. Let me explain.

I can stir eggs and understand that I am stirring eggs, just as a man may mow the lawn and understand that he is mowing the lawn. But every morning when I get up and make an omelette for my wife, I don’t think of it as stirring eggs at all – though eggs must be stirred (and indeed broken) in the process. I understand that what I am doing is ‘making breakfast for my beloved’.

Most people, to one degree or another, understand this injection of meaning to be absolutely vital – taking a wide angle view is the only way our day-to-day lives can contain enough meaning to be worth living. A low-income single mum working two jobs doesn’t think of what she does as ‘serving coffee’ or ‘stirring eggs’. She sees it as holding a roof over her children’s heads… and if we saw a physical depiction of her doing just that, then we would surely see in her the same dignity she sees in herself… the dignity which gives her the courage and resolve to keep going.

But let’s widen the angle further still.

When Adam rebelled against God, his master; creation (over which Adam had been given dominion & Lordship) mimicked his rebellion and twisted thornily against its master. And we have borne that curse ever since, as this world we were made to rule dominates us: fostering thorns and weeds and diseases. When I first sat down to write this, less than 24 hours had passed since cancer had crawled from the bowels of this cursed world and taken a friend of mine away. We call that tragic because he was 32… but our God calls it tragic simply because it happened.

Humanity can claim no real dominion in this place… we are too distorted by the curse, as is the fissured ground beneath our feet. But Athanasius writes in his ‘On the Incarnation’ that humanity, made in the image of God yet under a curse, is like a cracked portrait – unrecognisable by the damage of damp years in the shadows. Any attempt to restore it, to touch it up is itself a distortion…

Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) is a Spanish mural lovingly ‘restored’ by a local woman in 2012

…but the incarnation is the moment that the artist called the subject back in, to resit for the portrait. A new Adam.

In his commentary on 1 Timothy, Calvin gives us assurance on this matter – that when we become Christians, when we are ingrafted into Christ, “God graciously comes to our aid, and… constitutes us anew to be Lords of the world”.

In Adam, our Lordship was shattered and lost… but now united to Christ, we regain & reclaim it. And so we are to understand that when we mow the lawn, we are doing something ancient and good: lovingly exercising lordship over a world made by and for Jesus… and for us as we are found in him. The world is twisted up in its curse, and every time you uproot a weed, cook a meal, expose an abuse, serve a coffee, fix a toilet, play with a child… every time you touch earth you are, twist by twist, untangling a curse that has ruled here for millennia, participating in what will be fully realised when the new & true Adam, Jesus, reappears and straightens out creation beneath our feet – untwisting the curse forever.

And that is why even those who dismiss Christian love of culture or creation as “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” will struggle to deny the beauty of the string quartet who famously kept on playing as the ship went down. Because they weren’t just ‘stirring eggs’, nor were they just scraping a hank of horse hair across copper wire. They looked into the face of chaos and destruction and made harmony, reflecting a precise quality of the Triune God in whose image they were made.

They were made to be stewards, to do battle with chaos. But more than that, they were made by a God who is definitively harmonious: three persons, eternally loving, cooperating, creating.

We do all things for God’s glory, not with a Masonic method or a secret technique, but by understanding what it is we are truly doing… then doing it with intent. We are unbewitching the world, tuning our twisted vocal chords to harmonise once more. This is John Dryden’s account of the Creation of the World by the God who made all things, and who made us to be like him.

This is the God who makes beautiful things out of chaos… and we are united to him completely. In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. How? He made the earth ‘formless and void’, and darkness hung over it. Weird. The Spirit then hovered over the waters. Then the Word of God rang out demanding light… and there was light, and the earth emerged from the waters, and plants and creatures flourished. After the curse, evil reached a pinnacle in the time of Noah, and God covered the earth with water once more. But through Noah he sent a dove to hover over the waters and the land re-emerged. But still, sin reigned. The curse ran riot.

Then, at the Baptism of Jesus, the Word himself is submerged, and every single gospel writer goes to great pains to state that the Spirit hovered over him like a dove and the New Adam, in whom all who are Christians are found, emerged from the waters and God pronounces a declaration over the new humanity. Not just that it was very good, as he had once said… now he says, over Christ and all who are in him, “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased”… and then Jesus sets about his rule as the new Adam, the Lord of all  creation, and if you wonder why I’ve couched my argument in creation language, this is why – this is the work of Jesus from Creation to now, as told by Paul, from the moment of Creation (vs 16) all the way through to what he sets about doing after his baptism (vs 19)

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

This comes to a head on the final day, or as we will then call it, the dawn of the first day, when the world will be covered in saltwater one last time, as Jesus reaches out to wipe a final tear from each of our cheeks onto the golden ground. For, in that sense, there will “no longer be any sea” – as God will have lifted out of it every last crumb of creation, to display for his glory. And everything will fully display his glory: The seemingly inescapable quote from Kuyper that is used is that ‘there is not one square inch in the whole of Creation over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!”’

But mind that at this moment he cries ‘Mine’ - he doesn’t cry out ‘perfect’ or ‘good’ over all things. Not anymore. That cry of “Mine” takes on different tones, sometimes the call of a nurturing mother calling out into the garden for her children to come in… sometimes far more of a battle cry, as the Lord claims what is his that others lay claim to.

But on that everlasting final day, there will be no need for the call at all, for then everything will cry out to him “Yours” – let’s look at Revelation 4.

1 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, 6 and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: 7 the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. 8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
    who was and is and is to come!”

9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they existed and were created.”

No, don’t skip reading the Bible bit even if you know it. It’ll take like 1 and a half minutes max. Go back.

I wonder if you can see what’s going on there? We’re getting a peek into the throne room of heaven, and it is an abundance of utter beauty - any other context and it would be called opulent. There are precious stones, a rainbow like an emerald, statesmen in perfect spotless robes, with golden crowns and a sea of crystal. In the middle of all of it is the One seated on the throne… and the focus is entirely on Him.

But around the throne are these four creatures, four living creatures - who seem to represent the entirety of human dominion - Ezekiel uses similar imagery. Broadly speaking they are thought to represent the labour of humanity in the Ox, the wisdom, the rule etc… and we don’t want to get bogged down with numbers in Revelation, but even where interpretations differ, the fact that they are four and that they are on every side of the throne, shows that they in some way represent a completeness: four winds, four corners of the earth, four seasons etc. Leon Morris draws attention to a rabbinic saying “The mightiest among the birds is the eagle, the mightiest among the domestic animals is the bull, the mightiest among the wild beasts is the lion, and the mightiest among all is man.” Stay with me here…

So we have these creatures representing the totality & dominion within creation and culture, and they are focused on the One seated on the throne as they worship - focused, but not blinkered - they are full of eyes in front, behind, all round and even inside them. Their gaze is not fixed on the lamb (how could it be?), but their hearts, minds and words are: they behold all things… and as they behold all things, they worship and prompt worship amongst the elders who praise the lamb for creating all things.

The beauty surrounding the throne, the sea of crystal, the elders in their beautiful robes… even their own internal anatomy… they see, they observe and it propels them into worship - we see that creation and culture are NOT inherently distractions from God… rather the opposite is true: when properly seen, they cause worship. Creation & culture, music & beauty, they are not dialed back in the New Creation but rather displayed in their most beautiful, unmarred state… and are never mistaken for the God to whom they point. All beauty is seen as eyes go outwards and inwards… and the response is a single, focal point of worship, to the one seated on the throne.

And we come back to the elders & four creatures in Revelation 19 who cry out in worship before the whole multitude of God’s people gather their voices, join in the worship and throng forward to gather for the feast - for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

We are culture-makers, created to create… and the way we interact with the world God has created and placed us in is a statement, a diagnosis of our worship… are we idolaters who cling to creation whenever it offers us thrills or satisfaction, are we dutiful Pharisees who put in a shift for fifteen minutes every morning, and hour on Sunday and 5 hurried seconds before each meal… or are we joyful worshippers who interact with ALL creation ALL the time letting ALL Beauty & Truth turn our hearts to worship and seeing all foolishness, ugliness, wickedness & lies as a challenge to our master… seeing your workmate being bullied as a gardener sees thorns choking a flower, hearing a politician’s lie as an orchestra conductor hears a discordant note… Dan Strange talks about the Christian call to connect with and confront the culture with the gospel. Where there is truth, celebrate it and elevate it. Where there are lies, urge, plead and fight for truth to be restored.

And that is what this substack is about.