The cultural mandate and the unwanted zucchini garden

A few years back, I planted a garden. I did everything by the book; I chose a fertile spot in the backyard, cleared it of stones and grass, and planted it with choice seeds of beets, broccoli, onions, lettuce, and lots of kale for juicing. All stuff I like. I eagerly looked for it to yield those yummy things. What more was there to do for that garden that I did not do?

However, that garden had a mind of its own: it yielded only zucchini. Now that may appeal to you, but not one person in our family can stand zucchini. Yet the entire garden was filled to brimming with that one (appalling) plant. I could only assume that somehow a stray zucchini had gotten into my compost pile, rotted, and its seeds mixed all through the fertilizer I used to prepare the soil.

The audacity of that willful garden was so personally insulting to me that, I confess, I did not take the time to cultivate the food that someone else could have enjoyed. I didn’t water it. I didn’t weed it. I didn’t pick it. I just turned my offended back on it. True story. 

The irksome memory of this episode has got me thinking about Genesis 1:28, the ‘cultural mandate’ as it’s called. Let’s be clear: it isn’t called that by God. It’s called that by people: theologians, philosophers, educators. So you’ll forgive my audacity in assuming that this widely accepted term is open for discussion, which is my intention here.

To refresh your memory, God tells the man and woman, created in his image, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28). 

What do we typically think of as human “fruit”? Discussions about the cultural mandate centre on topics like nature, technology, and, of course, culture—art, music, sports, architecture, literature, science, etc. Other people, taking the text at face value, believe that Genesis 1:28 is simply a command to have babies—and lots of them—and when their quiver is full they feel they’ve done their part. Other Christians measure their fruit by the success of the ministries they participate in, the books they write, the soup kitchens they serve in, or the theology degrees they’ve earned. 

These are all natural products of human beings, no doubt. But just because it’s what we’re filling the earth with, does that mean it’s what God wants from us, what he wants us to multiply in his creation? You might have looked at my garden and concluded, “She planted zucchini”. But you’d be wrong.  Just so, we can’t automatically dictate what fruit God wants simply by tallying what’s coming out of us. Since our soil is full of the seeds of sin and selfishness, the plants we’re producing aren’t likely to be what would make God’s mouth water. 

I fear we’re cluttering the creation with stuff—fruit of a kind—but it’s all dead. It’s all idols, things we put our hope in and find our joy in and spend our money on and live for (Ps 115:4-9, 135:15-18; Is 2:6-8, 5:13-18, 41:29). Behold the bitter truth:

They hatch adders’ eggs;
they weave the spider’s web;
he who eats their eggs dies,
and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.
Their webs will not serve as clothing;
men will not cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
and deeds of violence are in their hands. (Is 59:5-6)

Apart from Christ we are nothing but pain and death factories. Which is why God  says  through Micah:

Woe is me!... there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the earth… (Mic 7:1-2)

How can we be fruitful when our hearts are as thorny and thistle-y as the ground under our feet? (Mic 7:4)

Anyone can invent a new tool or build a wildlife preserve or write a novel or open a soup kitchen. These works all have their place in God’s plan to fill the earth, but they aren’t the plan. They aren’t the product. They’re just the works of our hands. Unless we are fully restored to his image, which is the fundamental equipment for our task (Gen 1:26), we cannot do the task as he intended.

What we may call a cultural mandate is in fact a Christological mandate; it’s a command to become what Jesus Christ would eventually become: the perfect image of God, bearing fruit God likes (Col 1:15). It’s a command to do what he does, to be what he is, and to produce what he produces.

The real fruit God wants is in fact planted, cultivated, and harvested in our hearts by him. He’s the real creator, the real filler, the real subduer.

The Bible describes a veritable cornucopia of the kind of fruit that God the vinedresser is looking for—and none of it is possible unless we ourselves become the product of his grace and love—we must first become the work of his hands (Is 61:3,11). Only as his workmanship can we hope to do the works he originally created us, in Christ Jesus, to do (Eph 2:10). Here’s a sampling of the fruit he wants the earth filled with:

• The fruit of the knowledge of the Lord in Christ (Col 1:5-6, 9-10; Is 11:9)
• The fruit of the gospel (Col 1:3-12; Gal 6:7-9)
• The fruit of righteousness (Heb 12:5-11; Rom 6:20-23)
• The fruit of the Spirit (Rom 8:5-11; Gal 5:22-23)
• The fruit of resurrection (Is 26:19; Rom 8:19-23).

So, are we to do nothing with our own hands? Not at all. Our hands are sourced and powered by Christ our head. In him our work of the Lord is not in vain, and he establishes by his resurrection—the firstfruit of the new creation—the gospel works of our hands in this futile and fallen life (1 Cor 15:58; Ps 90:17). All the otherwise passing things that come out of us—our culture, our technology, our efforts to bring order and life from creation, our families, and our ministries—all of these have meaning and purpose and worth when they are sourced in the good vine, Jesus Christ.

Everything else is just zucchini.