Sermon Title for July 27, 2008: WHATEVER YOU DO TO THE EARTH, YOU DO TO ME!
A New Area of Concern in the Church In this past month, or so, we have celebrated the Season of Creation. This is a new addition to our lectionary. I added this new section to our lectionary because those who put together the lectionary, in the past, would have not have felt the urgent concerns for the created world that we feel today. Time is running out for us to act on behalf of our created world, and on behalf of our children and grandchildren. During this Season of Creation questions come to my mind: what kind of world will we leave our grandchildren? What does God say about how we are living and what are God‟s main concerns. If the kingdom of God is mainly about what God values and what God loves: does God value and love the created world. Stories of Creation Abound in the Scriptures We began looking at the many creation stories in the scriptures. I am always amazed at how many creation stories there are in the scriptures. I grew up believing there was only one story, but the scriptures are full of creation stories that make clearer and clearer how the Creator feels about the created world. The created world that God has created and is continuing to create. We found that as God the Creator created, there as an announcement that the creation was “good”, and that
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God considers us partners in finishing the created world. We also learned that it was the actions of the human beings that brought injustice and sin into the created world, and that empire thinking has meant that human beings have stopped valuing and loving what God values and loves. Jesus loved the Created World We then looked at how Jesus of Nazareth felt about the created world, and found that Jesus was full of love for the created world. Or, as our First Nations brothers and sisters say, love for “all our relations”. Including all our 4-legged brothers and sisters in the circle of what God values and what God loves! Again the more you look the more you will find great admiration and love for the created world in the parables and koans of Jesus.* Jesus often used metaphors and stories about the grasses, or flowers or birds to challenge his disciples to be concerned only with the kingdom of God: valuing only what God values and what God loves. In passages like the one Orval read today from the prophet Amos –and I could show you many passages like this one in the ancient Hebrew scriptures and stories- we learn that God is not as interested in nice worship and right belief, as much as God is interested in right actions. I often think myself that what we believe is not important as what we do. And I am often shocked at the inactivity of our governments when it comes to
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concerns about climate change and global warming. In my darkest moments I wonder: do they not care at all, or is it just that “the empire” does not value the earth, as much as accumulating capital or wealth. Certainly “empire thinking” is not concerned about the “little ones” that are hurt by a lack of concern for the earth, and the environment. I will give an example of what I mean in a minute, or two. For now here is story about a mother duck and her little ones; a simple story about how the natural world is tugging at our pant-legs, asking us to take notice at what damage we are doing:*** “Vancouver was treated to a „tug at your heartstrings‟ story a couple of years ago… A duck came up to a policeman and tugged at his pant-legs. Holding his pants in her bill, the duck hung on. The policeman didn‟t know what to do. This was clearly beyond his experience. Suddenly, the duck let go, waddled away, then turned and looked at the police officer. Was it a game? The duck kept repeating the performance, catching his pants in her bill, tugging hard, then walking away and looking at him. Finally the policeman got the idea she wanted him to do something. He walked over to her and saw that she was waiting for him by a manhole cover. The policeman dropped on his knees and looked down. Immediately he saw the reason for the duck‟s dilemma – fluffy balls of down and a chorus of cheeps. Clearly, this was no game. Of course this was a job for the police! With the aid of a vegetable strainer, the long arm of the law reached down
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and scooped up eight wee ducklings.”
Prophets and Judgment If we look carefully, and listen to prophets such as David Suzuki, we will hear that all kinds of “little ones” are asking us to take more serious steps towards a new way of thinking and acting. So we turn to this passage in Matthew, 25th chapter, where we have a teaching that is attributed to Jesus. A teaching where we learn a little more about what God values and what God loves. Let us take a brief look at this parable about how we are judged, as we end our time together in this years Season of Creation. William Barclay, in his commentary on Matthew, vol. 2, says: “This is one of the most vivid parables Jesus ever spoke, and the lesson is crystal clear – that God will judge us in accordance with our reaction to human need.” Yes, the parable is clear that we are not judged by what we believe, or what we feel might be the right action, nor the fortune we have gained, or the fame that we have acquired, or by how wonderful our worship is, but on the help that we have given those in need.** The “Little Ones” from of the Earth
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In a week when people in Whitmore Park are feeling upset about how planned marsh lands and grass‟ are being ignored and under valued, I want to suggest to you that if Jesus of Nazareth were living in Whitmore Park today he too would add his list, with the words, “whatever you do to the Earth, you do it also to me”. Friends, am I so off the mark if I were to add to this list a concern for global warming, since it is clear that we have seen Jesus‟ love for the lilies, birds, and all of the created earth? It was made clear that Jesus tells his disciples that God loves and values the created world and will take care of it. Is it not clear that he would call on his disciples to care for what God loves and values. The Little Ones of Walkerton One example that really struck me in the heart lately – out of the countless examples I read about in the Leader Post every day- came from rereading an excellent lenten resource called Living Waters; if I may close with these words by Ian McDonald: In Mark, Jesus also said: If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me…** I have wondered how the passage from Matthew, or this passage from Mark might be read by CEOs? “Daily, it seems, small investors reel as their savings disappear in scandals that reek of greed and overreaching authority. It is our oldest story: giants of commerce lionized in the media stand revealed – full of
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lies and bluster. A righteous fury ensues, which sells a lot of papers, but little else changes. In and through the scandal process, we sense in those unmasked a lack of caring for those whom they have hurt; they delay and deny and postpone, selling nothing, living well. Is it the economy that creates heroes like these: a leadership elite with no sense of responsibility or ethics? Are these the values the market perpetuates? And how are we to live differently?” Do we live differently? What do we do to tell our governments that we do not want to live this way. McDonald adds: “It is now a few years since Walkerton: water quality, death, and betrayal were issues of the day, causes of stumbling for a community of “little ones”… Well #5 was the source of the e-coli that caused sickness and the seven deaths. ..No action was taken on that report. It was seen as too expensive, and Walkerton was left an accident waiting to happen.” McDonald then suggests we remember the Creed that is on the back of our summer bulletin. He tells the story about how there was a new amendment added as environmental concerns became so important to United Church congregations: “In 1994, the United Church‟s A New Creed was amended to include the phrase, “to live with respect in Creation.” One delegate, as the motion was debated, opposed the change. He said: “Creeds are about belief, not about ethics! This amendment adds nothing we need to know about God. All it says is we should take better care of where we live!” His viewpoint
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failed to persuade General Council. I‟m glad of the change. What is more real than the amazing gift of the world we awake to each day? Given our history of civilization, I imagine Jesus would amend some of his own words to make “living in respect” even clearer: “Whatever you do to Earth, you do to me!” *** Friends from Sunset United, friends of Whitmore Park United, I want to go further: I, along with Sally McFague want to suggest that we need a clear theological approach to global warming where we learn to “limit what we consume”, and learn as a society to “clean up behind ourselves”***** This sounds easier than it is, in the society we live in today. But it is necessary, since the “earth is the body of Christ”! May we drink deep, as a tree sitting by the living waters; drink deep of all that our Creator God values and loves – drink deep of God’s unending love for the created world. Drink deep, knowing that the earth too is the body of Christ. This is my hope and my prayer: may that knowledge and love for all of Christ’s body grow deep inside your heart as we close this Season of Creation. Come drink deep**** – for each part is a part of each other part. We all are part of one another”, as we welcome too “the least of these”. Amen.***** Notes for further study:
*The parables you will remember are short stories that teach a lesson; koans are little phrases that are meant to puzzle and therefore make us ponder and learn.
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** Mark 9:42; see also page 325 of William Barclay’s commentary on Matthew, vol 2 Barcley tells this story: Martin of Tours. He was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold, and Martin gave what he had. He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak. One of the angels said to him, “Master, why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you?” And Jesus answered softly, “My servant Martin gave it to me.” ***You will find the duck story on p 46; see Living Waters, for an excellent environmental resource for lent and other times of the year, by Ian McDonald Note that I have edited and rewritten parts of this passage, p 76-7. ****Carolyn McDade, Come Drink Deep *****Sallie McFague made these suggestions at the Gerneral Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, 2007; see Dean Raymond’s comments on the Quebec City Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral website, July 2007. For further reading on the theological meaning of “the little ones” in modern theology see the excellent work by Sallie McFaque’s book called The Body of God; I highly recommend this book for further study on an ecological theology that is so necessary in this day and age. I also recommend the article “An Earthly Theological Agenda”: we have several copies you can borrow at the church. It is a good summary of McFague‟s thinking about how theology must not only asks how “we can know God, but how we can change the world”. She sees this as a necessary shift in theology since we are not talking only about “how we can change the world but how we can save it from deterioration and its species from extinction.” She argues that theology must not only recognize what human beings are being oppressed but that a major focus needs to be added that includes in the oppressed category the earth and all oppressed earth creatures, for “everything on this planet is interrelated and interdependent and hence the fate of each is tied to the fate of the whole.” This paradigm shift has come as we realize that the ecological deteriorating is real and increasing, although it is a slower death, compared to the nuclear threat. We are to no longer see ourselves as “aliens or tourists” but „earthlings” with a renewed story of creation that includes all in a creation spirituality. Post modern science makes clear that we are interdependent, intercalated and that it is too late for games. God‟s love for all of creation is the planetary agenda of all theology in the 21st century – challenging humanity to move beyond nationalism, militarism, limitless economic growth, consumerism, uncontrollable population growth and ecological deterioration. Theology is now an “earthy affair”: helping people live rightly on the earth, our home.
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I love McFague‟s theological work and highly recommend her “earthy theology”. I agree, as all liberation theologies have also argued, there needs to stronger emphasis on praxis and action in our theological stance as we move into the 21st century. It can no longer, as McFague makes clear in the above paper, be a field of study only, but must be a prophetic call to action – for the sake of our earth we all need “earthy spiritualities”!! You may want to take a summer course with her at VST? Her books include Metaphorical Theology, Models of God, The Body of God, Super, Natural Christians, Life Abundant – Rethinking Theology and Economy for Planet in Peril.
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