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In the name of God in whom we believe, but cannot see.
Ecology is religious. There, I have said it!! Everyone sit back, itís Earth
Sunday. Ecological issues are religious issues and environmental issues are
spiritual issues. Life is religious and oneís spiritual life is dependent
upon a relationship with the Creator and the Creation. Without them we have no
life. All life is dependent upon the Creator in whom we live and move and have
our being. Without one we will not have the other: Without a healthy
ecological system we cannot live healthy lives.
In case any of you think that environmental issues donít belong in church.
Think Again!! If you are here today because you have a deep faith in God and
consider yourself a Christian, believe this. You are an environmentalist. You
may not like that word because it carries baggage with it but we can repack the
bagge to mean “a person who cares for others and their neighbor”. If you
donít want to be called an environmentalist because it sounds liberal, democratic
and political then call it something else: call it stewardship of Creation,
call it concern for the legacy we leave for future generations, call it being
“mindful of your behavior”. Call it “loving others as I have loved you”.
Remind yourselves that “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God
and not one thing came into being that didnít come through the word”. Jesus was
there “in the beginning". All living things will be reconciled to God through
Jesus, not just you, me and other humans. All things, all life. Everything
that God created and called “good”. As a Christian, you and I are called to
be care takers of Godís Creation. Care for Creation is central to Christology.
It belongs right along side love, justice and peace. It is not ours to
exploit and to use UP. It is for us to preserve, nurture and keep healthy for the
next generations.
If you hadnít realized that your faith calls you to protect and love
Creation, but are willing to at least entertain the idea, hold the thought and here is
something else to think about. The environmental community is not doing a
very good job protecting Creation. After thirty yearsÖÖÖ
“The human race has only one, or perhaps two generations to rescue itself,”
Overuse of resources, pollution and destruction of natural areas continue to
threaten life on the planet. Conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly, the
report says. Although there are some hopeful signs in that technical solutions
to the problems have been found and - where there is political will ñ
adopted, in most cases nothing is being done. The state of the world's natural life
support system is perhaps the most worrying indicator for the future, says the
report. About 30% of the world's surviving forests are seriously fragmented or
degraded, and they are being cut down at the rate of 50,000sq miles a year.
Wetlands have been reduced by 50% over the last century. The 20th annual
State of the World report concludes with, “The longer that no remedial action is
taken, the greater the degree of misery and biological impoverishment that
humankind must be prepared to accept,”
So, in the future, from today onÖ. it is going to be up to us, you and me and
other communities of faith around this country to take a leadership role in
the protection of our land, air and water and subsequently our health. If
people of faith donít take on this role, how can we expect others to? It is our
responsibility. Furthermore, I must remind you that our baptismal vows denounce
forces of evil that destroy Creation. Our baptismal vows.
We may not think that we matter when the problems are not on our doorstep,
but we do matter. Every one of us and every one of our behaviors matter. Our
choices matter. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the coffee we drink the
electricity we use and the cars we drive. These behaviors all affect someone
else and many cases, these behaviors affect others adversely. Might we begin to
live our lives in a way that shows our love for God? If we recognize God as
the source and sustainer of everything, letís live that way.
God loves us and God loves the Creation, which was created to sustain us.
Our role is to be in relationship with God in such a way that God, our Creator
might know our love. We live for God, do we not! Listen to the lesson from
the first letter of John. “If we say that we have fellowship with him while we
are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in
the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
This relationship with God must strive to be a harmonious one. If we walk in
the light with one another and with all living things we carry forth our
faith. We must love the whooping crane and the forest for their own sake, not just
for what they can do for us or what USE they are. Use, yes, but exploit and
plunder, no! Sustainable use, conservation and sharing rather than greed and
hoarding
We are destroying rainforests before we even know the value of what is there.
Medicines and cures are being rapidly extinguished. And as my young friend
in Japan asked me at a conference. “Why do you adults destroy things that you
donít know how to bring back?” She said that she was raised not to take things
apart if she didnít know how to put them back together.
Each of us has a working theology. Each of us has a place where we center
(ourselves) on God; A place where God works through us. We live into that
center. Some of our working theologies are in lesser-developed stages than others,
but if we live lives for God we do things that are pleasing to God. We love
each other and we can, and mostly do, demonstrate that love in many different
ways. Some work with the homeless, some with the elderly and sick, some with
children, some in prisons and some of us are just nice people who are kind to
strangers, ushers here at the Cathedral, some feed the hungry. My working
theology is to live and lead a life that demonstrates love of Creation. In this
way, I show my love for God; I drive a small car, have compost in my back
yard, and walk when I can, reduce purchases of things I donít really need, and
conserve both energy and water. What is your working theology? Where in your
daily life do you show God your love?
If you havenít found your niche, why not try showing God your love through
living a sustainable live style. Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by
what we get; we make a life by what we give.”“Jn. 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.” )
People will you know us by the example we set.
Some of you may doubt the seriousness of environmental problems: the global
warming, the spread of disease, toxins in the water and particulates in the
air, the high and rising rates of cancer and asthma. There will always be
doubting Thomases, but please donít be one. You can be one, but not about this
issue. Donít wait until the wounds are at your door. You donít need to touch
and feel what the Scientist know. Donít be afraid to believe them. The
problems are real: more study and delay is only allowing things to get things worse.
According to the National Academy of Science, over 90% of the worldís
accredited scientists agree that human activities are destroying creation. They
donít call it Creation, for them it is the planet, the living organism that
sustains all life.
For religious people the living organism that gives us life is the Creation
that God called "good" and gave us dominion over. However, it is a very
dangerous notion for us to think that meant we are the center of the universe. God
created this world, and put us here to care for it, but we seem to be busy
decreating. We have decreated almost everything that God gave us to care for.
There is almost no place in America that we might call pristine. When we go
hiking in the mountains now or into a park to sit under a tree, you see coke
cans or plastic bags. Trash covers our beaches, lies in the bottom of rivers
and streams and once you see that bottle or can, the nature of nature is
changed. At least for me. I go into the wild for peace, for communion with the
Divine, for a reminder of my relationship with God and for quiet and to be alone.
I canít find that anymore. There are snowmobiles racing through our national
parks, airplanes and helicopters flying over, noise from cars and worst of
all, trash.
All I need when I am out in nature to quickly ruin the communion is one
plastic six pack holder on the trail or in the bottom of an otherwise clear stream.
Humans are everywhere and seemingly determined to leave footprints.
Nature isnít the same as it used to be. Humans are creating and decreating.
There is hardly a natural anything left. We humans have our influence
everywhere and the most startling of all is the climate. We have influenced the
climate. Fifty years ago no one would have thought that possible. Image,
(pause) the insurance company can no longer claim the severe storms and falling
trees are acts of God. You can tell them that there are no more acts of God. The
storm damage is the result of human behavior. The increase in carbon dioxide
that we have put into the atmosphere has upset the balance that God put into
place and now the storms are far more severe and more frequent than ever
before. We are influencing every aspect of what was once called the force of
nature.
What this is leading up to is a question, if we destroy nature, what are we
doing to our relationship with God? What does it mean, when God is no longer
in charge, but we are? Genetically engineering plants and cloning animals,
changing the climate, killing vast numbers of species that were sacred with their
own intrinsic right to life? Bill McKibbon, a writer and naturalist, asks
the question: “Have we become Godís equal in terms of what happens in the
natural world or is there an natural world anymore?”
I struggle with these issues and I have no answers only questions, but it
scares me because I am a great fan of the theologian Paul Tillich who said the
answers are in the questions.
What are we to do? Well, for starters, donít doubt the seriousness of the
ecological issues and the condition of the planet. Believe the scientists.
Then lets start to live lives that demonstrate love for one another and love for
God. We can do that by shifting whatís in our own self-interest. If, instead
of the bigger is better, more is better attitude, we can open our hearts to
recognize the truth which is that more and bigger are not always better, but
rather destructive and harmful even to the owner. If we are going to look after
ourselves which most people seek to do, understand that it is in our own
interest to become conservationist.
It is most probably love that will transform us. If we can learn to love the
natural world, we will protect it and if we love one another we will want
future generations to share the bounty that we have had during our time here..
I will interrupt myself for a moment to describe thirty minutes of my Friday
afternoon. I left my office about six and went down to Crissy Field. It had
just stopped raining, but the sky to the north was still stormy, to the east
the sun was out. The normally calm beach was being hit with medium size waves
and the sound was wonderful. A large blue heron was standing like a statue in
the lagoon. I walked along and took in all the amazing beauty around San
Francisco. We are so blessed to live here. Our Presidio still has foxes and at
least one coyote. I felt guilty taking in all the natural beauty that so few
people get to see much less live in the midst of. We can ski, four hours away,
surf, swim, bike on trails, hike within minutes of our homes and all in such
splendor. As I thought about what I would say to you today, it occurred to me
that I should have rented a couple of buses and taken you all to a beautiful
natural place and just asked you to love it and appreciate it. We donít harm
what we love. If our hearts can be transformed to love what God has given us, we
will become caretakers of the earth. Become environmentalist. We will want to
protect our air, land and water and we will become informed as to how to do
that.
So lets bring our religious lives, our faith, and the natural world together
into a working theology. Make the connection between ecology and faith and
become a steward of creation, a good neighbor, a person who cares about the
legacy we leave for the next generations, and, without shame, become an
environmentalist.
Amen
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