|
|
|
Rev. Tom
Lenhart Genesis 1: 26-31 The Board of Mission and Service -- our colleagues who initiate and oversee outreach by this church -- have taken on the task of bringing before us -- for thoughtful discussion and action -- the issue of the future of our precious environment. As part of that educational effort this Friday night, October 12th, the Board will show an expanded version of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” in the Parish Hall, followed by a brief question and answer time lead by a Sierra Club member. Even if you have seen the movie, I urge you to come and talk with others about this crucial issue. Some months ago I agreed to preach this Sunday on our responsibility for the environment from a theological perspective. At the time I did not realize that this was also World Communion Sunday. On this Sunday churches -- such as this one – recognize that on this day from Pretoria to Perth, from New York to New Delhi, from Rio to Rome, Christians are engaged in the same act of celebrating the sacrament of Communion and in so doing are recognizing the universal gift of new life and forgiveness of sins in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are this day, and indeed every day, symbolically linked arm and arm with the faithful in every hamlet, village, town and city throughout this world where God is worshiped and communion celebrated. That symbolism is also apt for any discussion of the environment. If there is any thing that is self-evident today, it is the reality of our interdependence. Ben Franklin told his colleagues, as they contemplated adopting the Declaration of Independence in the face of British power and might, “we must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately.” With respect to the environment we must all nurture and sustain our environment or we will all assuredly perish. Some of you at this moment may be asking yourself – why choose this scripture passage from Genesis as the text for a sermon about the environment. The passage is a portion of the first creation story found in the book of Genesis; that story recounts the creation in six days of the heavens and the earth and all that dwells therein – with God resting on the seventh day. This story is a myth, written to explain how Yahweh – the one God of the Israelites – created the world. This myth is drawn in part from earlier Babylonian creation stories, like the Enuma elish. That does not, however, make it false or unworthy of our consideration and study. There is profound truth in the great works of fiction -- so too with this story. The challenge is to find that divine truth and not to be preoccupied with the quaint but quite clearly unscientific aspects of this creation story. The sixth day focused -- as you just heard in the passage Jonnie read -- on the creation of man and woman: Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created them…. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion …over every living thing that moves upon the earth’
When we discussed this passage in bible study this week the reaction was decidedly negative. People felt that this was hardly an appropriate text to use to talk about how we should act with respect to the environment consistent with our faith. One person said, “It sounds so arrogant – we are to subdue the earth and have dominion over all the creatures that live on it.” On first blush it is hard to argue with that point. Who did the author of Genesis think human beings were, gods with free reign to treat the world around them as they wished? And yet I submit that Genesis got it right and profoundly so in discussing our relationship with our environment. The key words and phrases in this passage -- the one’s that make us uncomfortable --“subdue”, “master”, “rule” and “have dominion over ” are accurately descriptive of our relationship with nature. What I mean by that -- is they correctly describe the power we have vis a vis nature; they do not necessarily prescribe how we should use that power. Such a prescription, I believe, is found elsewhere in our passage. We do have enormous power over nature though perhaps not full dominion. The authors of Genesis were right about their world and even more they are right about ours. Think about what we can and do do with respect to the world around us. We have turned deserts into gardens from the Southwest of this country to the arid expanses of Israel. We have changed the course of rivers, even reversed their flow as with the Chicago River. We have changed in profound ways the genetic makeup of our grains and fruits. We have created hybrid fruits and vegetables that are resistant to disease, grow bigger, and stay ripe for long periods. Through advances in cellular biology, we are developing treatments and perhaps even cures for disease. And we stand on the threshold to a new world of genetic engineering that may permit us to reverse genetic defects that cause profound disabilities. We have the power to and have changed the warp and weft of nature in profound ways that have benefited humankind and the animals and plants of our world. And more is likely in the future. But then there is a dark side to our power. Through our unceasing and sometimes thoughtless expansion of our developed world, we have reduced the forests, endangered and lost crucial species and with them unique and irreplaceable genes. By our actions we have threatened our supplies of the natural resources that sustain all life here. For every 2 human beings that lived in the world in 1975 there were 3 in 2000 and during that same period the water supplies of the world decreased 35% on a per capita basis.[1] We multiple our numbers with little thought to the impact of such growth on the world and with few measures taken to minimize or ameliorate the negative impacts on our environment. For me the dark side of our power is brought home when I return annually to the beaches of my youth -- ones that I have walked for over 50 years. No longer are these remote beaches pristine, but everywhere one looks and walks there are bits and pieces of non-biodegradable plastic. Hermit crabs now find homes in plastic bottles tops and containers because they are more numerous and permanent than the snail shells that served as their homes for eons. Can there be any doubt that we have enormous power over our environment? Genesis was right; humankind -- through our capacity to think creatively and analytically and to use tools -- has been given power over nature as no other. That is the insight of Genesis. The earlier creation myths contemplated a world in which human beings were slaves to the gods -- hence the building of temples and the offering of sacrifices. The theology of the Israelites was different – Yahweh created human beings out of love and gave them these gifts of intelligence and dexterity to allow them to thrive in the world given them by God. We have been given a gift of this unique world that we live in and extraordinary power to affect that world in positive as well as negative ways. The key is how we use our power. The crucial guidance for us in using our power is also found in our passage from Genesis in these words, “Let us make human kind in our image, according to our likeness…” What does this mean for our relationship to our environment? First, it does not mean that we are Gods. Indeed, it is when we act like God that we get into real trouble. No, what Genesis is telling us is that we are at our best -- as God intended -- when we reflect God’s loving act of creation through our actions. Just as God has treated us and all creation with love and nurture so that we will thrive and grow, so too must we treat the living things around us including our world in the same way. Certainly, we have great power, but it is to be exercised in love to keep the world in its magnificent and sustaining diversity. God says to Adam when he puts him in the Garden of Eden “till it and keep it.”(Genesis 2: 15). This is a great reminder that creation is not ours to destroy. We did not make or initiate it. Simply because we have the power to affect, indeed, to destroy it does not make it ours. We are not gods standing above creation. We are in its midst. We are part of something that is profoundly bigger than we are and without which we cannot survive. We are, therefore, to be powerful yet loving stewards of the world in which we find ourselves. Above all else our divine mandate is to sustain the world we have been give -- to live in harmony with it, not exploit or destroy it. The words of Chief Seneca capture this sense of stewardship not ownership:
What marvelous and profound words. I am in awe of our Native American brothers and sisters in their reverence for and loving co-existence with nature. I would amend Chief Seneca’s words only slightly to add that while we did not weave the web of life and are a strand in it, we do have the unique capacity and power to unravel that web. That metaphor of a web is a most apt one for us as we think about the environment. At the heart of creation is the concept of interdependence. Without the air we breathe, the water we drink, stable and temperate climes that allow us to grow the food we eat, we will not survive. But our interdependence involves a second element and that is our connection to each other. We are crucially interdependent one human being with another when it comes to the environment. There can be no environmental isolationists in the 21st century. I was in the Adirondacks years ago for vacation. My family and another stopped at a local museum. One of the most interesting exhibits was an illuminated map that showed the lakes and ponds in the Adirondacks Park that had died or were dieing from acid rain. The number was startling. But equally so was the explanation for the problem. There were no sources of acid rain in the park. The sources were the smoke stacks in Michigan City, Gary, Detroit, Windsor, Hamilton, Buffalo and countless other places to the west of the park. Acid rain --you see -- came on the prevailing winds from the west. The decisions and actions of others, hundreds of miles away, were ravaging land that they never saw. Our environmental interdependence was starkly evident. And it is even more so now, as we seek to deal with greenhouse gas emissions that seemingly affect our environment worldwide whether they come from auto pollution or industrial emissions in this country or from Eastern Europe or China. They are all toxically fungible. It all comes back to being made in God’s image. As God loves us and all of creation, so too are we are to love our neighbors and all of creation. Creation is, thus, not ours to be used and discarded but ours to nurture and sustain. If our faith demands anything it is that. How do we love our neighbors when we are doing things, which pollute the water or air somewhere else? The faithful calculus we must make about our actions cannot simply be what is good for us, our family, our special group or even our nation. In every corner of the world are our neighbors to be loved. As we are linked on this World Communion Sunday with those of faith everywhere, we are linked every hour of every day with all of creation when it comes to the environment. We are each stewards of creation for all of our neighbors worldwide. As one of the participants noted in Bible study this week, “I’m concerned about the world my grandchildren will live in.” Indeed we should be worried about the world all of the world’s grandchildren will live in! A couple of final thoughts -- First, we must not despair and give up. The passages of the Old Testament are filled with the trials, tribulations and failures of the chosen people and yet God never gives up on them. So too must we not give up or withdraw in the face of the large seemingly insurmountable challenges before us. Second, the God of the Old Testament is a realist. He confronts the challenges directly -- so too must we. A mother was asked where her son was serving in the Navy during World War II. She said in the “illusion islands”. Let us never dwell there. We too must be realists. The environmental challenges to our life and to those who will live in the future are real. Whether you accept a significant human component to global warming as I do or not, isn’t it wise to reduce our use and dependence on non-renewal energy sources in any event. Ask yourself, would you rather be wrong about global warming and unnecessarily reduced our carbon footprints and cause some temporary albeit serious economic hardships? Or would you rather be wrong in denying a human factor in global warming and do nothing until either it is too late or enormously more expensive to reverse? Which is the choice of a true steward? Finally, we should recognize the truth of those bumper stickers that say, “Think globally, act locally”. The environment is for each of us a sacred trust. We are all part of it and affect it. Small things matter; planting trees, conservation of water, our electrical usage are all things we can control. But unlike the bumper sticker we must do more than “think” globally. We must at the very least demand that our leaders on the global stage think and act as stewards of the environment. We must identify and support those -- whatever their party -- who understand our global interdependence and work with others not to preserve perceived economic advantages but so we can all survive and thrive in a natural world that continues to be creative and enduring and diverse. The heavens and the earth are our sacred trust – let them be preserved in our powerful, yet faithful and loving, hands. Amen |
|
