Erin Mills United Church Sermons

A Spiritual Value for Earth Community

Philippians 2:1-8 Luke 9:46-48

A sermon by Kathy Toivanen at EMUC, 6/15/2003

How big is your footprint? Take a look at your feet. Are you a size 10, a 7, a 12 or 6 ½ ? How much space do your feet take up? “How big is your footprint?” was the theme of a children’s program that we offered here at Erin Mills a couple of years ago. At the time, we were engaged in the Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative. Through this initiative, churches around the world took time to focus on the vision of a world community that is reflected in the book of Leviticus. Leviticus 25 describes a Jubilee vision of right relationships with God, the community and the earth. For three years, we focused on the practice of Jubilee through the themes of “Release from Bondage”, “Redistribution of Wealth”, and “Renewal of the Earth”. During the year we focused on ‘Renewal of the Earth’, we used a resource created by William Rees and the Task Force on Healthy and Sustainable Communities at the University of British Columbia. The “ecological footprint” was created to be an ecological accounting tool to measure the environmental impact of human activities. Using this accounting tool to assess resources used in the home, ways of travel and transportation, food consumption, the purchase of goods, the production and disposal of waste, each person was able to determine the size of their footprint on the earth. Through this exercise, we discovered that the average Canadian ecological footprint is 6 to 7.7 hectares and that the only country with a larger footprint are the Americans, with a size 9.7. This means is that as Canadians, each one of us needs 6 to 7 hectares of the earth on this planet in order to continue to live at our current level of consumption of the earth’s resources. We also learned that in order to provide a fair share for the entire world population, our footprint should only be 1.2. And if we wanted offer the entire world population the current North American sized footprint we would need, in less than 50 years, the equivalent of 5 earths to provide the necessary resources.

Well, what does all of this have to do with the focus of today’s sermon. Today’s sermon is really a second part to the sermon I preached 2 weeks ago. Those of you who were here, will remember that I referred to a book by David Hallman called “Spiritual Values for Earth Community.” David is on the national staff of the United Church of Canada and has a portfolio which includes the environment and energy. He has served the World Council of Churches as programme coordinator for climate change. In his book, David outlines seven spiritual values which he feels are essential in contributing to the health of the earth community. And once again, I’ll give you David’s definition of the earth community: it is the world that God loves, a world of creatures, of earth, of humanity that is bound up with one another
- a world where we recognize that the survival of the human community is dependent upon a thriving natural world.
- a world where we recognize that forces of destruction and injustice in the human community seriously threaten the larger natural world.
- a world where we as humans recognize that our health and wholeness is linked to the larger web of life

According to David, a healthy earth community will depend to a large extent on humanity embracing the spiritual values of gratitude, humility, sufficiency, justice, love, peace and faith & hope. A few weeks ago, we highlighted the value of gratitude, and today, we highlight the value of humility. In an age when we encourage self-esteem and personal growth, in an age when women are more successful in cracking the glass ceiling, when Gay Pride Days are celebrated in cities like Toronto, when being proud of your race and heritage is affirmed, isn’t it a backward step to embrace the value of humility?

Let’s be clear first of all what we do and don’t mean by humility. We are not talking here about humiliation , we are not talking about letting others walk all over us, we are not talking about being weak or spineless. To be humble is not to accept victimization or abuse. It does not mean that we are full of self-hate or loathing or that we hid our light under a bushel. It does not mean that we ignore or waste the talents and gifts we have been given. Humility and humble are both derivatives of the Latin word “humus” meaning of the ground or of the earth. To me, that suggests that being humble or practicing humility means that we are grounded; we are rooted; we are connected with the earth. We don’t have our noses in the air, thinking that we are better and greater than we are, but rather we live knowing that as a creature of the earth we need to be attentive and responsive to the earth and its all its creatures if we are to have life.

And so the size of our ecological footprint has everything to do with our practice of humility. When we live with a size 6 or 7 footprint, we are arrogantly insisting that in order to live in this lifestyle, the earth and the lives of its creatures and that of other peoples must be sacrificed. Somewhere along the way, we have decided that we deserve this lifestyle because we believe we are the greatest. But we have acquired that greatness over the centuries through the western imperialism that has raped many lands of resources, plundered the culture and the homeland of aboriginal peoples, and created economic and political policies that still strive to ensure the continuation of our privileged position. If we are to practice true humility, then we need to discover a new understanding of what it means to be great.

Jesus’ teachings about greatness subvert the traditional understanding. In Jesus eyes, greatness has nothing to do with those who have the biggest bank accounts, or strongest armies or the most education, or the loudest voices. Greatness, according to Jesus has everything to do with those who are most vulnerable, those who are most at risk, those most likely to be left out and forgotten. Greatness is to be found in identifying with the Christ who welcomes and serves the ones who are the least – the children, the weak, the poor, the foreigner, the sick, …the list could go on. Jesus’ understanding of greatness and humility go hand in hand. Humility is about embodying those attitudes and practices that seek to create a place, a community, an environment where those most at risk and most in need will be not just be tolerated, but will be welcomed with open arms. Humility is all about making the world hospitable, not just for a few, but for all. Humility is about being intensely concerned with the welfare of the entire community.

To live without humility is to do so at our own peril. Our lack of concern about the welfare of the earth has led to water sources that poison and sicken animals and humans alike. It has led to depleting stocks of fish, to the disappearance of 27,000 species every year, and an acre of rainforest every second. Our lack of humility has led to oversized and outrageous footprints that are trampling God’s good earth. Our lack of concern about the welfare of the community has created great pain and conflict in the world community through international trade policies that continue to oppress and impoverish hundreds of nations, particularly those in the southern hemisphere. It has led to governments that do not adequately care for most vulnerable of their citizens – the poor, those with disabilities, the elderly, and children and youth - particularly as resources have diminished for education and social services.

Jesus calls us to turn this world upside down as we turn the concept of greatness upside down through the practice of humility. How can we get started or be more intentional about living with humility? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Find ways to be connected with the earth. The more we touch the soil, nurture a plant, walk a nature trail, swim in a river or lake, listen to the call of a bird or watch a spider weave a web, the more we will treasure and respect their rightful place in the whole web of life, and the more aware we will become of our interdependence.
2. Take time to complete the ‘Ecological Footprint Questionnaire’ (there are copies on the remembrance table at the back). And after you have completed it, work on ways that you and your household can reduce the size of your footprint on the earth.
3. Speak to me after the service or give me a call at the office, to indicate your interest in helping to form a group that will support and explore ways to reduce the size of our footprint on the earth.
4. Continue or begin to take time to pray daily and worship regularly. With God at the centre of our lives, we will be inclined to put ourselves in the centre and we will be more open to see others through the eyes of Christ.
5. Take an active role in the life of this community of faith. Each one of you has a gift to offer this community – a gift that when not shared diminishes the health and the welfare of the congregation and its ability to attend to the welfare of the larger community. In your participation in this congregation, keep before you, the challenge “How can you and the congregation grow in the practice of making a place for those whom Jesus would welcome into our midst?”
6. Next Sunday, each one of you will be invited to give input into the Joint Needs Assessment which will help to determine the ongoing and future ministries of Erin Mills United. This is your opportunity to affirm the current ministries that reflect hospitality of Christ, and to vision with others new ministries that will deepen and enlarge that welcome.
7. Use Jesus’ perspective on greatness as a lens through which you begin to evaluate government policies, community decisions, the dynamics of your own household and your interpersonal relationships. This of course is a life-long project, but one, which will ever lead us into actions, and lifestyles that seek to create communities and a world that is more healthy and whole.

I’d like to end with a quote from Joan Chittister’s book, Wisdom Distilled From The Daily, which reflects on the spiritual guidelines created by St. Benedict in the 5th century. This is what she has to say in the chapter on humility.
“People who are really humble, who know themselves to be earth or humus – have about themselves, an air of self-containment and self-control. There’s no haughtiness, no distance, no sarcasm, no put downs, no airs of importance or distain. The ability to deal with both their own limitations and the limitations of others, the recognition that God is in life and that they are not in charge of the universe brings serenity and hope, inner peace and real energy. Humble people walk comfortably in every group. No one is either too beneath them or too above them for their own sense of well-being. They are who they are, people with as much to give as to get, and they know it. And because they’re at ease with themselves, they can afford to be open with others…Humility is not a false rejection of God’s gifts…humility is the admission of God’s gifts to me and the acknowledgment that I have been given them for others.”

Accepting the gifts of God and living so that those gifts are given for others, this is what it means to live with humility in God’s earth community. Thanks be to God. Amen.