|
A New Creation
Isaiah55:10-13;Psalm65;2 Corinthians5
A sermon by Kathy Toivanen at EMUC, 3/18/2007
Isaiah 55:10-13;Psalm 65;2 Corinthians 5:16-21
In his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" on global warming, Al Gore makes the following statement: "An astonishing number of people go straight from denial about global warming to despair that nothing can be done, without pausing on the intermediate step of saying, ‘We can do something about this!’"
Today I want to focus on the intermediate step and remind us all that ‘we can do something about this’. Faith and hope go hand in hand, and our faith tradition is no exception. Time and time again, in the stories of the Bible we find stories where out of brokenness and despair, out of suffering and death, hope springs forth.
In the epic flood story, a single green branch in the beak of a dove brings the promise of dry land.
A friendship forged in prison brings about the release of the captive Joseph, freeing him to save Egypt from famine, freeing him to initiate reconciliation with his brothers.
Moses, a fugitive and a murder becomes God’s servant and leads his people out of slavery into freedom.
Exiles in Babylon, who never expected to go home again, are restored to hope by the words of those like the prophet Isaiah. And out of the ruins they rebuild their nation and their temple.
Prodigal sons who waste their inheritance return home and find a father waiting to embrace and throw a party in their honour.
Women weeping at the cross of their crucified friend and teacher go to the tomb expecting death and decay and leave with the awesome news of the resurrection.
And to a fledgling new church, dealing with many fears and conflicts, Paul writes, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; everything has become new!"
Friends, as people in Christ, we cannot cling to the old tired ways of seeing the world. We can no longer sit by and passively let God’s good creation suffer and die. For as Paul says, ‘God has given us the ministry of reconciliation, a ministry of joining in Christ’s work of reconciling not just people, but all the world to God.’
In other words, we are called, in word and deed to restore the world to its true and rightful relationship to God. We are called to restore the world to the state of health and goodness that God intended at creation.
What I find remarkable is the number of different people who are giving voice to this very message.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as many of you know, is an environmental lawyer. In a speech entitled ‘For the Sake of Our Children’, he said,
Human beings have other appetites besides money, and if we don’t feed them we’re not going to become the kind of beings that our Creator intended. When we destroy nature we impoverish ourselves, we diminish ourselves and we impoverish our children.
I don’t want a world where we’ve lost touch with the seasons and the tides and the things that connect us to the ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops, and that connect us ultimately to God.
I don’t believe that nature is God or that we ought to be worshiping it as God, but I do believe that it’s the way that God talks to us most clearly. God talks to human beings through many vectors: through each other, through organized religion, through the great books of those religions, through wise people, through art, literature, music and poetry—but nowhere with such clarity, texture, grace and joy as through Creation.
We know our Creator best by studying Creation, which all of the religious texts mandate us to do. If you look at all of the great, central epiphany in every religious tradition…revelation always occurs in the wilderness. Buddha had to go into the wilderness to experience self-realization. Mohamed had to go to the wilderness of Mount Hira in 629 and wrestle an angel in the middle of the night to have the Koran squeezed out of him. Moses had to go onto the wilderness of Mount Sinai to get the Commandments. The Jews had to spend 40 years in the wilderness to purge themselves of the 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Christ had to spend 40 days in the wilderness to discover his divinity. His mentor was John the Baptist, a man of the wilderness who lived in a cave in the Jordan Valley and dressed in the skins of wild animals.
Kennedy goes on to say that when we destroy the wilderness and the beauty and bounty of creation; we’re cutting ourselves off from the very things that make us human, that give us a spiritual life.
‘Faith & the Common Good’ is a Canadian Interfaith Coalition funded for 5 years in part by the Atkinson Foundation. Most recently they have created the ‘Green Rule Poster’ to remind us that caring for the earth is foundational in all the major world religions. One of their key projects is called, ‘Greening Sacred Spaces’. This is a practical programme to assist faith communities to renew the sacred balance in creation and to reduce their energy consumption. They have developed a resource kit, which I recently obtained for EMUC. The kit includes print and DVD resources showing the practical changes some faith communities have already made around energy consumption and environmentally friendly products and practices both within and outside of their buildings.
On Sunday April 15th they are hosting a day-long event to help faith communities explore energy efficiency and alternative energy sources, eco-friendly options for faith communities with include things that we are already practicing like community gardens and the use of ‘Fair Trade’ products.
As well, Architect Roberto Chiotti will speak about green design and the construction of the new St. Gabriel’s in North York, which is now hailed as Canada’s greenest church. I have posted the flyer on the bulletin board by the office, and it would be wonderful if we had a few folks from EMUC to attend the event.
Of course, in the United Church of Canada, David Hallman has been tireless in his work on linking our faith with care of creation. David is the author of many books on the care of creation, including Spiritual Values For Earth Community, which I highly recommend. David has also worked with KAIROS, a Canadian Ecumenical organization that unites eleven agencies and denominations (including ours) for education and action in social justice and environmental issues. Very usable and informative resources were created last year by KAIROS on the use and conservation of water. Much of the work on the energy and the environment of the World Council of Churches has been through David’s significant contribution.
Across the border, in the USA, the National Council of Churches has a comprehensive website which shows their work in educating and encouraging their member churches to take action to care for the earth and to reduce global warming.
In particular, one of their member churches, the Episcopal Church is giving dedicated and inspired leadership when it comes to action. Through the initiative of Sally Bingham, a priest with Grace Cathedral Episcopal Church in San Francisco, the ‘Regeneration Project’ was founded - a nonprofit ministry focusing on a response to global climate change.
One of the Regeneration Project’s key initiatives is called ‘Interfaith Power and Light’. They are active in about a dozen states, educating congregations and helping them buy energy efficient lights and appliances, providing energy audits and implementing the recommendations, encouraging people to buy more fuel efficient vehicles and to drive less, supporting renewable energy development, working on large-scale renewable energy installation projects such as rooftop solar and advocating for sensible energy and global warming policy.
Sally’s leadership has brought widespread attention to the links between ecological issues and the Christian Faith. She was appointed by Mayor Willie Brown to serve on the Commission on the Environment for the City and County of San Francisco. In 2001 she received the Green Power Leadership Pilot Award from the Center for Resource Solutions, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Dept of Energy. Episcopal Power and Light was recognized as a Sacred Gift to the Planet by the World Wildlife Fund in 2000. The Regeneration Project received international Global Energy Award 2002. Sally Bingham received this "energy oscar" in Austria from President Mikhail Gorbachev in March 2002.
When one interviewer asked Sally how she got involved in this ministry she replied,
…our liturgies almost always include elements of the natural world. For me, the Holy Eucharist [communion] symbolizes not only Christ's presence, but also our dependence on nature; without bread, water, and land, we could not survive…It was that belief that led me to pursue my environmental commitments within the context of the Church. I didn't believe that we should be baptizing with polluted water. It made no sense to me to wash people of their sins with water that itself had been sinned against. To say it differently, I believe that the people in the pews are the ones who should be leading the movement to care for creation. We are the people who profess a love of God and God's world. As such we must be stewards and caretakers of the Earth…
So in the words of Sally and in the words of St. Paul, God has given us a ministry of reconciling the world to God! As ambassadors and as a new creation in Christ, may we live up to our high calling. Amen.
|
