« Flocking to Tranquility | Main | God’s In Sight »
Partners in Care of the Earth
By Administrator | July 19, 2007
a Sermon based on Psalm 8
Palm Bay, FL, June 3, 2007
by Scott Elliott
When I was a teenager I left the theologically conservative churches of my youth and I eventually vowed not to return to any Christian church.
One of the troubles with this move was that as a kid I wanted to be a pastor. I felt called to be a pastor, and, well, see, it’s kinda hard to be a pastor when you don’t have a church, especially if you have vowed to not return to one.
As you can see I did not stick to these vows. After two decades I returned to the church. I answered the call to be a pastor; and I might add very thankfully so.
I like to say that for almost twenty years I wandered in the wilderness before I found the United Church of Christ – a denomination that has worked out extremely well for me, beyond my wildest hopes.
Wilderness is a good word for where I was during my wandering. Wilderness is where Moses and the Hebrews wandered before settling in the promise land. It’s a good metaphor for me in my churchless days and then my finding the promise land – at least for me– in the United Church of Christ.
But the wilderness is also literally where I would go and feel closest to God when I had no church. I’d take my baby children on walks at the beach or in the forests of Oregon and there, and well, everywhere, the mouths of those babes and infants, their very existence would cry out to me that God exists.
How could such amazing beings make me love them so much just by being? It’s a miracle to me that to just hold a baby is to experience the presence and work of God. I truly believe this– and I believed it even as I was un-churched, in the wilderness.
Today we heard Shelle sing so beautifully that “Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark . . .” – those amazing children in my arms were a bulwark, a stronghold of Love. God is Love and resides right there in those little bulwarks we call babies.
As I wandered in the wilderness I felt that I had to reject not only the view of my of churches, but similar views of God espoused in the media by televangelists the God who punished folks who disagreed with the televangelists’ views of things.
A God of love who’d cause pain and sorrow did not work for me. I was I felt an atheist to that God
But at the same time I’d look at my fingers, I’d be out in the wilderness and I’d look at the moon and the stars, I’d hold my babies and look at my wife and our love, and I could not help it, I knew through those things that God existed.
The truth is that laying on my back and looking up at the vast milky way on a clear night in those pin pricks of light on the dark blanket of sky I felt God winking at me.
The truth is that in the mysterious upward arching sliver of a silver moon I felt God smiling at me.
The truth is that in the magnificent machinations of my very own hand and fingers and those of my children I felt God reaching out and touching me.
And I wondered why? Why in all the vastness and splendor of creation would God wink and smile and reach out and touch me? Or for that matter anyone? What are human beings that God is mindful of us? That God cares for us?
You also heard Shelle sing so beautifully the words “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”"
How did the Psalmist who lived nearly three thousand years ago know what I’d be feeling? How’d he know to write a Psalm just for me?
Of course, as much as I might like to think that Psalm 8 has been waiting around through millennia just for me to show up, it was written and has been preserved for thousands of years because the Psalm describes common human experiences. In one way or another God’s presence has been made known not just to me, but, to many people in the glory of creation.
Haven’t you felt God in a baby?
Surely God has winked at you in the stars.
You must have seen God smile at you through the moon.
I have no doubt that God has reached out and touched you.
Why would God do this? Why would God take time to give us any attention at all?
And Psalm 8 tells us that God does not just give us attention. God made us only a little lower that God, crowned us with glory and honor.
And God gave us dominion over the works of [God’d] hands; [God] put all things under [our] feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
God’s power as Sovereign over creation has been imparted to us. As The New Interpreter’s Bible commentary puts it,
This . . . has profound implications for understanding both God and humanity. God and humans are partners in the care of creation, because God has made the risky choice to share God’s power.
Think about it. God’s not just smiling and winking and giving us love, God is so taken with us, thinks so highly of us that God has given us enormous power. A share of God’s own power.
As creatures in creation we have been entrusted with power over all of the works of God’s hand. This power is not ours but given by God, derived from God, it’s not of our own creation.
Yikes! As the beings on earth selected by God to wield dominion, God’s dominion, over the works of God, how do you think we are doing?
Have we been good caretakers?
It does not seem humankind has been wielding its God given dominion over the earth very well.
Maybe I am naive and unsophisticated but I doubt very much that there are very many, whether Republicans or Democrats, Conservatives or Liberals, who would seriously claim that humankind has as a whole been a good caretaker of the earth.
I know that this topic makes us all a little uneasy and this sermon could at this point take us through a detailed grizzly listing of our failings.
But you can relax (a little) what I am going to do is spend the rest of this sermon on the good news. The Psalm says God made humans “a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor . . . giv[ing] them dominion over the works of [God’s] hands . .?”
There’s a strange sort of twist in the Psalm that can’t be ignored, God not only declared in Genesis that humanity is very good; but God we are told, in fact, thinks so highly of humankind that God made us a partner with dominion over the rest of creation.
If we are very good and we have been chosen to have dominion over the works of God, by God it stands to reason that oddly enough we have to be the right choice.
It stands to reason that despite empirical evidence to the contrary we are capable of being good caretakers.
The good news is that God thinks – no, make that knows– that we are worthy of having the power of being partners in the care of creation.
There’s no doubt that we have messed up the earth in many respects. We hear this in the news all the time.
But, you know, even though it may be counter-intuitive, we have to trust God’s choice of having made us as partners.
And strangely enough if you look around our town or dig around in the back pages of the news or on the Internet you can find empirical evidence that God might just be right.
You can see that there are people acting as the hands and feet and mouths of God, using the power God has given us to truly care for creation.
Sometimes it is little things. Like locally I have seen lines of cars backed up – without honking or anger– while a Good Samaritan helps a wayward tortoise off the road.
And nationally people all over the country have shown care and kindness to Delta and Dawn the wayward whales who’ve traveled up the Sacramento River. People have not only watched and prayed for these two magnificent creatures, they helped them. I read yesterday they made it out through the Golden Gate and to open sea!
On the topic of whales – and here’s big thing– since human’s have imposed moratoriums on whaling the humpback, bowhead, gray and minke whales have made a come back.
Even Florida’s once endangered alligator and manatees through human dominion have made a come back
State and local governments are starting to seek to protect the environment not just with prohibitions but with incentives as well.
At home more and more people are recycling, buying organic products, planting xeriscapes, and teaching their children about care for the planet and species of animals beyond our own.
I am not naive enough to think that we are not in danger of blowing our chance to prove God right in picking us as partners. Its just that I cannot help but note that God’s calling for us to be good partners in overseeing creation seems to have been heard and it is being responded to by more than just a few people.
There is great hope in such responses to God’s call, even if it is just a start. There is great hope that we can still do right by God.
Here at Riviera United Church of Christ we have decided to ramp up our efforts as a church to be greener. Things like recycling our office paper, plastic soda bottles and cans are going into effect. (You can even put your bulletin in a recycling bin by the information booth this morning!)
We have also decided to help educate our children on the sacredness of creation and green matters with a new vacation bible school we have put together called Sacred Earth Adventures where, beginning July 16 to July 20, we hope to have lessons and fun around this biosphere we live on, its water and land and creatures and plants and peoples.
That’s good news of care for creation existing right here in this community. It’s our chance to begin to be better partners and better users of the power of dominion God has blessed and honored us with.
God has chosen us to be partners in care of the earth. It’s not a choice that we might have made, but, how can you quibble with God? Indeed, no matter how cynical you might be when it’s all boiled down there is no other choice. We are it!
There is sad news to be sure about the state of the environment, and we have a long, long way to go, but there is good news: God has chosen us to be partners in care; and people, communities and even governments are proving we can act responsibly. We are capable of proving God is right to entrust us as partners in care over creation . . . AMEN.
Topics: Uncategorized |
WordPress database error: [Can't open file: 'wp_comments.MYI' (errno: 144)]
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_ID = '4' AND comment_approved = '1' ORDER BY comment_date