"Creation Cries"
A Sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood Presbyterian Church
July 4, 2010
Texts: Genesis 1:26-28, Luke 8:22-25
Creation cries out in this time of ecological crisis.
Abuse of nature and injustice to people place the future in
grave jeopardy.
Population triple(d) in (the last) century.
Biological systems suffer diminished capacity to renew themselves.
Finite minerals are mined and pumped as if inexhaustible.
Peasants are forced onto marginal lands and soil erodes.
The rich-poor gap grows wider.
Wastes and poisons exceed nature's capacity to absorb them.
Greenhouse gases pose threat of global warming.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church made those observations back in 1990-- twenty years ago—in a report entitled “Call to Restore the Creation.” That General Assembly 202d in our long and storied history . . . That General Assembly believed that God was calling the Presbyterian Church USA
to respond to the cry of creation, human and non-human;
to engage in the effort to make the 1990s the "turnaround decade,"
not only for reasons of prudence or survival,
but because the endangered planet is God's creation; and
to draw upon all the resources of biblical faith and the Reformed
tradition for empowerment and guidance in this adventure.
Here we are twenty years later. The 219th General Assembly is now in Session, and our stewardship of creation has been found more wanting than ever. A catastrophe unforeseen two decades ago is threatening the ecological balance of our whole Gulf Coast region. Rick Frennea and his fellow commissioners meeting in Minneapolis this week will consider an overture—a resolution—from the Presbytery of Charlotte to “lift up” the 20-year-old “Call to Restore the Creation” “in recognition of its continuing importance, and the crucial work remaining.”
In addition, the Presbytery of South LA, where Katie Turpen will be serving as Young Adult Volunteer in Mission, is asking the General Assembly to make the Church aware of the “coastal erosion and the loss of coastal wetlands through human activity, as well as, hurricane flooding and destruction.” That overture, drafted long before the BP oil-well disaster, is sure to be amended as it makes its way through General Assembly’s debate.
That 1990 report made points, grounded in scripture that are not debatable.
First, God's work in creation is too wonderful, too ancient,
too beautiful, too good to be desecrated.
Second, restoring creation is God's own work in our time, in which
God comes both to judge and to restore.
Third, the Creator-Redeemer calls faithful people to become engaged
with God in keeping and healing the creation, human and non-human.
Fourth, human life and well-being depend upon the flourishing of
other life and the integrity of the life-supporting processes that
God has ordained.
Fifth, the love of neighbor, particularly "the least" of Christ's
brothers and sisters, requires action to stop the poisoning, the
erosion, the wastefulness that are causing suffering and death.
And sixth, the future of our children and their children and all who
comes after is at stake.
The Church knows this. Secular society may not share our theological understanding but most people would agree something must be done. Unfortunately, we just cannot kick the habit. We cannot kick the addiction we have to cheap, easily accessible sources of energy. Cheap, easily accessible sources of energy have allowed us to escape the confines of community to live independently, separate and apart from others. Each of us in our own, individual home, heated and cooled to temperatures of our own pleasing. Each of us with his or her own automobile, free to come and go when and where we wish.
Oh, we do suffer community—we work together, sometimes, we learn together, we worship together—but at the end of the hour or the day, we know we are free to take a nice, long, intoxicating drink, a long, mind-numbing drag from the deep well of fossil fuels. We are hooked! As a nation we are hooked. We are all in the same boat, a storm of our own making is raging on the high seas, and we are powerless, helpless to help ourselves.
Dare we admit, with the disciples of Luke’s story, “Master, Master, we are perishing.”
“Hello, my name is Bill, and I’m an alcoholic.” According to our friends in AA, that is the first step in the long, hard road of recovery from addiction. No one in Alcoholics Anonymous, or Narcotics Anonymous, or Gamblers Anonymous will tell you that overcoming an addiction is easy. Quite by contrast, our elected leaders have been telling the nation for decades that breaking our fossil fuel addiction is as easy as sending astronauts to the moon. Just a tax break here, a tax break there, add in some deficit spending, send in the troops to fight first one war and then another. Hundreds of thousands of casualties later, and we are still every bit as addicted as the day we the first American got a driver’s license.
So, comes now the challenge to the Church in our age-- the challenge to speak truth to power. As the disciples confess to Jesus, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Let the Church speak truth to the powers of this world: Our addiction to fossil fuels will not be broken save by honest confession of collective guilt— save by the pain and agony of withdrawal— save by learning a new way forward.
On this day of celebrating the independence of our nation let the church stand and state the obvious. The way forward is through acknowledging our dependence upon the God of creation, and upon all creatures great and small. Let the church stand and state what we believe to be the obvious: the way forward will require human beings to practice wise, humble, responsible stewardship, after the model of servant-hood that we have in Jesus.
Two years ago the National Council of Churches developed a “Social Creed for the 21st Century.” The creed lifts up this beautiful vision for our nation: “a vision of a society that shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination.” Thee Creed calls f or a society that “finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms.”
The “Social Creed for the 21st Century” taps ancient Hebrew prophesies alongside the words of Christ our Lord.
Inspired by Isaiah’s vision of a “peaceable kingdom,” we honor the dignity of every person and the intrinsic value of every creature, and pray and work for the day when none “labor in vain or bear children for calamity” (Isaiah 65:23). We do so as disciples of the One who came “that all may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10), and stand in solidarity with Christians and all who strive for justice around the globe.
I pray that this congregation will be bold enough to dream this dream, and to share this vision.
To Jesus Christ, who loves us
and freed us from our sins by his blood
and made us to be a kingdom,
priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6