Easter 3, Year C ~ Earth Day Sunday
April Twenty Second , 2007
Sirach 42:15-27, 32-33
Reading through today’s readings, hand picked for what we now call “Earth Day Sunday”, I was struck by these words from Ecclesiasticus; “The work of the Lord is full of his glory…How desirable are all his works, and how sparkling they are to see…each creature is preserved to meet a particular need…By his word all things hold together.”
All things hold together. Our word “ecology” comes from the Greek word, oikos, which in English speaks to us of a household. Today, I invite you to hold oikos as an image of all living beings, the environment which they inhabit, and God, the Creator, who established and sustains the household. This is the reason we have set aside this Earth Day Sunday; The holy household we call planet earth, has fallen into severe disrepair by our neglect and abuse and the Owner stands at the door asking you and me, “What part of ‘have dominion’ did you not understand?” Ah…dominion. That indeed is the trouble.
In the Hebrew, “dominion” is radah (raw daw), meaning “to trample down” and “crumble off”, which is way bad enough. Worse, dominion has to do with domains, and those who have domains tend to feel and act like rulers, which we are definitively not, as the 2nd chapter of Genesis, with its parallel account of creation, clearly shows. This account comes from a separate Hebrew tradition and modifies all that dominion business. Here, God's instructions are more nuanced: "Then God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (2:15). The Hebrew word for “tend” is 'abad, meaning "to work or serve", while the Hebrew for “keep” is shamar, meaning "to exercise great care over." Taken together, it suggests husbandry rather than hubris, improvement rather than exploitation. It is simply disingenuous and unfaithful to cite the privilege of dominion while ignoring the sacred obligation of stewardship, as we have mostly done.
God has called us as stewards, charged with taking great care of and improving," God’s garden. A steward protects, maintains and fosters what belongs to the owner, so that it may be returned to its owner in as good or better condition than when it was entrusted. The trouble is, we’ve been acting like squatters, not stewards, treating this amazing garden as if there’s no tomorrow, as if the owner’s will never call us to account.
Someone once told me that back when the Creation story was first told, it was in a language even more ancient than Hebrew…and in that language, the deep sense of God’s instruction to Adam was “get down…get close to the earth…get your hands into the soil…get the earth under your fingernails.” In other words, we’re meant to engage directly with the created order, to know ourselves as intimately related to the whole, and to understand the connection between human and humus.
Albert Einstein was always ahead of his time, it seems. Back in 1950, he wrote “A human being is part of the whole…He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
It is painfully ironic - even terrifying - to stand here on Earth Day Sunday, as we focus on the beauty of God’s Creation and our call to honor and preserve it, and say to you that a good deal of the ecological crisis facing us today can be laid at the feet of the Church. Dan'l C. Markham is an evangelical pastor who is also an environmentalist working on sustainable economic development. He acknowledges that the Church bears its share of responsibility for the current ecological crisis…not because it actively preaches “dominion theology”, but because it has failed to correct those who misuse scripture to justify their own dominion agenda. And, we have failed to preach a sufficiently vigorous call to Creation Care. Finally, the Church has failed to address the “materialism and narcissism” that drives the insatiable demand for the earth’s resources and blinds us to the consequences of Creation abuse.
Markham quotes Tony Campolo, a popular Christian author and speaker, who reminds us that there is plenty of blame to go around. He writes that as a consequence of the Scientific Revolution, there has been a “loss of mystery and awe about nature and the sense that we alone in all of creation have subjective feelings – these contribute to the mindset that accepts the destruction of the environment as a necessary evil. Science has brought a loss of emotional affinity that has caused all the trouble." (How to Rescue the Earth Without Worshipping Nature) Markham concludes; "Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not," That, in a nutshell, is why we have Earth Day Sunday. We simply must, if we are to claim to be God’s people, begin to clean up our act and insist that others do too.
Lest we need further prompting, there’s no environmental wake up call more powerful than the realization that our own immediate household is in deep trouble. In 2002, according to EPA statistics, Indiana ranked 12th among all states in overall health risks from air pollution. We ranked 9th overall in the amount of toxic chemicals released into the atmosphere (137 million lbs.) and 8th in the release into the air of toxins suspected of damaging our immune systems. We were 6th in suspected carcinogens released into our waterways. Our 5 million lbs. of toxins proven to impair proper human development earned a 5th highest ranking, but we outdid ourselves with a #4 ranking in the amount of toxins harmful to reproduction. We were at #4 four in two other categories, with over 3.5 million lbs. of known carcinogens released to the air, and in overall cancer risk, where we were among the top 10% of the “dirtiest states”. We ranked 3rd in cardiovascular toxicants released into the air and 2nd in cardiovascular toxicants released into our waterways with both types totaling over 55 million lbs. This doesn’t take into account the additional 5.5 million lbs. of suspected carcinogens released into the air, which earned us another dubious 2nd place finish.
The good news is that from 1988 to 2002, total releases of toxic chemicals into the environment in Indiana have decreased by 59%. Imagine what it must have been like before things started to improve! But that really is good news, because it shows that things are not hopeless. We can make things better when we want to. Unfortunately, there are powerful forces that seek at every turn to weaken environmental protections. Since 2002, we have seen federal efforts to allow more mercury in our water and to exempt power plants from emission controls. Stewardship means responsible management, and we must insist that these interests put long-term sustainability and the common good ahead of short-term economic benefit to one’s stockholders.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who was no doubt deeply appalled by the environmental degradation of his native Indiana. I pray to God that these words of his shall not prove prophetic: “We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.”
Again and again we hear the refrain; “Environmental initiatives cost too much money. We must choose between the environment and jobs.” So why are foresighted corporations now taking the lead in pursuing more sustainable practices and calling for greater governmental involvement? Because study after study has shown that environmental protection doesn’t hurt business, that cities with stringent local standards are thriving, and that environmental solutions create jobs and prosperity. When, oh when will we humans learn that when God gives us a commandment, it’s in our best interest?
But it’s not all about governments and industries. And it’s not always a matter of being too damned cheap. Sometimes, it has to do with being too damned profligate. I went to www.myfootprint.org and took a simple survey, designed to estimate the size of my ecological footprint (that is, just how much my lifestyle requires of the planet’s resources). The survey assessed the way I eat and how far my food has to travel, what I drive and how far, the size of my house, and other patterns of consumption. This assessment is translated into the number of acres it takes to sustain me. And boy, wasn’t I proud to discover that at 17 acres, my ecological footprint is about 30% smaller than the average American.
Proud, that is, until I discovered that given the population of the globe today, there are only about 4.5 productive acres available per person. The kicker was in the closing comment: “If everyone lived like you, we would need 3.9 planets.”
If we were to assess the lifestyle of St. David’s, how big would our footprint be? In the past several years, we have tried to do our part to cut down on the amount of energy we use. We employ ceiling fans to prevent the heat from collecting up in the clerestory in winter and to cool us in summer. We’ve replaced some of our light bulbs with more energy efficient kinds. We’ve installed thermo-pane windows and a more efficient furnace and air conditioner. These run on an automatic timer to conserve energy when the building is not in use. We insulated the roof. We recycle office paper and cardboard.
But how many planets would be needed if everyone lived like we do? 3.9? 4.6? Is there anyway we could reduce our footprint even more? Might we conduct an energy audit? Find an alternative to those disposable coffee cups? We have some of our money invested for our future. What kinds of companies do we support with our dollars, and what are they doing to be responsible corporate citizens? What are we doing, beyond giving tacit support to environmental resolutions passed in our name at General Convention, to actively promote environmental stewardship in our community, our state and our nation? Will we begin to find our voice and say, “As Christians, we insist that our government’s policies serve the interest of all God’s people everywhere. Will we join the recent coalition of Christian churches calling on Congress to act to reduce carbon emissions by 50%?
God stands at the door asking “What part of ‘have dominion’ did you not understand?” The question on this Earth Day Sunday is, when we open the door, will we stand before God as stewards, or as squatters?
AMEN