{"id":1299,"date":"2012-04-17T17:38:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-17T17:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=768"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:28","slug":"caring-for-creation-by-doug-pritchard-april-15-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1299","title":{"rendered":"Caring for Creation -by Doug Pritchard – April 15, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to this Sermon<\/font><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reducing our carbon footprint:<\/font> Read about how the Pritchards “greened” their own lifestyle<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ps. 24, Rom. 8:12-23, Col. 1:15-20<\/p>\n

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1.\t<\/span>Intro<\/strong><\/p>\n

Green is not a colour that I associate with my upbringing. I was born and grew up in the Sudbury District in northern Ontario in the 1950s. The predominant colour there was black — from the sulphur-etched rocks, slag, and tailings associated with the nickel-mining industry. Our environment looked so much like the moon that the Apollo 16 astronauts came to Sudbury in 1971 for geology field training before their moon mission. We were insulted by the comparison of our region with the moon, but some were secretly pleased by the publicity.<\/p>\n

I remember a frustrating school project that we had to do in Gr. 4 Science. We had to gather wildflowers and seeds. I and my classmates had a hard time finding many. In my Sudbury neighbourhood I found some dandelions, daisies, violets, clover, and buttercups, but not much else. Finally I wrote my grandmother on her farm near Kingston for help. Within a week she sent me dozens and dozens of flowers and seeds, all carefully mounted and labelled. I was overwhelmed by this variety and richness from another region.<\/p>\n

I also remember as a teenager reading Rachel Carson\u2019s book \u201cSilent Spring,\u201d which was a landmark book exposing the dangers of the pesticide DDT to the natural environment. But it must not have penetrated my consciousness very far because 20 years later I was the manager of a pesticide factory! Our products were so toxic that the workers had to be tested monthly for liver damage. When signs of damage were found, we just rotated in new workers rather than make the process any safer. Now I can hardly believe I did that, but it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

The symbol of my training as a Canadian engineer is an iron ring. The ceremony where the rings were given to us new engineers was written by Rudyard Kipling in 1922. It includes his earlier poem, \u201cThe Sons of Martha,\u201d which is full of images of gears, and switches, and wheels, and furnaces, of blasting and drilling the earth. That\u2019s the mindset with which I lived for many years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So my greening has only come lately and only gradually. I see now that the first seeds were planted just as I finished my engineering training. In 1972 The Club of Rome think-tank published its landmark study, \u201cThe Limits to Growth,\u201d which modelled the disastrous consequences of unchecked economic and population growth in a planet with finite resources. The next year in 1973, as the first oil price shock arrived, EF Schumacher published his book, \u201cSmall is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered,\u201d which championed small, appropriate technologies in the face of increasing globalization and exploitation. But these seeds lay dormant in me for some time.<\/p>\n

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2.\t<\/span>Biblical Insights<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ten years later, these seeds began to sprout when I became a Christian and began to study the Bible seriously. The Bible has a lot to say about God\u2019s good creation and our responsibility to care for it, from the creation accounts in Genesis to the new heaven and the new earth in Revelation. And so I would like to explore a bit of that with you now, and then look at a contemporary application.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, as God created the heavens and the earth, after each day of creation, God saw that it was good, and was pleased with what had been created. This is so obvious, but we often overlook it. Creation is something very good. It reflects the character and activity of God and we should love it as God does. Just to gaze at the myriad stars of heaven, the lushness of earth\u2019s forests, the colours of the coral seas, we are transported into the Creator\u2019s presence. This is clear to everyone. As Paul says in Romans, \u201cEver since the creation of the world, God\u2019s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that God has made\u201d (1:20).<\/p>\n

God also created us as an integral part of that good creation. God formed the first human Adam from \u201cadamah,\u201d which is Hebrew for soil. Likewise the root of the word \u201chuman\u201d is the same as for \u201chumus.\u201d But, unlike the rest of Creation, we are made in God\u2019s own image and have breathed into us God\u2019s own Spirit. In Gen. 1, God tells the man and woman to, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing\u201d (v. 28). Unfortunately, this verse has been used as a licence by us engineers and others to justify everything that we have done to subdue and dominate the earth. Indeed, members of other religions and the Green movement criticize Christians especially for our demythologizing of creation. Because we do not see spirits or gods in the rocks and trees and animals, we feel freer to exploit and destroy them. But God\u2019s command in Gen. 1 to subdue the earth needs to be held together with Gen. 2 where God placed humans in the beautiful Garden of Eden, and commanded us \u201cto till it and keep it\u201d (v. 15). So God\u2019s command to fill the earth and subdue it needs to be held alongside God\u2019s command to till and keep the garden. We seem to have done a pretty good job of filling and subduing the earth, but what would God say today about our tilling and keeping?<\/p>\n

Ps. 24 reminds us that, \u201cThe earth is the LORD\u2019s and the fullness thereof\u201d (v.1), but Ps. 115 says that, \u201cthe earth God has given to human beings\u201d (v.16). So there is a complementarity here. The earth still belongs to God who created it, but also belongs to us as God\u2019s agents and stewards. We are accountable to God for our stewardship. God is the centre. Not humans. Not Mother Earth. God. God is distinct from Creation yet continuously involved with it, through us and apart from us.<\/p>\n

Genesis goes on to tell about the entry of sin into God\u2019s good creation. When the first humans fell for the serpent\u2019s lie, that they could escape death and become like God, they were expelled from the Garden. Bringing forth new life, whether in childbirth or in agriculture, became painful and precarious. All of creation suffers because of our human ambition to become like God. As Paul says in Romans,\u00a0 \u201cWe know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now;\u00a0and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies\u201d (8:22-23). Much of the rest of the Hebrew scriptures then focuses on God and the Jews and how they are to live on the land. In the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, many verses are devoted to preserving the fruitfulness of the land and wildlife, and to humans\u2019 role as tenants and caretakers, rather than owners, of the lands promised to them by God. Then, in later books of the Hebrew Bible, the prophets foretell repeatedly the environmental consequences of human disobedience. The rains will fail; crops will wither; animals will die.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s care for all of creation, including us, comes to a climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ wh
\nich we celebrated last week. On earth, Jesus repeatedly pointed us to God\u2019s care, written in creation. God\u2019s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field; for seedtime and harvest; for sun and rain, wind and snow. There are lessons for us in the skies, in the mustard seed, in the fig tree. But Jesus is more than a teacher. He is God come to earth to save it. The familiar words from John 3:16 say that, \u201cGod so loved the world that he gave his only son.\u201d God so loved the world. The Greek word used for world is \u201ccosmos.\u201d God so loved the cosmos, not just you and me. At Jesus\u2019 death, creation itself groaned with an earthquake and an eclipse. But God had loved the world into being, and continues to sustain it with love. God\u2019s rainbow in the sky is a token of that love and of the covenant made with all living things, humans, birds, and animals. As Paul says in Col., \u201cFor in [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,\u00a0and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross\u201d (1:19-20).<\/p>\n

We live now in between times, between, on the one hand, the assurance of salvation and restoration attested by the resurrection, and, on the other hand, the full and perfect completion of that restoration in the new heavens and the new earth at the end of time. A new earth where there will be no darkness or pain, no tears or death; where wolves and sheep will live in peace, where the tree of life will produce twelve kinds of fruit and leaves for the healing of the nations. In this between time we are stewards of creation. God calls us to care for the widows and orphans, the sick and the imprisoned, but also for the whole cosmos created by God and entrusted to us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At times we may despair about the state of the environment. French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said before his death, \u201cThe road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.\u201d But as Christians we have been given a message of hope, not despair, and a responsibility to live it out.<\/p>\n

Christians in the past have been more conscious and care-ful of creation than we have been. We know the stories of St Francis of Assisi\u2019s care for birds and animals. Martin Luther said, \u201cEven if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree today.\u201d The early Celtic Christians had a closeness with creation that lingers still. Modern Celts have collected and preserved hundreds of ancient Celtic prayers about the joys of daily living close to God\u2019s good creation \u2013 prayers for going to the well, prayers when sowing seed, prayers when grinding grain, prayers when sweeping the house. One of our problems is that we have become increasingly alienated from creation. Since the industrial revolution, we have been caught up in subduing and dominating nature for our own material comfort.\u00a0 We need to repent of our misuse of creation, to find joy again in nature, and to take up the stewardly task of tilling and keeping and restoring.<\/p>\n

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3.\t<\/span>Climate Change<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now to the particular issue of global climate change. U.S. Senator James Inhofe, once Chair of the Senate Environment Committee, is one of the most powerful deniers of climate change today. He likes to quote Gen. 8:22, which says, \u201cAs long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.\u201d He then says, \u201cMy point is, God\u2019s still up there.\u00a0The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, to me, Sen. Inhofe\u2019s statement is outrageous, and dangerous. Humans have already changed climates locally and visibly with smog, with acid rain, with ozone depletion, with deforestation, and through the Asian dust clouds. Now we are accelerating a planet-wide, but invisible, change in the composition of the earth\u2019s atmosphere through our emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases trap heat. Without them our planet would be much colder. The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has varied slowly over tens of thousands of years of geological time. But in the 200 years since the start of the industrial revolution we have emitted an immense quantity of greenhouse gas in an instant, geologically speaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This shock to the atmosphere has already begun to destabilize the earth\u2019s climate. The absence of winter here this year, is a one small sign of that. More devastating signs are: rising sea levels which have begun to displace populations from low-lying islands; expanding deserts and\u00a0 droughts such as those in East Africa and the U.S. southwest; more severe rain storms and flooding such as that in Pakistan and the northeast of North America; more severe wildfires such as those in Russia and Alberta; shrinking glaciers which are reducing water\u00a0 sources for those dependent on glacial rivers in the Andes and Himalayas; rising temperatures, especially in the Arctic, which are destroying Inuit livelihoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this from only a 0.8 degC rise in global average surface temperatures. That is global average temperature. A few places are cooler but most places are warmer. Climate scientists predict that we will see a further increase of at least 1 degC on average, and much more than that if we do not reduce carbon emissions very quickly.<\/p>\n

These climate disruptions hurt the poor and vulnerable first. This is doubly unjust because they are the ones who have contributed the least to the aggregate human activities which are causing this growing climate emergency. In reflecting on poverty and the environment, Ugandan Bishop Zac Niringiye says that the problem is not poverty but greed. He calls us in the global North to change the slogan, \u201cMake poverty history\u201d to \u201cMake greed history.\u201d He challenges the North\u2019s excessive use of earth\u2019s resources and our addiction to materialism and individualism.<\/p>\n

Over 95% of the world\u2019s climate scientists, and all of the National Academies of Science, say that global climate disruption is real, has already begun, and is largely caused by humans. We deny this, or delay action on this, at our peril.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What then shall we do? Since the major cause of the problem is the accelerated release of carbon into the atmosphere, we need to transition to a low-carbon economy quickly. Many of the tools needed are already at hand such as: non-carbon renewable energy sources, energy efficiency improvements, and mass transit. Jane and I have been consciously making small changes in our lifestyle and home energy use. As a result, we have now reduced our annual consumption of natural gas and electricity by 50% from what it was 10 years ago. But even more is needed by us, and by all of us, and the time is short to make this the priority concern that it really is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How many of you walked to church today \u2013 hands up. How many of you rode a bike? Took the TTC? Carpooled with someone from another household? Next Sunday is Earth Day around the world. You might celebrate by coming to church using less carbon \u2013 walking, biking, taking transit, or car pooling. We are facing a slow but inexorable climate emergency unless we turn away from a profligate carbon-based economy that treats the atmosphere as an open sewer for its emissions. If we care for the garden with which we have been entrusted, if we care for each other and especially for those most vulnerable to the climate disruptions already happening, we need to change. As Christians we know the human condition, and we know that we can change. We have the sure hope that we can be restored to the Garden and to God\u2019s embrace.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\np class=\"p1\">4.\t<\/span>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0In conclusion, going back to Genesis, it is well to recall that the pinnacle of God\u2019s creation was not the earth, nor humans. The pinnacle, the seventh and last day of creation was the Sabbath — a day of rest, a day to rest in the glory of Creation, and to rest in God. We are re-created, not in our toil, but in our enjoyment of Creation, and in our worship of the Creator. Creation reflects the love and provision of the Creator. Our respect and care for creation reflects in turn our love for the Creator. Thanks be to God, our Creator and our redeemer. Amen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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