Rideau Park United Church - Sermon for October 31, 2004

It has been only a few weeks since Thanksgiving; the leaves are turning wonderful colours; the harvest is slowly coming to an end with a culmination in our pumpkin day today. Sometimes when I sit back and think about the world around us, I really begin to appreciate just how much God has provided.

WE ARE SO BLESSED... by the abundance of creation, for the food we eat (from butternut squash to our daily bread), for the homes we live in, and the beauty that surrounds us. God has provided for us! In his wonderful work, we see his face reflected.

God created the world perhaps to show his creativity, imagination, joy, hope, and love. GOD IS AWESOME! He created a world of colourful sunsets that paint the sky tangerine orange, of birds that soar and chirp and hop, water that is fresh and clean to drink, wash, and be baptized in. God is awesome.

But this wonderful world is not simply a creation for humanity; it is not a playground for only our needs. As humans, we seem to get this idea that we are so superior to nature that we have the right to exploit it—as if water is only for us to drink or animals are here for our purposes alone.

Unfortunately, Christians are often given the blame for this type of attitude. The Bible is seen as an enemy to the earth because humanity is called to have dominion over the earth and subdue it. Many authors, such as Lynn White Jr., have questioned whether this language gives Christian a "carte blanche" to take over the earth for themselves.

It is true that we are made in God's image, that we have a special position in this world because we can actively worship God and be conscious that we are doing it. But our role is not to be God, not just to dominate nature and other people, but to be in relationship with the world, to commune with Creation.

In our dramatic reading this morning, God put Adam in the Garden of Eden to care for it. We are stewards of creation, not simply users of creation. And certainly there are many gifts around us that come from the earth—in fact, almost everything we use in a day from food to paper (our Bibles) and other materials for our homes, cars, and churches. But it is to be used with honour and respect. A New Creed states that we live in God's world and we are called to live with respect in Creation.

And yet, many of us don't really live a life of respect for God by our actions to His world. It seems as if our increasing technology in recent years has inflated our egos. In the book of Job (chapter 38), God tells Job that he has some explaining to do! In many ways, I feel as if God is similarly looking down on our actions today and saying that WE have some explaining to do!

God knows the earth and loves it. It is HIS creation and so we must cherish it. The end of the book of Job describes how well God knows the world from the stars in the universe to the horses in a field. This reminds us of our place—that we did not create the world and are not gods to everything around us. The creation story often makes people feel as if their dominion over the earth means they own it, but when you think about it, we don't really own anything. Perhaps we begin to think that we have outwitted God.

In my technology class this year, the professor said, "man is smarter than God. God made ice and we made ice cubes." When I think about this statement, I realize how much we can fool ourselves into thinking that we have power or control over all things. God made ice, which has great importance in our world. And ice cubes are really nothing more than a simple luxury that we don't really need. Our ability to make ice cubes is nothing more than using the intellect that God gave us. Look at the glaciers and we will realize just how much control God has over creation even now.

Looking around us at the lifestyles in our society, I wonder how many of us cherish, really cherish, our planet. Our actions speak loudly of what we think we need, which perhaps is more about what we want—bigger houses, more money, more success. These are often called worldly things, but I think of them as false ambitions. To me, worldly things are what humans have created almost as a replacement of nature... almost as a replacement of God. The world is a farmer's field where there is peace in a hard day's work and joy when a family is working together. God's world is butterflies in a meadow or swimming in a quiet creek. To avoid man-made worldliness is to shrug off those things that make us consume and instead to realize that the simple complexity of the world around us brings more joy.

As we have seen, there are many ways that the Old Testament shows how our relationship to creation should be respectful. In the New Testament, Jesus provides us with many similar and reinforcing ideas. It is valid to note how often Christ used the language of the land to show his love for His earth. The ground where we walk is the same earth where Christ walked.

In the Bible, Jesus is close to nature... from stories of the mustard seed, the farmers field, the fig tree, the shepherd, to the calming of the storm. It is evident that Jesus knew the world. He was in touch with the natural patterns of the land and displayed how interwoven our life is to nature. In addition, we hear the words in John's Gospel that "God so loved THE WORLD" that he sent Christ to us. God didn't just send Jesus for us, but because he loved this place where we live and our relationship to the earth needed to be restored in the process of renewing our relationship to God. The grace of God is given to us all in salvation: forgiveness for the sins of wanting too much and taking what is not ours.

In the life of Christ, we are reminded of how voluntary simplicity is the right way to live. It is better to be in tune with God and in tune with nature. In our Gospel lesson this morning, we hear that nature provides us with an example of how to live. The flowers do not toil, they do not worry. Do you ever see animals nervously pacing around, waiting to hear about a job or checking and re-checking their bank balance? Instead, creation is an example of how to live—how to walk through life to find joy instead of focussing on material worries. Jesus also shows us that materials of this world are not worth our adoration—that we can't love both money and God. For putting our faith in the wrong place is abusing God's love for us.

Instead of loving objects of waste and consumption, we need to praise creation and thank God for his handiwork. Our trust in Christ should naturally lead to a love for his world and a respect for his creation.

Many of our actions need to be rethought if we are to have a life of respect for God's world. Many these days will call this living a sustainable life so that our children's children can enjoy the beauty of canoeing in a lake. It is our responsibility as Christians to walk a life of respect in so many ways.

We can look to our history as Christians for examples of the kinds of values we need to rekindle. Since today is also a celebration of All Saints Day, I would like to recognize St. Francis of Assisi, known by many as the Patron Saint of Ecology.

Francis of Assisi was well-loved and known for promoting peace among people and with all of creation. St Francis is a good example of how we are called to be like Christ in giving up many things that we are comfortable with in order to take up the cross. After being released from prison, Francis gave away his material possessions and traveled many miles to preach the gospel. He had an understanding that the natural world was God's handiwork and he preached to the birds as his sisters and brothers. If only we were so bold to appreciate creation as St. Francis did and to think of God's creatures as part of our family.

What this shows us, from Adam in the Garden, to Job, to the life of Christ and the suggestions of a Saint... what this shows us is that we truly have a role in maintaining the integrity of the earth.

I do not want to stand here and give you statistics about climate change, deforestation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, or declining water and air quality. There is plenty of information out there to show you that we have some serious problems that must be faced. As a pitch for the Environmental Action Sub-Committee, you can visit the Environmental Resource Centre in the Library for lots of books and environmental information.

Instead of facts, I would like to share with you the hope that I have for a sustainable world. I have been involved in environmental issues since I was a small child; I even organized a local neighbourhood group when I was 12 to hold a bike-athon for nature. In high school and university, I went to many secular environmental groups, but none of them truly gave me hope for change. There was never any true reason to respect the earth until I became a Christian this year.

This hope is what Christ gives us when we put our trust in God. Change is a difficult process, especially when we are comfortable with the way we live. But Jesus challenges us to change—to give up those things that we cling to ever so tightly, and take up the cross. We are all aware and hopefully involved in helping other people, but God also challenges us to protect the earth and to make lifestyle changes.

To me, worshipping God must mean every day of my life. It must mean challenging myself to remember Sunday lessons every day of the week. Making sustainable choices for the earth (whether that means taking a bus or biking, turning off unneeded lights, or even downsizing to a more simple way of life instead of always upgrading)—these choices are an act of worship because we hear God's call and our spiritual values become reflected in the lives we live. So let us take up this challenge and truly change our lives to show the love of God. Because it was God who first loved and God who made the earth—we tread with the cross, not on our land, but on God's sacred earth.

Amen.

Kristina Mellway, a student at Carleton University, is a member of Rideau Park's Post Secondary Bible Study group, and heads the Environmental Action subcommittee of Social Action and Outreach. She is currently also leading a weekly Bible study on Faith and Creation.