Sermon:  Phoenix Affirmation 3

“Loving God means celebrating the God whose spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human.”

Texts:  Psalm 19:1-4; selections from Psalms 96, 98, 148

Date: January 21, 2007

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer & Ann Lovejoy, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            (Dee) As the book lies open, on the left there is a picture of the earth taken from space, about the size of a marble.  The dappled blue marble is floating in deep blackness.  On the right, there is a little quotation from a well-known Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hears a Who: “I say!” murmured Horton.  “I’ve never heard tell of a small speck of dust that is able to yell.  So you know what I think?...Why, I think that there must be someone on top of that small speck of dust!”

            I don’t know if you know that particular Dr. Seuss story.  I won’t go into the whole thing, but the essence is that Horton the Elephant, gifted with very large ears, hears the small sound of the community of small folks knows as Whos as they drift through our world on a speck of dust.  The little Who people and Horton have quite a job proving that they exist to the other creatures whose ears are not so sharp. 

            If you put the people of earth in the scale of the universe, we come out looking like the tiny Whos on their speck of dust.  I took the quotation from a book my brother gave me a few months ago called The Hand of God: Thoughts and Images Reflecting the Spirit of the Universe which is full of astounding pictures of planets and stars and galaxies and nebula and all kinds of stunning cosmic things.  The quotations set alongside the pictures invite the dazzled star gazer to think about how, in the words of Psalm 19, “The heavens are telling the glory of God.”  The images are beautiful; but one of the side effects of viewing such grand vistas is coming to grips with our human speck-of-dustness.

            We don’t like it really, seeing ourselves sort of speck-like.  Consider the real-life story of astronomer Galileo, who first understood that the earth was not the center of the known universe; he was convicted of heresy by the church of his day and subject to house arrest for the remainder of his life.  His story is a kind archetypal story about what the human race wrestles with personally and with our tribes, clans, nations, and species.  I’ve been thinking about this the last couple of weeks as I’ve wondered how my four-year-old buddy Eva Tanis-Likkel is handling the first hard evidence that she is not the center of the universe with the arrival of her new baby brother.  It’s a tough transition, isn’t it?  And it seems like discovering we’re not the center of everything is a developmental task that just goes on and on. 

I believe that seeing ourselves in perspective as little creatures yelling on top of a speck of cosmic dust could lead us to occupy this planet with a little more respect for the One who made us and compassion for the other creatures with whom we share this dappled blue-green marble floating in space.  The emphasis in this is not in seeing ourselves as small and worthless.  We may be small but we’re not worthless.  Even God said we’re good!  The point in seeing ourselves as a small part of a vast creative enterprise is to begin to comprehend how unspeakably beautiful it all is, and how worthy a goal it is to praise the Creator and preserve the creation. 

(Ann’s segment.) When I was a child, I knew God best through nature. In the glowing evening sky, in a sudden snowfall, in a rainbow, in the wide river or the crashing ocean, in a calling bird or an unfolding flower, I felt God's presence in my bones. In natural settings, God's voice often seems more clear. Moses carried the Ten Commandments down from a mountainside, Buddha received enlightenment meditating under a bodhi tree, John baptized in the River Jordan, Jesus wandered in the desert, listening to God.
    How would we live if Moses had heard God say "Love my creation with all your heart?" What if Jesus had said, " Love this world as you love yourself?"
    Native Americans have a tradition of thanking God at dawn, outdoors and all year round. While hunting, they sing songs of praise to God the creator and to the animal they will eat.
    Religious historian Mircea Eliade said, "The religious behavior of man contributes to maintaining the sanctity of the world." What if we thanked God for pure, clean water every time we took a shower, washed our hands, had a cool drink on a hot day? What if we thanked God daily for the trees that turn carbon monoxide into clean air for us to breathe? What if we protected the purity of God's life-giving water and air with all our strength?
    If every time we drove a car, we thanked God for creating oil, might we use gas respectfully, cherish as precious & irreplaceable? What would it take to make us seek sustainable energy sources that don't involve irreversible environmental destruction?     
    Progressive theologian Matthew Fox points out that there are only two times in life when we are really willing to change: when desperate (AA model), or when in love. Love makes us vulnerable to change. Love lends us willingness to receive God's love and let it work in us. Love allows us to let go of stubborn clinging to old habits; when in love, it's easy to say, "Change my entire life for you? Sure, why not? Sounds great. I'd LOVE to. Glad you asked.'
    I think God speaks love to us through the amazing beauties of the natural world, through this vast creation in all its glory. When we are moved by God's beauty, we fall in love a little. May that love make us more willing to accommodate the needs of the whole creation-plants & animals, water & air & soil-as well our own.   

(Dee) Ann raised a couple of intriguing “What if..?” questions a few moments ago.  What if Moses had heard God say “Love my creation with all your heart?”  Unfortunately, early in the biblical narrative the word that humans heard in relation to the earth--heard and latched onto with all their might--was not “love” or “stewardship” but the heavy, steel-grey word “Dominion.”  Genesis 1:28 has practically been the motto of people dwelling on earth: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”  Have dominion. 

            Humans have really made hay with that concept of “dominion.”  What a delicious idea, that we are the pinnacle of creation, that we’re the boss of everything we see.  King of the World!  No wonder some people want to teach that story in all the schools.  Dominion is such an alluring vocation.  It really appeals to that innate center-of-the-universe, it’s-all-about-me thing we humans have got going.

            James G. Watt, who was the Secretary of the Interior during the Reagan Administration, said once that he understood his responsibility to be “following the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns.”[1]  That word “occupy” is interesting.  You could think of occupation as kind of neutral, a sort of light perching on a space.  But when we human beings occupy, we usually take a more heavy handed approach.  “Occupy” is not a particularly friendly word in our current usages.  It leans toward an unwelcome oppression by a brute force.  Sadly, this sense of “occupy” is a pretty accurate description of how humans have treated the earth.  We might not say we have invaded the earth, (although the grizzlies and the manatees and the songbirds might beg to differ); but we have occupied it in such a way that the earth is groaning under the weight of our species’ poisonous impact. 

            The full version of the third Phoenix Affirmation includes this confession: “We confess that we have stepped away from [the] Path [of Christ] when we have ignored our role as stewards of the earth, or have interpreted Scripture in such a way that fails to account for the sacredness of the earth or the integrity of its ecosystems.”  Frankly, the Scriptures don’t give us very specific directions about what it means to be a good stewards of the earth rather than heavy-footed, greedy occupiers.  Biblical scholar

Walter Wink points out in an article on eco-justice that the kinds of environmental poisons we have invented weren’t around during the time Genesis was being set down, so we can scarcely blame the Scriptures for not giving us clear moral guidance about environmental issues.  On the other hand, he asks, why should we need it?  “Anyone who needs scriptural guidance to see that destroying the ecosystem is wrong is a moral idiot.  Even the most crass reckoning of human self-interest should lead any marginally intelligent person to realize that if we keep on poisoning the earth, air, water and atmosphere at the current rate we will soon be unable to survive at all…So why should we need the Bible to tell us what any child can recognize—that we had better clean up our act or we will perish from the face of the earth?”[2]

            While the Bible may not give us the specific moral guidance we need on things like carbon dioxide emissions, it does give us a framework for understanding that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”  It does remind us, if we can step outside our illusion that we are the center of the universe, that the great mystery of God’s life and creativity is at the center of the universe.  Creation itself calls our attention to the Creator.  What we need in order to fall in love with creation and stay in love is an acute sense of wonder as we observe what God has made and consider our rightful place in the creation—as part of creation, not apart from it.   We are a tiny part of a great and wonderful mystery.

David James Duncan writes about wonder in God Laughs and Plays. Wonder, he writes, “is like grace, in that it’s not a condition that we grasp: wonder grasps us…Philosophically speaking, wonder is crucial to finding knowledge yet has everything to do with ignorance.  Only an admission of ignorance can open us to fresh knowing.  Wonder is the experience of that admission: wonder is unknowing, experienced as pleasure. Wonder is a period at the end of a statement we’ve long taken for granted, suddenly looking up and seeing the sinuous curve of a tall black hat on its head, and realizing it was a question mark all along…As a facial expression, wonder is the letter O our eyes and mouths make when the state itself descends.  O: God’s middle initial.  O: because wonder opens us.  O(ld) becoming new.”[3]

            I love Duncan’s description.  The question mark that might appear at the end of a statement we’ve long taken for granted is at the end of that old notion about dominion.  O: maybe we’re not the boss of everything earthly.  O: maybe we’re not the center of everything.  O: Maybe God made some creatures too amazing to destroy, even besides ourselves.  O: God loves the whole creation as much as God loves us. 

            (Ann’s segment.)  
     Poet Wendell Berry says "People need more than to understand their obligations to one another and to earth; they also need the feelings of such obligations." Perhaps falling in love with God's creation can help us decide that the highest and best use of a wilderness area is to leave it as God made it. Instead of logging old growth to build malls, stripping mountain sides to make stone-washed blue jeans, or destroying millions of acres of rainforest for McDonald's hamburgers, we can make adjustments in our expectations and decide that we can live without some of the destructive luxuries that we take for granted.
    Might love help us chose to live lightly, spending our time on earth in healing God's creation rather than squeezing every last drop of "use" from it? Might love lead us to live in such a way that we take what we need and allow the rest to sustain God's other creatures, from birds and bees to fish and elephants?
    For many years, I have taught about sustainable garden design. Most garden design celebrates the hand of man. I try to encourage a new relationship with the natural world, one that looks at the creation as totally awesome just as it is. This doesn't mean not gardening, but it means respecting the reality of each plant. The Sunset Western Garden Book (plant Bible) says "The sequoia makes a fine hedge and may be kept indefinitely at 8-12 feet." That's what I call having a chain-saw relationship with the natural world; God does not make rectangular plants.
    What if we chose plants whose natural attributes, like size, shape, and color at maturity, will be a lasting asset to our design?  What if we gardened by celebrating and nurturing God's sumptuous creation in all its magnificent glory? What if we also did our little bit daily to help restore that glory?
          Earth Day should really be celebrated constantly. Where would we be without it? Take a moment each day to cherish the world that supports us all. Though it's easy to feel overwhelmed about the ecological problems we face, it's worth remembering that every little bit truly does help. Each of us can make a difference in our own homes, in our communities, even in our regions.
    Here on Bainbridge Island, two moms (Bobbie Morgan and Cara Cruikshank) encouraged the city to implement pesticide-free sustainable maintenance programs for public parks and school grounds. Now their program is being adopted statewide and is spreading to other regions. Their Natural Solutions program is making playgrounds safer places for thousands of kids every day.
    What can we do? Consider joining a roadside litter cleanup program, helping kids recycle at school, or starting a local swap-meet for outgrown sports equipment. Pick a simple, earth-friendly thing to try every day. Like what?
Change to fluorescent light bulbs and save energy.
Save songbirds; buy fair trade, high-shade grown coffee.
Have a TV-Free or car-free day every week.
Share extra clothing with others through Goodwill.
Avoid toss-aways; take your own coffee mug to meetings.
When you shop, park and walk between stores.
Buy only dolphin-safe tuna fish.
Turn off lights when you leave a room.
    Done daily, little things like this add up and make a genuine difference to the ecological burden we put on the earth.
    Physicist Fritjof Capra notes "Ecology and spirituality are fundamentally connected, because deep ecological awareness, ultimately, is spiritual awareness."  
    Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess coined the term 'deep ecology' to describe a comprehensive ecological awareness. Capra defines deep ecology by contrasting it with shallow ecology:
    "Shallow ecology is anthropocentric, or human-centered. It views humans as above or outside of nature, as the source of all value, and ascribes only instrumental, or 'use', value to nature. Deep ecology does not separate humans - or anything else - from the natural environment. It sees the world not as a collection of isolated objects but as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views human beings as just one particular strand in the web of life."
    I suspect that the God who knows each sparrow, whose hills and stars clap hand for joy at His coming, would agree.

[1] Watt, James G. The Washington Post, May 24, 1981

[2] Wink, Walter  “Ecobible: The Bible and Ecojustice” http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1993/v49-4-article2.htm

[3] Duncan, David James  God Laughs and Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right Great Barrington, MA: The Triad Institute, 2006,  p. 8

Date: January 21, 2007