Text: Jeremiah 14:1-9, 17-22
It is some time since the
Cathedral held a service of Choral Evensong, at least five years, since we have
not held one during my tenure as Rector. I am very grateful to the local Kairos committee for asking to hold
their “100-mile Pot-luck” here, and to have a church service in conjunction
with the meal. This was the push I needed to do something that I had been
considering.
The Kairos
Coalition has been active across
First, let me say that I sometimes hear from good
Christian people that they don’t see that environmental questions have much to
do with the Gospel. “We’re about saving souls for Christ. Please leave politics
out of church life.” To which I can only reply in Matthew Fox’s terms that
creation is God’s “Original Blessing,” To be faithful to God is before all else
to respond to God’s blessings in gratitude: therefore care for the earth is a
fundamentally religious and spiritual act. Lack of concern for the environment speaks
of an apocalyptic fatalism contrary to the hope we proclaim in Christ. If
environmental questions involve politics, it is only because we live in
community, depending upon each other, and we have to use and/or challenge
existing systems to work towards the goals which God sets before us.
In a similar vein I also sometimes hear people
saying, “These issues are too big. I can’t do anything, so I won’t try.” Are we
therefore to give up and just let things happen? There are spiritual traditions
which honour and exalt such defeatist attitudes, but authentic Christianity is
not among them. The cross stands before us as the ultimate symbol of refusing
defeat, of God bringing new life out of death.
Another objection, not often voiced quite so explicitly,
seems to me to be a subtext for many conversations about environmental issues.
It has to do with the issue of responsibility. I hear people questioning the
validity of scientific conclusions, particularly about climate change. Why is
that? The science is not perfect, but there seems to be an overwhelming
consensus in the scientific community that global warming is largely due to
human agency.(see William Collins, The Physical Science behind Climate Change, Scientific American, August 2007) Denying
this reality absolves us of any responsibility—either for the past or the
future. So I recall these words of Edmund Burke:
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing.
We are heirs of all that has gone before us,
inheritors of all our forebears’ achievements and of all their missteps. If our
ancestors unintentionally erred, causing harm to the earth in this and future
generations, we nonetheless bear the responsibility of inheriting the
consequences, and then of working to counteract the effects of their actions.
A similar situation applies in the churches involved
in the Indian Residential Schools, which included the Anglican Church. The
churches went into the system at the behest of the government, primarily in the
belief that these schools would help further their missionary work. The
fundamental error at the time, which we can see clearly now, was the assumed
identification of Christian faith with European culture. In the name of Christ,
the churches abetted the political system in the forced assimilation of
aboriginal people into our way of life. That decision wreaked unbelievable harm
on tens of thousands of lives and many hundreds of communities. I am proud to
stand as a member of a church that acknowledged its responsibility for what its
earlier leaders had done, vowing repentance and working as best we can for the
healing of those wounds. I and most of the people of the church today had
nothing to do with the residential schools, but as inheritors of this legacy,
we are responsible for the continuing for work of healing.
We inherit the consequences of our history, with all
its plusses and minuses, and so we are called to live into the future which God
intends for us. I am not saying that we are wholly responsible for the future,
but rather that we are called to seek God’s purposes, and to work in gratitude
with God for the furtherance of God’s reign on this earth.
We heard a dramatic plea by Jeremiah, calling on God
to have mercy on the people of
Gratitude for God’s earth and all of God’s blessings
is the well-spring of faith, but hope is what keeps us going, living into God’s
future, living into the life which Jesus came to make possible.
God has given us a good home, which by our actions we
have endangered. Is it too late?
There’s a wonderful song by Jim and Jean Strathdee
called “There’ll Be a Bright Tomorrow.” The middle verse is meant to be sung by
a youth to an elder:
I am a youth of your family,
seeking
a dream to live.
Sometimes confused and overwhelmed,
wond’ring what I have to give.
I’m angry at the world you’ve made,
the
violence, the fear and hate.
And the way you’ve hurt our mother
earth,
I hope
it’s not too late.
But you have taught me how to care
so now
come learn from me.
There’s brave new visions we can dare,
new
pathways we can see. © 1993 Desert Flower
Music
As we live in the world that our ancestors bequeathed
to us, so the generations to come must live in the world that we leave to them.
We are stewards of the future that God holds before us, called to care for the
human race and “this fragile earth, our island home.” We are stewards of the
hope that Christ died to place in our hearts. We are stewards of the good news
that God loves us enough to challenge us to do better.
God’s world is our world, held by us in trust. Let us
strive with God’s help to be worthy of that trust.
Amen.