Henrietta
United Church of Christ
Rev. David Inglis John
10:10; Acts 2:43-47
Earth Day Sunday April
15, 2005
“One Earth, One People”
I want you to think about
the young kids that just left for Sunday School, and the older kids who are
here for this sermon. Each one is
precious to us. Do you ever wonder what
the world will be like when they’re old enough to have grandchildren and worry
about their welfare?
Will global climate change
have altered the ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean, as the Pentagon and many
scientists fear , making our area much
colder and our winters even longer, while turning other places into
deserts? Will there be widespread
hunger as usable farmland declines and the population grows? Will the hole in the ozone layer make it dangerous
for kids to go outside and play or families to enjoy outings to the park or the
beach? Will asthma, allergies, and
cancer be rampant due to pollution and environmental toxins? Will ghastly wars be fought over dwindling
resources?
This is the future that we
are creating today for the children in our church and around the world if we
continue on the trajectory that we are on today. We are on a collision course with the limitations of our planet
to sustain our consumption and clean up the messes we make.
The human race has never
faced a dilemma like this before. Why now? It was said in the 1800's that about
everything that could be invented had been invented. And look at us today, with our cars, washers and dryers, air
conditioners, refrigerators, dishwashers, microwave gourmet meals, computers,
picture-taking cell phones, multiple TVs, video cameras, CD players, DVD
players, palm pilots, and a long list of other things that people in the 1800's
couldn’t have even dreamed of. What was a luxury for one generation becomes a
necessity for the next. And each generation needs to build bigger houses to
hold it all.
We Americans make up 5% of
the world’s population, but we consume 25% of the world’s resources and create
25% of the world’s CO2 emissions. And we are working like crazy to make all the
peoples of the world want what we have so they’ll buy our products, give us
jobs, and earn us a profit. Unless we
seriously change the way we manufacture, transport power and discard all of
this stuff, we are headed for disaster.
But even though I see some dark days ahead, I don’t live in
despair. I live in hope. On Easter Sunday, many of you heard me talk
about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
Liz Pixley helped me research this and verify that it’s biologically
correct. When the caterpillar spins its
cocoon, its body begins to break down. But within the caterpillar’s body are a
few cells that scientists call “imaginal cells.” These imaginal cells have no function in the caterpillar. But as the old caterpillar body is dying,
these imaginal cells wake up, and they begin to organize into new cellular
structures. They use the carcass of the
dying caterpillar as their nutritive soup to create a new body, a new metabolism,
a beautiful new winged creature that seeks its way to freedom and flight and
migration--things that were unthinkable for the caterpillar.[i]
Jesus and his early
followers give us a glimpse of these imaginal cells that are silently living in
us, waiting to be awakened so they can create a new way of living. The imaginal cells I see in Jesus and those
first Christians speak of abundance for all.
In John 10:10, Jesus says, “I came that they might have life, and have
it abundantly.” And then our reading from Acts 2 shows his followers actually
living in that abundance. Can you sense
the joyful spirit of those earliest Christians? “All who believed were together and had all things in common. . .
.Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread
house to house and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God
and having the goodwill of all the people.”
This was no pity party. This was
a plenty party that was open to
everyone.
Is it possible for us 21st
Century Christians to help move the world towards abundance for everyone, without depleting the earth? Oh yes.
We do have that potential within us, even though it seems pretty dormant
these days. I’d like to mention three
spiritual insights into the nature of
reality that could give birth to a future of hope and abundance instead of
destruction and deprivation.
The first insight is an
awareness that all things are connected.
19th-Century naturalist John Muir observed, “If you pull on
one thing, everything else comes with it.”
We’re used to looking at the world as full of distinct objects. But in a letter to the U.S. Government
attributed to Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Indians in 1854, Seattle said,
This we know: all things are
connected, like the blood that unites us
all. . .For we did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in
it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to
ourselves.
This insight is not just for
mystics and poets. Scientists have come to
realize that everything is part
of one ecological system. The pollution
that is released from old coal-burning power plants in Ohio gives people living
in Rochester asthma and emphysema, causes the acid rain that kills the fish in
the Adirondacks, and contributes to the global warming that is breaking up the
ice near the Arctic circle and threatening the Polar bears. Scientists are finding these connections
everywhere. Almost everything we buy or
use affects the web of creation that we all are a part of.
The second insight that will
help create a new world is that the world is not made up of separate peoples
and nations, but that the world has become one human family that shares a
common home. It’s interesting, but the
words economy and ecology come from the same Greek word, oikos, which means “house.” When you share an oikos with other people, you have to learn to share the food, clean
up your messes, keep the place in good repair, and help with the chores. We all share this habitation called
Earth. Our ecology and economy needs to
reflect this reality if this living arrangement is going to work.
And we have to get
smarter about how we make and power and
dispose of what we use. For example, in
Europe, the manufacturers of all major appliances are responsible for recycling
the product when the consumer is done with it. So they are manufactured to make it easy to unbuild them, reuse
some parts, recondition others, and recycle the rest. Almost nothing gets thrown away.
Here, we throw it all away. Our
way costs us less but costs our environment more. Which approach will benefit us more in the long run?
And the third insight that will make our lives richer instead of
poorer is that everything in creation has a place and inherent worth.
The letter attributed to
Chief Seattle might awaken us to a very different view of the world around
us.
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine
needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every
humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. . . .
We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers
are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our
brothers....
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us,
that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports.... So if we
sell our land, you must keep it sacred, as a place where man can go to taste
the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers....
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious
to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
If
we saw the world this way, we wouldn’t be clear cutting our forests or causing
mass extinctions of plants and animals or setting up oil drilling operations in
pristine wilderness areas instead of taking measures to reduce our oil
dependence. When we see the world as
resources to be exploited, it doesn’t bother us to take what we want and
destroy what we don’t. But when we see
creation as a sacred trust, we open our eyes to its wonder and beauty, and our
lives are enriched. When we feel deeply
connected to the earth, we feel grounded and whole. When we see ourselves as
creation’s faithful stewards, the earth’s
future and our future will be assured.
Is
it humanly possible for us as a human race to wake up to the truth that
everything is connected to everything else in one interdependent
ecosystem? Is it possible for us to see
that we are one human family sharing one home? Is it possible for us to sense
the sacred preciousness of creation and everything in it? It is not only possible, but it is
inevitable that these insights will dawn on us. They certainly will come home to us loud and clear if our actions
cause environmental collapse and a loss of everything we have exploited to
death. But we don’t have to wait until
then. As spiritual people, lovers of
God and followers of Christ, we carry these insights right now as the imaginal
cells of the future. The old order of mindless waste and over consumption and
exploitation is starting to break down.
It is time for these imaginal cells of the future to connect to each
other and begin to organize into a new future of hope and abundance. It is time for us to start being the change
we wish to see in the world, as Gandhi said.
It is time for us to be co-creators with God of a new creation, a new
relationship between the human race and the Creation that sustains us.
In
your bulletins you will find a card with a cocoon on one side and a butterfly
on another. I challenge you, as a
resident of God’s good earth and a member of God’s human family, to write down
on the cocoon side at least one thing that you have been doing that is part of
the old, dying order that you are willing to give up--like not making full use
of your blue box, or buying on impulse, or just throwing away your old
computers or smoke detectors or toxic chemicals, as though their toxins
just disappeared when they went into the earth. Then write down on the
butterfly side at least one thing that you want to commit to doing that makes
you a good steward of the earth, like turning off lights and the TV and
computer when you’re not using them, or any of the things on the list you’ll
find on the list in the back of the bulletin, or attending this afternoon’s
Caring for Creation workshop, or anything you can think of that seems like a
doable stretch for you. You can put
your card in the offering plate, or take it and the list home and think about
them on your own or as a couple or a family.
We
sometimes sing, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” But God has given us the power to hold the
world in our hands, and the little
bitty babies like Stephen Wright and Allysia Eisenhauer and Alexander Palmer
and Alexa Peterson. We hold their future in our hands. I’m for
giving them a future of hope and abundance. How about you?