Word of the Day - Deracinate; 1. to pull up by the roots; uproot; extirpate; eradicate. 2. to isolate or alienate (a person) from a native or customary culture or environment.
I'm reading 'Being Consumed; Economics and Christian Desire' by William T. Cavanaugh.
Here is a quote that explains his work in the first chapter entitle 'Freedom and Unfreedom'
'In the ideology of the free market, freedom is conceived as the absence of interference from others. There are no common ends to which our desires are directed. In the absence of such ends, all that remains is the sheer arbitrary power of one will against another. Freedom thus gives way to the aggrandizement of power and the manipulation of will and desire by the greater power. The liberation of desire from ends, on the one hand, and the domination of impersonal power on the other, are two sides of the same coin.
If this is the case, then true freedom requires an account of the end (telos) of human life and the destination of creation.'
I am planning a two up-coming sermon series, one that will focus on Christian Practices, such as forgiveness, generosity, peacemaking connected to acts such as communion, baptism and other traditional Christian practices. The second series will focus on a Baptist response to Consumerism, and so I am reading the book quoted above (among others) to prepare for these sermons.
Recently I have begun to think about tithing not as fund-raising, duty, or even a spiritual matter, but as a practice of the church intended to teach the world how to think about and use money. We do not tithe then simply for the institutional church or for our own spiritual well being, but as a practice which is meant to be a witness to the world of what it is meant to do and be in regards to both wealth and property.
Most churches avoid the topic of money. When they do most sound dogmatic about obeying God's command or propose that tithing is good for the soul. I am interested in the ethical implications of tithing. How does the practice of tithing protect me from being influenced by consumerism and what is it meant to teach a consumer culture about the purpose of wealth as God intended.
Anyone have other reading suggestions?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Random thoughts; poetry, words, constantinianism
Poem for Today; this poem accompanied sunday's sermon. I heard the idea that God's hardest work is done when we think the story is finished, that God can do no more.
Wendell Berry
What hard travail God does in death!
He strives in sleep, in our despair,
And all flesh shudders underneath
The nightmare of His sepulcher.
The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;
All night the cold wind heaves and pries;
Creation strains sinew and bone
Against the dark door where He lies.
The stem bent, pent in see, grows straight
And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising
The merely dead, graves fill with light
Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.
From; A Timbered Choir; The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Word for the day: Terminus; a final goal; a finishing point
Thought/Quote that insterests me:
The influx into the membership of the Christian church of larger numbers of persons for whom that new affiliation is not the expression of a strong personal faith experience or commitment means that there will be a need to adjust the expectations of ethical teachers with regard to how insightful and how unselfish we can ask people to be. The conversionist ethic of a minority under pressure can expect of its members a 'heroic' level of devotion: a church of the multitudes must on the other hand be satisfied with a run-of-the-mill level of understanding and devotion.
John Howard Yoder in an essay entitled 'The Kingdom as Social Ethic' in a volume of his essays; The Priestly Kingdom.
I go to visit and consult with other American Baptist churches in the state. These churches are often experiencing the shock of declining numbers, aging membership and few families and/or children, and a financial decline as well. Often I hear a lament that 'people' that is our society or culture, are just not interested in church anymore (and sometimes this is quite a bitter expression on the part of the church). Well-intention folks, very few to be sure, want to push the church to do things to be 'more popular' or 'more relevant.' I have heard many churches saddened by the fact that 'people just don't come to church anymore.' For earlier generations, church attendance was simply a matter of good citizenship and social expectation. While many in the church pine those bygone days, I hear Yoder telling us to celebrate and be glad that the 'run-of-the-mill' level of devotion is rapidly disappearing, for this implicite popularity of the church, in the end, watered down its ethic. We sought to be popular instead of seeking to be faithful. I actually find myself both frightened by this and exhilerated. While the financial support of the institutional church is shrinking and I don't know how long many smaller churches, even my own which is generous in giving compared to many, will last. I am also hopeful in the smaller number of folks who join now, not because it is expected, but because they have seen the futility of a life without faith in our culture and who want to be a part of a community of love and generosity. Which means the small local church will continue exist, but it may have to change its structure. Already the phenomena of house church seems to be rising in popularity in some places as well as bi-vocational pastors. some seem to see this as a failure or defeat somehow. But Paul was bi-vocational too if I remember correctly.
Yoder's words suggest to me that while the shape of church may have to radically change in my generation... perhaps the shape I inherited was not not terribly effective and a radical change may be just what we need.
Wendell Berry
What hard travail God does in death!
He strives in sleep, in our despair,
And all flesh shudders underneath
The nightmare of His sepulcher.
The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;
All night the cold wind heaves and pries;
Creation strains sinew and bone
Against the dark door where He lies.
The stem bent, pent in see, grows straight
And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising
The merely dead, graves fill with light
Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.
From; A Timbered Choir; The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Word for the day: Terminus; a final goal; a finishing point
Thought/Quote that insterests me:
The influx into the membership of the Christian church of larger numbers of persons for whom that new affiliation is not the expression of a strong personal faith experience or commitment means that there will be a need to adjust the expectations of ethical teachers with regard to how insightful and how unselfish we can ask people to be. The conversionist ethic of a minority under pressure can expect of its members a 'heroic' level of devotion: a church of the multitudes must on the other hand be satisfied with a run-of-the-mill level of understanding and devotion.
John Howard Yoder in an essay entitled 'The Kingdom as Social Ethic' in a volume of his essays; The Priestly Kingdom.
I go to visit and consult with other American Baptist churches in the state. These churches are often experiencing the shock of declining numbers, aging membership and few families and/or children, and a financial decline as well. Often I hear a lament that 'people' that is our society or culture, are just not interested in church anymore (and sometimes this is quite a bitter expression on the part of the church). Well-intention folks, very few to be sure, want to push the church to do things to be 'more popular' or 'more relevant.' I have heard many churches saddened by the fact that 'people just don't come to church anymore.' For earlier generations, church attendance was simply a matter of good citizenship and social expectation. While many in the church pine those bygone days, I hear Yoder telling us to celebrate and be glad that the 'run-of-the-mill' level of devotion is rapidly disappearing, for this implicite popularity of the church, in the end, watered down its ethic. We sought to be popular instead of seeking to be faithful. I actually find myself both frightened by this and exhilerated. While the financial support of the institutional church is shrinking and I don't know how long many smaller churches, even my own which is generous in giving compared to many, will last. I am also hopeful in the smaller number of folks who join now, not because it is expected, but because they have seen the futility of a life without faith in our culture and who want to be a part of a community of love and generosity. Which means the small local church will continue exist, but it may have to change its structure. Already the phenomena of house church seems to be rising in popularity in some places as well as bi-vocational pastors. some seem to see this as a failure or defeat somehow. But Paul was bi-vocational too if I remember correctly.
Yoder's words suggest to me that while the shape of church may have to radically change in my generation... perhaps the shape I inherited was not not terribly effective and a radical change may be just what we need.
A New Blog Announcement
Bowing to the incredible pressure applied by my pal at theologicalsnob I have created another blog for sermons. I haven't felt this kind of peer pressure since Jr. High. So, for theologican snob and for my mom, who are the only one's who really want to read my sermons anyway.... here is a new link
www.bbcsermons.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy
www.bbcsermons.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy
Monday, June 22, 2009
Gospel of John, Ecotheology and Word of the Day
Just finished this book; Tom Thatcher's Greater Than Caesr; Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel. Most of my studies have focused on the Synoptics so I'm trying to do some studies in John. Thatcher's basic thesis is that the Christology of the Gospel is written through 'countermemory' in which the gospel writer re-interprets key events in Jesus' career so that they do not reflect the power of Rome, but instead the power of Christ. Think specifically of the extended dialogue with Pilate.Thatcher see's Rome's Empire in three key character's in the gospel; Caiaphas, Pilate and the Cross.
I'm still very new to Johnanine scholarship, but I thought his argument was interesting and would recommend the read.
Currently I am reading this book; Ecologies of Grace. Quite technical and I am enjoying the mental exercise. Jenkins begins with an overview of secular environmental ethics and then begins to survey Christian environmental ethics. Will write more as I go along as he raises a number of interesting questions.For now I will offer a quote from Larry Rasmussen that Jenkings includes;
'fidelity to earth is an imitation of God' from; Earth Community, Earth Ethics.
Word of the day; paideutic: The science or art of teaching.
Special thanks to my friend Jonathan Malone for helping me to define this word. I had a difficult time finding a definition on-line so called malone. He didn't know exactly, but offered a really close educated guest and we finally found a definition on-line. Quite a brain on this guy!!! check out his blog and you can find sermons here... look in the upper right corner of the page.
finally a new website I found in the Providence Journal today. If you'd like to know how the products you buy affect your health, or the companies environmental policies and ethical record... go to this website. GoodGuide.com For instance, the Journal article explains that the site's creator investigated and discovered that the sunscreen he used on his kids contain carcinogens. Its a new site, so they might not have complete info on the product you are curious about, but it also offers connections to other websites and their info... so check it out.
a new member to our family.... Lidl... We wentto the pet store to buy filters for the fish tank and came home with her!Oh, and I almost forgot... Oldest son completed his first triathlon
Monday, June 08, 2009
Domination and Preservation
Another Environmental Sermon
Same warnings as before... some abrupt jumps and endings that I just planned in my head, didn't write down and don't now recall. As before, I didn't make copious note of where I got all my info... but i did try to attribute sources a bit more carefully.
Environmental Sermon Series
Sermon 1: Domination or Preservation?
Texts:
Domination:
Gen 1:26; ' Then God said, ' Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'
Gen 1:28; ' Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over he fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'
Gen 9:2-3; 'The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands... Everything that lives and moves will be food for you.'
Preservation:
Gen 2:5b; '...no plant of the field had yet sprung up... there was no [human] to work the ground.'
Gen 2:15; 'The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.'
One of the basic assumptions that humanity has developed and operated under and which shapes our relationship to nature is summarized in the first chapter of Genesis... the natural world is in place to be 'ruled over.' We were placed here to have 'dominion over' In King James language all of nature. At the close of the story of Noah and the ark the human relationship to nature is phrased in even more shocking language; 'fear and dread'... nature will have fear and dread because of our dominion, our God given right to dominate.
An example of this assumption which comes from our own history is found in a letter from then President Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson... informing Jackson that he must advise the Native Americans to sell their 'useless' forests and become farmers. Notice the assumption that Jefferson is operating with... the forests are useless or valueless,until farmers add value by transforming them into fields. (I believe that, philosophically, comes from Locke) Jackson later wrote, after a mission of 'advisement' which was a polite and sophisticated term for 'slaughter,' “In their places [the dead Indians] a new generation will arise who will know their duties better... the wilderness which now withers in sterility and seems to mourn the desolation which overspreads it, will blossom as a rose and become the nursery of the arts.' (Takaki, A Different Mirror pp 84, 86) A sermon on the treatment of Native Americans will have to wait for another day. For now I would suggest we focus on Jackson's assumptions. The forest withers away for lack of production. It groans in anticipation of salvation from 'the ignorant savages' and will now be reborn under the grace of farmers of European descent. Indians were not adding value to the forest and so the forests were wasted and languishing, awaiting a savior to give them value.
This assumption, one that we are perhaps, not even conscious of, shapes our modern economic system and its philosophy. Herman Daly, a former professor of Economics at LSU and former senior economist for the World Bank says; 'Human beings add utility to matter/energy. This is what we mean by production... Useful structure is added to matter/ energy by the agency of labor and capital stocks. The value of this useful structure imparted by labor and capital is what economists call 'value added.' In other words matter and energy has no value until we add value to it. Daly goes on to say 'modern economists have remarkably little to say bout that to which value is added. It is just' matter' and its properties are not very interesting (Daly in Ethics of Consumptions pp.21-22) In short, it is our dominion over nature that give nature value... Water, trees, natural gas, sunlight, fish, have no value until we, through production give it value.
This particular view of human relationship to nature has not always served us well.
One obvious example is the Dust-bowl era of the 1930's in the plains states. In the 1920's technological advances in agricultural equipment; the development of the tractor, combine, plow and truck lead to what some have called 'the great plow up.' These technological advances and the theories of leading agronomists that suggested that continued plowing of fields would lead to greater water absorption were intended to increase productivity. The amount of value that farmers could both give then receive from the land would increase. And it worked for a few years. Until a strange confluence of heavy rains and drought lead to the great dust-storms. The ecological equilibrium was disrupted by continual plowing and the anomalies in the weather patterns, which probably could have been mitigated previous to the great plowing, were left unchecked. Only 15% of land designated for crop production at that point, could actually produce anything. This lead to poverty among the people living in the plains states and a mass migration to California. Special hospitals had to be opened up to treat 'dust-pneumonia' as great numbers of people contracted respiratory diseases due to inhaling vast amounts of dust particles.
A couple of months ago I shared a story of an American billionaire, who decided to add value to the Brazilian rain forest by stripping almost 9 million acres of native flora in the Amazon to both plant new trees which could be developed for a wood pulp business and also to create an agricultural project to produce beef and rice among other crops. He imported trees better suited for pulp production from Africa and planted them on a half a million acres. Since the trees were growing outside their own ecosystem they were vulnerable to diseases that they were not accustomed too and the project failed completely. (Leonardo Boff, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor; pp 91-92).
Now, I'm not saying that production and development is evil. I am not saying that this value adding is bad. I am well aware of the fact that without this production I would be in the state of Adam and Eve in the garden. From socks and shoes to suit and skivvies, my clothing is value-added to natural resource. Without production I wouldn't have a roof over my head or heat for my apartment. But I do believe that these stories strongly suggest that our view, our assumption that nature is valueless until dominated by us, has weaknesses. Weaknesses that can have serious and dangerous consequences not only to the natural world, but to the people who live on, in, with and depend upon the natural world for home, food, health and safety. Perhaps we should be a bit more humble about our relationship to the natural world. Perhaps we should be more aware that we always have a relationship with the natural world. (need more)
The Bible does give us an alternate view, a different model for thinking about our relationship to nature. It too is found in Genesis. In Genesis 2:5 we find a hint of a new way of living with the earth. Genesis 2:5 tells us that there was no man to work/till the ground. And in Genesis 2:15 we read that the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden to work and care for it. Literal translations of the original Hebrew make this alternate view more clear. The word that we often read as work or till is more literally translated... serve. And the word that we often read as 'care for' is more literally translated as guard or protect. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden to serve and protect it...
We don't necessarily hear a lot in the Bible about human relationships to the rest of Creation. We do find it again in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In Exodus and Deuteronomy God gives the 10 Commandments to Moses and one of them is to observe Sabbath. Take a rest, God says to the people of Israel. Specifically in Deuteronomy God ties Sabbath to the Exodus... You observe Sabbath to be reminded that unlike the Egyptians, I value you not for what you develop or produce for me... but just because you are. Israel was treated like matter/energy without value until the Egyptians added value to them by using them for development, building, production. But to God, Israel's value was inherent... they were valuable just because of their existence. And that Sabbath applied also to... livestock, animals, they too were to have the benefit of Sabbath... they were valuable to God beyond productivity... They were valuable because they too, were created by God. In Leviticus Sabbath is expanded even to the land. Every 7 years give your crop-land a rest... God said.
This could just be good land management which would ensure good crop return in the future. But it wasn't a practical suggestion, it was a commandment. God commands you to observe Sabbath, you, your livestock and even your land... all are valuable to God.
In other words, awareness of the environment and care of the environment is a matter of faith. It is a moral as well as ethical matter commanded by God. Care of Creation, through the sabbath, becomes a spiritual practice like prayer, devotion, Bible study, and worship... When Rhonda drives her hybrid car that is a spiritual practice, caring for the earth. When people bring clothes to the clothes closet and we redistribute them, that is spiritual practice that benefits the natural world as cotton is one of the most damaging crops to the soil that grows it. When Bob and Missy support the American Chestnut fund, that is a spiritual practice... they are caring for the earth not because scientists have told them too, or politicians... not because they will receive benefit from it... but because they care about the American Chestnut for its own worth. It may not be a constant theme in the bible, it may simply be a minority report, but still, these verses make it clear... we were placed here not simply to dominate, but to guard and care for, to preserve the rest of creation. Sabbath makes it clear that care and keeping of the natural world has a spiritual dimension... when we care for the earth we are connected to God... when we ignore the earth... we are separated from God. This matter of how we interact with the earth, utilize its natural resources, clearly is a practice of connecting to God. To ignore this earth and the warning-signs of its suffering due to our domination, is to ignore God.
The earth is the Lord's, we gabbled
and the fullness thereof --
while we looted and pillaged, claiming indemnity:
the fullness thereof
given over to us, to our use--
while we preened ourselves sure of our power,
willful or ignorant, through the centuries.
Miswritten, misread, that charge:
subdue was the false, the misplaced word in the story
Surely we were to have been
earth's mind, mirror, reflective source.
Surely our task
was to have been
to love the earth,
to dress and keep it like Eden's garden.
That would have been our dominion....
Same warnings as before... some abrupt jumps and endings that I just planned in my head, didn't write down and don't now recall. As before, I didn't make copious note of where I got all my info... but i did try to attribute sources a bit more carefully.
Environmental Sermon Series
Sermon 1: Domination or Preservation?
Texts:
Domination:
Gen 1:26; ' Then God said, ' Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'
Gen 1:28; ' Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over he fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'
Gen 9:2-3; 'The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands... Everything that lives and moves will be food for you.'
Preservation:
Gen 2:5b; '...no plant of the field had yet sprung up... there was no [human] to work the ground.'
Gen 2:15; 'The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.'
One of the basic assumptions that humanity has developed and operated under and which shapes our relationship to nature is summarized in the first chapter of Genesis... the natural world is in place to be 'ruled over.' We were placed here to have 'dominion over' In King James language all of nature. At the close of the story of Noah and the ark the human relationship to nature is phrased in even more shocking language; 'fear and dread'... nature will have fear and dread because of our dominion, our God given right to dominate.
An example of this assumption which comes from our own history is found in a letter from then President Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson... informing Jackson that he must advise the Native Americans to sell their 'useless' forests and become farmers. Notice the assumption that Jefferson is operating with... the forests are useless or valueless,until farmers add value by transforming them into fields. (I believe that, philosophically, comes from Locke) Jackson later wrote, after a mission of 'advisement' which was a polite and sophisticated term for 'slaughter,' “In their places [the dead Indians] a new generation will arise who will know their duties better... the wilderness which now withers in sterility and seems to mourn the desolation which overspreads it, will blossom as a rose and become the nursery of the arts.' (Takaki, A Different Mirror pp 84, 86) A sermon on the treatment of Native Americans will have to wait for another day. For now I would suggest we focus on Jackson's assumptions. The forest withers away for lack of production. It groans in anticipation of salvation from 'the ignorant savages' and will now be reborn under the grace of farmers of European descent. Indians were not adding value to the forest and so the forests were wasted and languishing, awaiting a savior to give them value.
This assumption, one that we are perhaps, not even conscious of, shapes our modern economic system and its philosophy. Herman Daly, a former professor of Economics at LSU and former senior economist for the World Bank says; 'Human beings add utility to matter/energy. This is what we mean by production... Useful structure is added to matter/ energy by the agency of labor and capital stocks. The value of this useful structure imparted by labor and capital is what economists call 'value added.' In other words matter and energy has no value until we add value to it. Daly goes on to say 'modern economists have remarkably little to say bout that to which value is added. It is just' matter' and its properties are not very interesting (Daly in Ethics of Consumptions pp.21-22) In short, it is our dominion over nature that give nature value... Water, trees, natural gas, sunlight, fish, have no value until we, through production give it value.
This particular view of human relationship to nature has not always served us well.
One obvious example is the Dust-bowl era of the 1930's in the plains states. In the 1920's technological advances in agricultural equipment; the development of the tractor, combine, plow and truck lead to what some have called 'the great plow up.' These technological advances and the theories of leading agronomists that suggested that continued plowing of fields would lead to greater water absorption were intended to increase productivity. The amount of value that farmers could both give then receive from the land would increase. And it worked for a few years. Until a strange confluence of heavy rains and drought lead to the great dust-storms. The ecological equilibrium was disrupted by continual plowing and the anomalies in the weather patterns, which probably could have been mitigated previous to the great plowing, were left unchecked. Only 15% of land designated for crop production at that point, could actually produce anything. This lead to poverty among the people living in the plains states and a mass migration to California. Special hospitals had to be opened up to treat 'dust-pneumonia' as great numbers of people contracted respiratory diseases due to inhaling vast amounts of dust particles.
A couple of months ago I shared a story of an American billionaire, who decided to add value to the Brazilian rain forest by stripping almost 9 million acres of native flora in the Amazon to both plant new trees which could be developed for a wood pulp business and also to create an agricultural project to produce beef and rice among other crops. He imported trees better suited for pulp production from Africa and planted them on a half a million acres. Since the trees were growing outside their own ecosystem they were vulnerable to diseases that they were not accustomed too and the project failed completely. (Leonardo Boff, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor; pp 91-92).
Now, I'm not saying that production and development is evil. I am not saying that this value adding is bad. I am well aware of the fact that without this production I would be in the state of Adam and Eve in the garden. From socks and shoes to suit and skivvies, my clothing is value-added to natural resource. Without production I wouldn't have a roof over my head or heat for my apartment. But I do believe that these stories strongly suggest that our view, our assumption that nature is valueless until dominated by us, has weaknesses. Weaknesses that can have serious and dangerous consequences not only to the natural world, but to the people who live on, in, with and depend upon the natural world for home, food, health and safety. Perhaps we should be a bit more humble about our relationship to the natural world. Perhaps we should be more aware that we always have a relationship with the natural world. (need more)
The Bible does give us an alternate view, a different model for thinking about our relationship to nature. It too is found in Genesis. In Genesis 2:5 we find a hint of a new way of living with the earth. Genesis 2:5 tells us that there was no man to work/till the ground. And in Genesis 2:15 we read that the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden to work and care for it. Literal translations of the original Hebrew make this alternate view more clear. The word that we often read as work or till is more literally translated... serve. And the word that we often read as 'care for' is more literally translated as guard or protect. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden to serve and protect it...
We don't necessarily hear a lot in the Bible about human relationships to the rest of Creation. We do find it again in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In Exodus and Deuteronomy God gives the 10 Commandments to Moses and one of them is to observe Sabbath. Take a rest, God says to the people of Israel. Specifically in Deuteronomy God ties Sabbath to the Exodus... You observe Sabbath to be reminded that unlike the Egyptians, I value you not for what you develop or produce for me... but just because you are. Israel was treated like matter/energy without value until the Egyptians added value to them by using them for development, building, production. But to God, Israel's value was inherent... they were valuable just because of their existence. And that Sabbath applied also to... livestock, animals, they too were to have the benefit of Sabbath... they were valuable to God beyond productivity... They were valuable because they too, were created by God. In Leviticus Sabbath is expanded even to the land. Every 7 years give your crop-land a rest... God said.
This could just be good land management which would ensure good crop return in the future. But it wasn't a practical suggestion, it was a commandment. God commands you to observe Sabbath, you, your livestock and even your land... all are valuable to God.
In other words, awareness of the environment and care of the environment is a matter of faith. It is a moral as well as ethical matter commanded by God. Care of Creation, through the sabbath, becomes a spiritual practice like prayer, devotion, Bible study, and worship... When Rhonda drives her hybrid car that is a spiritual practice, caring for the earth. When people bring clothes to the clothes closet and we redistribute them, that is spiritual practice that benefits the natural world as cotton is one of the most damaging crops to the soil that grows it. When Bob and Missy support the American Chestnut fund, that is a spiritual practice... they are caring for the earth not because scientists have told them too, or politicians... not because they will receive benefit from it... but because they care about the American Chestnut for its own worth. It may not be a constant theme in the bible, it may simply be a minority report, but still, these verses make it clear... we were placed here not simply to dominate, but to guard and care for, to preserve the rest of creation. Sabbath makes it clear that care and keeping of the natural world has a spiritual dimension... when we care for the earth we are connected to God... when we ignore the earth... we are separated from God. This matter of how we interact with the earth, utilize its natural resources, clearly is a practice of connecting to God. To ignore this earth and the warning-signs of its suffering due to our domination, is to ignore God.
The earth is the Lord's, we gabbled
and the fullness thereof --
while we looted and pillaged, claiming indemnity:
the fullness thereof
given over to us, to our use--
while we preened ourselves sure of our power,
willful or ignorant, through the centuries.
Miswritten, misread, that charge:
subdue was the false, the misplaced word in the story
Surely we were to have been
earth's mind, mirror, reflective source.
Surely our task
was to have been
to love the earth,
to dress and keep it like Eden's garden.
That would have been our dominion....
Glacier and Grace
I'm gonna post the polar bear sermon, but until then, I'm posting a couple of other environmental sermons for those of you who may be interested.
this is a draft as I often don't tie everything together or type up everything I plan to say to how to end... so it may seem to jump from point to point or to end abruptly, that is because I add that stuff on the fly... but I think you'll get the point. the poem at the end is not mine, but I don't recall now where it came from.
Sunday April 6, 2008
Environmental Sermon Series
Sermon 2: The Big Bang, Exploding Stars, Glaciers and Grace
Texts: Gen 1:
Ephesians 1:3-10
The Big Bang and Exploding Stars
In the beginning God created, earth and sky, trees and birds, land and sea,
and it was good.
Steven hawking explains the beginning, the good beginning,
with these words...
If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by
even one part in a hundred, thousand, million million, the universe would
have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size. If, on the other hand,
the expansion had been a little greater, one part in a million, there would
not be enough density for the formations of stars and planets and hence, life.
The numbers that Hawking uses are more than I can even comprehend. How infinitesimally minute the variables were that kept the birthing universe in balance at the point of its inception, I can hardly imagine. But what seems plain to me, is the wonder of that moment, so perfectly tuned, that started the process that lead eventually to the milky way, our sun, mars, jupiter, venus, earth, and the skies, plants, waters, amoeba, amphibians, birds, mammals and you and I, that Genesis describes as...
good.
If that does not evoke a sense of awe and wonder in you consider:
If the weak nuclear force had not held its level all hydrogen would have
turned to helium...the newly forming stars would dissolve and without
Hydrogen, life as we know it on this earth would not be possible.
If the strong nuclear force had risen by simply 1% carbon would never
have formed in the stars. Without Carbon, DNA, which stores the basic
information for the formation of life, would not have ever appeared.
If the electromagnetic force were just a little higher, the stars would turn cold.
They would not be able to explode as supernovas and such explosions would
not thereby give rise to the formation of planets, neither would the formation
of other elements be possible, elements such as nitrogen, or phosphorus,
which are crucial for the production and reproduction of life.
To ponder the fact that all the elements that make us up as we sit here right now, were formed in that initial big bang and scattered by cosmic explosions and nurtured by such finely tuned balances, with just the slightest of shifts causing them to no longer exist and hence, you and I to no longer exist... well, to me, it is just breath-taking to imagine the precision of such an event.
Glaciers
Because it is so well known, it is easy for us to brush quickly through Genesis 1. It seems like a laundry list, a repetitive litany that we can skim quickly. God speaks and creates sky, land and sea and calls them good. Plants and trees and all vegetation and calls them good. Sun, moon ans stars all named good. Sea creatures and birds, livestock and wild animals and all creatures that crawl on the ground are called good. We usually just want to skip to the 'good' part for us, where, humans are created in God's image.
But pause again to consider the research of James Lovelock a physician and biologist
who discovered that
CO2 makes up 96.5 % of the atmosphere of Venus and 98% of the atmosphere
of Mars but only 300 ppm (and climbing) of our own atmosphere here on earth.
Oxygen is completely missing from both Mars and Venus. Nitrogen, which
nourishes living organisms is only 3.5% of the atmosphere and biosphere
of Venus and 2.7% on Mars, but 79% on earth.
Mars and Venus, roughly the same size as earth, created by the same supernovas, nourished by the same sun...yet devoid of the conditions that nurture life.
Lovelock was doing this research for NASA, so as to discover models for space exploration seeking the possibility of life in space. But what he discovered... That there is a delicate balance of factors and forces that allowed life to begin on Earth and to continue on earth... lead him to focus his research not on other planets, but on this fragile and powerful system called Earth. A system dependent on
High levels of oxygen released billions of years ago by photosynthesizing bacteria
in the oceans. A system dependent on the Low levels of carbon created by the photo- synthesizing of bacteria, algae and plants. This research discovered the vast and complex connections and interactions that started life on earth and the interplay of forms of life that created an environment conducive to yet more life. 'Lovelock drew attention to how the
conditions of all those elements useful for life are maintained under relatively
steady conditions. This balance if fashioned by by the planet wide life-system itself.'
As I said before, we tend to fast forward through Genesis 1 to get to 'God created humans in his own image.' But Lovelock shows us that all those other verses aren't just a laundry list of things for us to use or abuse... seas, plants, earth and sky.. these were God's process for getting to Humans in his own image... these were to tools that in turn created the forces that God chose to utilize to get to Adam and Eve and you and I.
Grace
Now, stay with me as we make a jump here from science and Genesis to the letter of Ephesians.
The churches of Ephesus were afraid. They were afraid of the universe, the cosmos.
A group of Christians called gnostics followed Paul to Ephesus and taught these new Christians there that all things physical... all created things were bad, evil, and weak... and that God only loved and cared for the spiritual. The forces of the universe were considered evil and only the spirit was good.
This is very foreign to our way of thinking and perhaps hard to identify with so let me put it this way...
When you are watching the news or reading the paper and you hear about another shooting at a school, or a teenager killed in a drunken car crash, or a child abducted or major lay-offs in a huge company that will effect thousands... perhaps you, like me, experience a sinking feeling in your stomach, that there are just forces out there that you can't control or contend with. Which can lead to despair; how will I keep my kids safe, how will I pay my own bills, how can I hope to have a truly good life with so many forces out there that seem to explode unexpectedly to keep me from my good life? Have you felt that way? Then you know how the people in Ephesus felt. They perhaps understood the cosmic forces differently than we do... They really felt that the universe as they knew it, was against them... but the result was the same... there are forces out there that I can't control which cause trauma and pain.
To which Paul replies in the opening verses of his letter, with a great hymn of the the cosmic force of God and the cosmic plan of God. The Heavenly realms are a blessing, Paul says to us, not a curse and not against us... the cosmos is for us because God has created it. To tie it with the science that Hawking and Lovelock have described, The weak and strong nuclear forces, the electromagnet forces, gravity are created by God to be a blessing to us... they are a part of the plan of God. Photosynthesis and the myriad other biological processes that surround us... are a blessing from God and a part of God's plan.
And then Paul calls all of these cosmic forces that are not against us, but for us... 'grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ' These cosmic forces that The Ephesian Christians feared, which you and I now, through science can begin to understand, are not evil, and they are not chance, they are the visible signs of God's grace.
Now to those of us raised in church, grace is a spiritual gift that God sent through Jesus, that forgives us of our sins and connects us to salvation and eternal life. And I am not arguing that this is no longer our understanding. What I am suggesting is that we have missed something. Grace is not limited to a spiritual force or a spiritual transaction. Paul is telling us here that grace is imparted through Jesus, who was present at and in the creation, and also imparted through the cosmic forces and the natural world that surrounds us... to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ.
The plan, Paul says, was that God would provide all that we would need for a full life, for our salvation... we know salvation through Christ...who then brings all the other forces of grace together. Paul is expanding our understanding of what grace is... and giving us, in the natural world, in the creation, visible, verifiable proof of God's love and the power of God to give us life. The natural world is one aspect, a concrete facet of God's grace.
This may sound like a bit of a stretch to those of us raised in church... Because I'm not suggesting that nature is like grace... I'm saying that nature IS grace, not in full, but in part, a neglected part.
But if we look to the rest of the Bible, we see the same theme, that grace is understood and seen in and through the natural world...
Deuteronomy 33: 13-16, Moses is offering a blessing to Israel, letting them know that God will love and care for them in this new promised land, and that they will see this love this grace bursting forth in the natural world around them;
May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above
and with the deep waters that lie below
with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield
with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains
and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills
with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness
and the favor of him who dwelt in the the burning bush...
the favor of God, love, grace, made known in the dew and sea, the sun and the fields...
In Psalm 136 we find another hymn to God's love and grace
to him who alone does great wonders, his love endures forever
who by his understanding made the heavens
who spread out the earth upon the waters
who made the great lights
the sun to govern the day
the moon and stars to govern the night
who gives food to every creature
Give thanks to the God of heaven his love endures forever
A song that says Israel would have proof of God's steadfast love when they looked at the sun, moon and stars...
And in Joel 2
Israel has failed... as all humans do
they have failed to stay faithful to God
they have failed to care for the poor and the impoverished
they have loved more the things they produced with their own hands
their own comfort and profit are more important than God or other people...
And God is angry
Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming
a day of darkness and gloom
a day of clouds and blackness.
But then God says,
return to me with all your heart
and if you return to me here will be the proof that I have forgiven you and still love you
Be not afraid, O land;be glad and rejoice.
Be not afraid wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green.
The trees are bearing fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches
Be glad of people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness
he sends you abundant showers
both autumn and spring rains as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
You will have plenty to eat until you are full
then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other
never again will my people be shamed.
We are the benefactors of 15 billions years of grace...
Cosmic explosions and blazing supernovas which laid the chemical foundation for life
We have received grace on this planet for the life that formed interacted
with the chemical environment changing and forming it to be
conducive to yet more life... eventually to our life...
the conditions for which; air to breath, water to drink
soil to grow food, and on and on...gracefully and patiently
held together in Christ says Ephesians...waiting for us...this is grace.
The thing about grace is that Jesus expected us to not only accept it, but to create it.
Judge not lest ye be judged
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Love one another as I have loved you
this is a draft as I often don't tie everything together or type up everything I plan to say to how to end... so it may seem to jump from point to point or to end abruptly, that is because I add that stuff on the fly... but I think you'll get the point. the poem at the end is not mine, but I don't recall now where it came from.
Sunday April 6, 2008
Environmental Sermon Series
Sermon 2: The Big Bang, Exploding Stars, Glaciers and Grace
Texts: Gen 1:
Ephesians 1:3-10
The Big Bang and Exploding Stars
In the beginning God created, earth and sky, trees and birds, land and sea,
and it was good.
Steven hawking explains the beginning, the good beginning,
with these words...
If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by
even one part in a hundred, thousand, million million, the universe would
have re-collapsed before it ever reached its present size. If, on the other hand,
the expansion had been a little greater, one part in a million, there would
not be enough density for the formations of stars and planets and hence, life.
The numbers that Hawking uses are more than I can even comprehend. How infinitesimally minute the variables were that kept the birthing universe in balance at the point of its inception, I can hardly imagine. But what seems plain to me, is the wonder of that moment, so perfectly tuned, that started the process that lead eventually to the milky way, our sun, mars, jupiter, venus, earth, and the skies, plants, waters, amoeba, amphibians, birds, mammals and you and I, that Genesis describes as...
good.
If that does not evoke a sense of awe and wonder in you consider:
If the weak nuclear force had not held its level all hydrogen would have
turned to helium...the newly forming stars would dissolve and without
Hydrogen, life as we know it on this earth would not be possible.
If the strong nuclear force had risen by simply 1% carbon would never
have formed in the stars. Without Carbon, DNA, which stores the basic
information for the formation of life, would not have ever appeared.
If the electromagnetic force were just a little higher, the stars would turn cold.
They would not be able to explode as supernovas and such explosions would
not thereby give rise to the formation of planets, neither would the formation
of other elements be possible, elements such as nitrogen, or phosphorus,
which are crucial for the production and reproduction of life.
To ponder the fact that all the elements that make us up as we sit here right now, were formed in that initial big bang and scattered by cosmic explosions and nurtured by such finely tuned balances, with just the slightest of shifts causing them to no longer exist and hence, you and I to no longer exist... well, to me, it is just breath-taking to imagine the precision of such an event.
Glaciers
Because it is so well known, it is easy for us to brush quickly through Genesis 1. It seems like a laundry list, a repetitive litany that we can skim quickly. God speaks and creates sky, land and sea and calls them good. Plants and trees and all vegetation and calls them good. Sun, moon ans stars all named good. Sea creatures and birds, livestock and wild animals and all creatures that crawl on the ground are called good. We usually just want to skip to the 'good' part for us, where, humans are created in God's image.
But pause again to consider the research of James Lovelock a physician and biologist
who discovered that
CO2 makes up 96.5 % of the atmosphere of Venus and 98% of the atmosphere
of Mars but only 300 ppm (and climbing) of our own atmosphere here on earth.
Oxygen is completely missing from both Mars and Venus. Nitrogen, which
nourishes living organisms is only 3.5% of the atmosphere and biosphere
of Venus and 2.7% on Mars, but 79% on earth.
Mars and Venus, roughly the same size as earth, created by the same supernovas, nourished by the same sun...yet devoid of the conditions that nurture life.
Lovelock was doing this research for NASA, so as to discover models for space exploration seeking the possibility of life in space. But what he discovered... That there is a delicate balance of factors and forces that allowed life to begin on Earth and to continue on earth... lead him to focus his research not on other planets, but on this fragile and powerful system called Earth. A system dependent on
High levels of oxygen released billions of years ago by photosynthesizing bacteria
in the oceans. A system dependent on the Low levels of carbon created by the photo- synthesizing of bacteria, algae and plants. This research discovered the vast and complex connections and interactions that started life on earth and the interplay of forms of life that created an environment conducive to yet more life. 'Lovelock drew attention to how the
conditions of all those elements useful for life are maintained under relatively
steady conditions. This balance if fashioned by by the planet wide life-system itself.'
As I said before, we tend to fast forward through Genesis 1 to get to 'God created humans in his own image.' But Lovelock shows us that all those other verses aren't just a laundry list of things for us to use or abuse... seas, plants, earth and sky.. these were God's process for getting to Humans in his own image... these were to tools that in turn created the forces that God chose to utilize to get to Adam and Eve and you and I.
Grace
Now, stay with me as we make a jump here from science and Genesis to the letter of Ephesians.
The churches of Ephesus were afraid. They were afraid of the universe, the cosmos.
A group of Christians called gnostics followed Paul to Ephesus and taught these new Christians there that all things physical... all created things were bad, evil, and weak... and that God only loved and cared for the spiritual. The forces of the universe were considered evil and only the spirit was good.
This is very foreign to our way of thinking and perhaps hard to identify with so let me put it this way...
When you are watching the news or reading the paper and you hear about another shooting at a school, or a teenager killed in a drunken car crash, or a child abducted or major lay-offs in a huge company that will effect thousands... perhaps you, like me, experience a sinking feeling in your stomach, that there are just forces out there that you can't control or contend with. Which can lead to despair; how will I keep my kids safe, how will I pay my own bills, how can I hope to have a truly good life with so many forces out there that seem to explode unexpectedly to keep me from my good life? Have you felt that way? Then you know how the people in Ephesus felt. They perhaps understood the cosmic forces differently than we do... They really felt that the universe as they knew it, was against them... but the result was the same... there are forces out there that I can't control which cause trauma and pain.
To which Paul replies in the opening verses of his letter, with a great hymn of the the cosmic force of God and the cosmic plan of God. The Heavenly realms are a blessing, Paul says to us, not a curse and not against us... the cosmos is for us because God has created it. To tie it with the science that Hawking and Lovelock have described, The weak and strong nuclear forces, the electromagnet forces, gravity are created by God to be a blessing to us... they are a part of the plan of God. Photosynthesis and the myriad other biological processes that surround us... are a blessing from God and a part of God's plan.
And then Paul calls all of these cosmic forces that are not against us, but for us... 'grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ' These cosmic forces that The Ephesian Christians feared, which you and I now, through science can begin to understand, are not evil, and they are not chance, they are the visible signs of God's grace.
Now to those of us raised in church, grace is a spiritual gift that God sent through Jesus, that forgives us of our sins and connects us to salvation and eternal life. And I am not arguing that this is no longer our understanding. What I am suggesting is that we have missed something. Grace is not limited to a spiritual force or a spiritual transaction. Paul is telling us here that grace is imparted through Jesus, who was present at and in the creation, and also imparted through the cosmic forces and the natural world that surrounds us... to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, Christ.
The plan, Paul says, was that God would provide all that we would need for a full life, for our salvation... we know salvation through Christ...who then brings all the other forces of grace together. Paul is expanding our understanding of what grace is... and giving us, in the natural world, in the creation, visible, verifiable proof of God's love and the power of God to give us life. The natural world is one aspect, a concrete facet of God's grace.
This may sound like a bit of a stretch to those of us raised in church... Because I'm not suggesting that nature is like grace... I'm saying that nature IS grace, not in full, but in part, a neglected part.
But if we look to the rest of the Bible, we see the same theme, that grace is understood and seen in and through the natural world...
Deuteronomy 33: 13-16, Moses is offering a blessing to Israel, letting them know that God will love and care for them in this new promised land, and that they will see this love this grace bursting forth in the natural world around them;
May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above
and with the deep waters that lie below
with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield
with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains
and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills
with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness
and the favor of him who dwelt in the the burning bush...
the favor of God, love, grace, made known in the dew and sea, the sun and the fields...
In Psalm 136 we find another hymn to God's love and grace
to him who alone does great wonders, his love endures forever
who by his understanding made the heavens
who spread out the earth upon the waters
who made the great lights
the sun to govern the day
the moon and stars to govern the night
who gives food to every creature
Give thanks to the God of heaven his love endures forever
A song that says Israel would have proof of God's steadfast love when they looked at the sun, moon and stars...
And in Joel 2
Israel has failed... as all humans do
they have failed to stay faithful to God
they have failed to care for the poor and the impoverished
they have loved more the things they produced with their own hands
their own comfort and profit are more important than God or other people...
And God is angry
Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming
a day of darkness and gloom
a day of clouds and blackness.
But then God says,
return to me with all your heart
and if you return to me here will be the proof that I have forgiven you and still love you
Be not afraid, O land;be glad and rejoice.
Be not afraid wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green.
The trees are bearing fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches
Be glad of people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness
he sends you abundant showers
both autumn and spring rains as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
You will have plenty to eat until you are full
then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other
never again will my people be shamed.
We are the benefactors of 15 billions years of grace...
Cosmic explosions and blazing supernovas which laid the chemical foundation for life
We have received grace on this planet for the life that formed interacted
with the chemical environment changing and forming it to be
conducive to yet more life... eventually to our life...
the conditions for which; air to breath, water to drink
soil to grow food, and on and on...gracefully and patiently
held together in Christ says Ephesians...waiting for us...this is grace.
The thing about grace is that Jesus expected us to not only accept it, but to create it.
Judge not lest ye be judged
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Love one another as I have loved you
Monday, June 01, 2009
Fishing
My youngest and I went and bought new fishing poles, hooks and worms and went fishing in the mill-pond today. Well, he did the fishing, I was busy worming his hook, helping him cast, and rescuing the sunfish that he caught. He had a blast and Miss Roberta took pictures. This afternoon, while they were on the Wii for their aloted hour, I snuck back down to do a little fishing of my own. Which made me remember why I never used worms. You spend more time putting the little suckers on the hook than you do fishing, and with one or two hits, your bait is gone and you start all over again. gotta find better bait.
The coolest part of the whole day was that when I reel in after casting, it lights up in bright blues and oranges, like kids sneakers. I think the guy was trying to sell it to my five year old... but he got me with it. Miss Roberta's response. Is that your pimp fishing pole?
The coolest part of the whole day was that when I reel in after casting, it lights up in bright blues and oranges, like kids sneakers. I think the guy was trying to sell it to my five year old... but he got me with it. Miss Roberta's response. Is that your pimp fishing pole?
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