How are you treating your mother – EARTH? Sunday, April 22, 2007 – Rev. David Tinney Text: Selected verses from Genesis 1 Theme: From the very first commission by God, humankind has been called to be co-creator and stewards of God’s creation, not destroyers. The gathering took place exactly 27 years ago today in a small college auditorium packed with curious professors, loyal friends, and students who could skip class if they attended. Two students with hair to their shoulders or soaring above in a massive afro, armed with two Kodak projectors and two circular Carousel slide trays welcomed the group and asked them to be seated for a show about ecology. The two students had spent weeks shooting pictures in and around the campus of polluted creeks, toxic landfills, and illegal dumps or had “liberated” other photos from magazines and books. From the back of the room they used their hands as fading and strobing devices and they flashed pictures on the screen to the music of “Here Comes the Sun” by group that was becoming well known - The Beatles. When the show was over the two students armed with more passion than facts declared that it was Earth Day across the nation and that this was their way of heightening awareness of our need to treat our mother Earth with more respect. I was one of those students. I felt like I was a champion for the earth and a passionate warrior for the environment. At nearly every rally that we told our audiences that we would be true to our Mother, that we would look for alternatives to fossil fuels, that we would hold polluters responsible, and that we would walk what we talked. College came and went and slowly as I worked my first job the idealism wore off. As many of you know I worked for many years in the newspaper industry as a photojournalist and even though we as the paper were in the habit of running stories about saving the environment we were more interested in saving our bottom line. For years all of the photographers knew that our chemical processes created a silver waste that was poured down the drain. Silver filtration systems were too expensive and the paper refused to install them until they were mandated. But I cannot point the finger only at my company. I was no better. My passionate environmental concerns took a back seat to making a living, or the lifestyle I enjoyed. When gas was cheap I drove a big van and took long trips. I bought food that had been sprayed with assorted chemicals and put workers at risk. I put chemicals on my lawn to make them greener and to kill my nemesis the dandelion. In Boise, where the sun shines a lot more than here, Carol and I put solar panels on the house but we were more motivated by the energy rebates than by our environmental concerns. Twenty-seven years later I realize that I have lost a great deal of that vision, zeal, and passion and although I am mindful of being a good steward of God’s creation I fall short over and over again. Is your story like mine? Has good stewardship of our environment taken a back seat to some of your other priorities? Do you practice good environmental stewardship when it is convenient, or when it doesn’t impact your lifestyle, or when you don’t have to sacrifice too much? Have you used the excuses that science will find a way to make things right and correct that pollution and climate problems? Science has rescued us in the past and should be able to do it again. Or perhaps you have said that all this talk about stricter environmental standards is bad for business. It doesn’t allow us to compete with other countries with relaxed standards and we could loose our dominance in the marketplace, or we could lose jobs, or worse it could ruin my stock portfolio. Have you thought things like that? Perhaps all of this recent activity about climate change is good then. Perhaps the recent release of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has come at the right time and has awakened us from our slumber. Perhaps the hurricane season of two years ago that spawned a record 27 storms, or perhaps climatic storms like Hurricane Katrina or the droughts in the Sudan, or the record rains in Europe and Japan or the pollution so much of our clean water, have jarred us from our complacency into some sort of responsible activity. Perhaps it is time to revisit how we treat our mother EARTH. When I planned this sermon I had no idea what kind of energy and debate it would unleash because of the controversy surrounding “global warming.” I believe that global warming is the latest community dividing issue that is so politicized, so polarizing, so manipulated, that it is another wedge pounded into the fault line between liberals and conservatives. Even though many stories and studies begin with the words, “most scientists agree that large amounts of CO2 from burning fossil fuels and other so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ are being emitted into the atmosphere, trapping more heat, causing the Earth's temperature to rise,” it just is not so and is sloppy journalism. There are other theories out there that at first sound heretical to the ecological movement but when you check them out have data that is very plausible and theories that appear just as believable only they have not been put into a movie and are harder to understand. Some of these theories include weather data related to sun spots, solar winds, to the changes in the orbit of the planet, and to the tilt of the earth on its axis. In the weeks prior to writing this sermon I engaged ten people within the church who are or were scientists, and engineers and asked them to look as some of the conflicting data. I was hoping for a definitive word or wisdom that would help me make sense out of the conflicting data. Bottom line - there was no consensus but a lot of caution. I was warned that climatology is still an immature science and we are only beginning to understand the connections between our role as humans and the cosmic role of other planets and the sun. I was warned that the media has a hard time working with science and too often distorts data while trying to reduce complicated theories into sound bites or trying to make them exciting enough to catch and hold your attention. I was warned that in most of these cases they are good people trying to do their best in making predictions but they are also motivated by their own biases. I have learned that this debate is too confusing, too polarizing, has too much manipulation by all sides of scientific data, makes too many quick assumptions, does too much finger pointing, and spreads too much fear. As a result there are too few good discussions and you and I are pushed into camps with our buddies from other conflicts. As many of you know when I do preaching on controversial theological subjects I like to posit differing opinions and show you how they exist on a continuum. Perhaps the most dangerous continuum of the day is the one on climate change because if one side is wrong and we wait to make corrections the results could be disastrous. If we do nothing but debate the data and argue about the theories then we may arrive at a critical moment where it will simply be too late. I would like to make a proposal. Instead of keeping this a political or scientific problem let us look at it from a theological perspective and turn to scripture and to our understanding of what it means to be a global citizen. The first story in the Bible gives us a great indication of what our role in and with God’s creation is supposed to be. The earth and all of its inhabitants have been entrusted to humankind to care for in ways that bring forth life, justice, and harmony. The problem with today’s text is that it is too often misread or misinterpreted. When God gets to the sixth day and creates humankind God says, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” On the surface it sounds like divine permission to over populate, over fish, over log, over use, over load God’s gift to us. Isn’t that the meaning of filling, subduing, and dominating? I believe the key to understanding domination in this text comes from the next line where God says that humankind was created in God’s image. When do you see God dominating in a thoughtless way? When do you see God not looking out for the weakest, the poorest, and the most marginalized? When do you see God not seeking mercy, justice, and harmony? If we are to interact with the world and the environment as God interacts with us we are to dominate with ethical and moral responsibility. How do you as parents dominate in your homes? Is it not with love, wisdom, compassion, and justice? Do we act irresponsibly? Do we destroy without worry or concern? Of course not. The same is true with how we are called to dominate in our world. Domination, as I read it, is a call to responsible stewardship where we are partners with God responsibly caring for all of Creation. We are co-creators who take seriously how we live together, how we share our common resources, and how we mete out justice in a world too often dominated by power and greed. We don’t need to get caught up in the global warming debate to realize that we as a nation and we as a culture are not doing a good job of responsible stewardship. For instance you and I take our clean water supply for granted. Our consumption of water in our nation rises each year while 1.1 BILLION people in the world have no access to safe water. God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” We go to the tap to get our water at numerous facets around our houses. In Eastern Africa women and children walk an average of 21 minutes (often times in very dangerous conditions) to get water. God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” In many of our homes we complain when our two or three bathrooms are being used at the same time and we are inconvenienced and have to wait. In the world today 2.4 BILLION people have no safe sanitation whatsoever. God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” In the US today we no longer grow our own food. Locally produced vegetables and fruits are uncommon. When we sit down to eat and look at our plates the veggies, meat, fruit, and starches have traveled an amazing average of 1500 miles to get there. So much energy is being consumed just to move our food to our tables. God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” This last fall a team of noted and respected scientists announced that our oceans have become so polluted that by mid-century there might be a total collapse of our fisheries. They discovered that 30% of the old fisheries have collapsed already and the ocean is quickly losing its ability to resist disease and filter pollutants – particularly the plastics that take 1,000 years to degrade. By 2048 our world will face a fisheries crisis. God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” The recent report by the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) announced frightening predictions that depending on your understanding of global warming could or could not happen. I am not going to use this pulpit this morning to spread more fear, but I would encourage you to read the report and to read some of their predictions. Even if only half of their predictions came true, even if only one tenth of the disasters happened, there is one truth that surfaces above all others. “The poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes the poor people even in prosperous societies, are going to be worst hit.”1 God would reflect and say, “It is not good.” When most of us sitting in this room hear reports like this we ask the question well what can I do. The things you are talking about are so big and so out of control that my family and I can hardly make a difference. But you are wrong. You and I can make a difference – even if we do nothing more than live the way God intended us to live. Here are some simple things that you can do that if they spread to others can make a difference. * Car pooling: We can give up that independence that we enjoy so much and become communal again by joining others in combined transportation. This past week I went to a pastors’ meeting at a church just north of the U district. Thirty or forty pastors all went and each of us drove our own cars. Several of us live within a few miles of each other and could have easily pooled. Car pooling takes time and is inconvenient but benefits are felt IMMEDIATELY. * Walk or cycle: I am not saying this because I am an avid cyclist. I am saying this because it is good for each of us. May is “Bike to work month” and I would like to challenge as many as possible to try it. Maybe we could have a Sunday in the near future where we all walk/cycle or car pool to church. * Use less plastics: There was a great article in the Seattle PI this past week about our use of plastic bags. The next time you go to the grocery store and are asked the question “paper or plastic?” say neither and bring your own tote bag from home. If you do have to make a choice remember that plastic degrades slowly over 1,000 years. If you do use plastic recycle it. * Recycle: I am not going to get into this too much because next week our youth are doing the sermon and a skit on recycling and I don’t want to steal their thunder. If you are not doing it then begin. * Use less chemicals: What we put on our lawns, where we dump the oils from our car, how we wash our cars, and what we push down our storm drains ends up in our creeks, streams, and rivers. There are other ways of keeping weeds under control than using chemicals. * Be vocal: The good news about the global warming scare is that politicians are listening. Know what you are talking about and be vocal. * Love your mother: She has been very good to you. 1 Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quoted in the Seattle Times, Saturday, April 7, 2007 p. A8. --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ Mother Earth Page 1