AS this Sunday marks the end of my Sabbatical we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion this week. All are welcome to the table!
For a few years now we have been encouraged to take time in September to mark Creation Time, a season where we take seriously our call to be caretakers of creation. This year we will take the last 3 Sundays of September to do just that. The guiding verse for these Sundays is Romans 8:22 "We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labour"
The Scripture Readings this week are:
- Romans 8:22
- Romans 14:1-12
The Sermon title is We’re In This Together
Early Thoughts: It has been an interesting summer, weather-wise. Edmonton and area had massive amounts of rain in June and July. Northwestern Ontario has massive fires in the boreal forest. Europe was HOT and dry, in the great rivers "famine stones" were starting to appear. A famine stone is a rock that only appears in exceptionally dry conditions when the river is really low, the name comes from the reality that for most of history a year that dry means crop failures and famine would follow. Then to end the summer Nepal was hit by massive flooding as a result of a glacier collapse.
All creation is groaning indeed.
How are we called to respond?
There are probably many ways to answer that question. We could complain about stormwater systems that are overwhelmed by 1-in-200 year storms and insist the municipal government is incompetent. We could complain that smoke from a devastated area is making our lives uncomfortable. We could look at the wider picture of climate change and either deny it is happening or insist that it the cost of 'progress' or 'economic growth and prosperity'.
I am not sure those responses are helpful, caring, or faithful.
During the 1992 US Presidential election Bill Clinton used the catchphrase (coined by political strategist James Carville) "it's the economy stupid". 34 years later I think Carville was only partially right. Politicians have to run on economic platforms, the economy hits each and every one of us. The economy often determines who lives and who dies, who eats tomorrow and who has a roof over their heads. We can not deny that.
But it is not, and never has been, only about the economy. (And even when it is about the economy I am not sure we use the right metrics to determine health -- is it about everybody's well-being or how well the stock market is doing?) As people of faith, called to listen to the groaning of creation, commanded to "in the garden of Eden to till it and to keep it" (Genesis 2:15) we have to consider the ecology as much as the economy. We are called to ask how they interact, and how they might interact better.
We are also called, as people of faith, as people who are created as part of a giant interactive system, to worry about parts of creation that are not us. The commandment to love our neighbour kicks in again, if only because we are all in this together. Loving our neighbour means our human neighbours and also our canine and ursine and equine neighbours. As the Lorax taught a couple generations of children it includes the forests.
Paul reminds the people in Rome about lifting up the whole community. Paul reminds them that they are God's and so are our neighbours. In that reminder is the reality the we are to hold each other up even when we disagree, even when we disagree on things that feel really important. We are, after all, in this together, part of a larger whole.
So how do we respond to the groaning of creation?
I suggest we start by focusing our attention more broadly than what benefits us. We also need to get past the language of "but it is my right!!!!" and into asking "what are my responsibilities and obligations?". Those two things will, I believe, push us to remember that we are all in this together, that what we do impacts others (those alive now and the generations yet to come).
I don't actually believe it is a question of economy vs. ecology. I think it is a both/and. Are many or most of our current Western assumptions about what makes a healthy economy problematic? Yes. The march toward unfettered capitalism is very damaging to God's creation both human and non-human. Luckily there are other ways to build the world. It may not mean as much economic growth. In a place like Canada the has historically relied so heavily on extracting resources (oil, coal, minerals, lumber) from the ground it may make for some difficult conversations. But there must be ways that we can move forward and tend to the need of all creation.
AS the summer has moved on this idea of "we're all in this together" has morphed a bit. In the Spring when I set the thigs for Creation Time I was seeing it solely in economic and ecological terms. But there is a referendum coming up in Alberta and I think the premise that we are all in this together holds in how we approach those 10 questions, particularly the 5 dealing with immigration.
AS we move into the future, as we dream about a changed economic model, as we advocate for better or different protections for the created world, as we ponder how we will vote on October 19, let us all remember that we are all in this together. Let's keep in mind that we all need to flourish. Let's lift up the idea that what lifts up neighbour is good for me too. I close these opening thoughts with one final meme harvested from Facebook:
We are in this together, all of us, human and non-human alike. May God help us live as if that was true.
--Gord
