Jeremiah 2:7
"I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable."
Isaiah 24:4-6
"The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left."
Not very cheery readings – and this will not be a very cheery message, except that it does end with Hope – as all our God stories do.
This is the third in this brief series of attempts to look at ecology through a theological lens — or perhaps the attempt should be to look at theology through an ecological lens — I’m not sure just which this is. The first two messages were focused on God’s beautiful gift of Creation and humanity’s subsequent abuse and mis-use of that gift and the belief that we should be more grateful and more caring for that gift. It is God’s creation, after all, not ours.
Before we go any further, I want to emphasize that the issues we’re attempting to parse out here apply whether we view the bible stories literally or metaphorically.
If we view them literally, there are very real consequences we face for making God angry with our treatment of God’s creation. The Hebrew scriptures are filled with stories of the people growing arrogant and turning away from God’s laws – these stories never turn out well for the people – whether it is one person or the whole Hebrew people.
To begin with they get thrown out of Eden, and then as their histories continue they get invaded by neighboring countries, they endure drought or flood, they are hauled off into exile – until they have learned their lesson – and then, each time, they are forgiven and things are good for a while again.
If we take these stories metaphorically, there are still real consequences for playing selfish games with the life of the earth. This earth is remarkably self-healing, if given half a chance. But there comes a point where the damage is too much – too much for human life at least. The earth may well heal itself but we may not we here any longer to see it. The costs are real.
Either way, it is not a good idea to make God angry, and angry is exactly what God is in both of the readings we just heard for today. The first of the statements I read came to us through the prophet Jeremiah: "I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.” That is the cry of a Creator who has gifted a people with the best of his creation, only to have it made “detestable” by its uncaring recipients.
The second statement comes through the prophet Isaiah. It gives us a much too familiar picture of the cost of not caring for the gift – familiar at least for those of us here in the west: "The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, ..... A curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left."
Both Jeremiah and Isaiah were prophesying in the years prior to the Babylonian exile and into that exile. Each in their own time and place spoke out to the people – telling them God’s thoughts on their behavior, the choices they were making, their lack of fidelity to their promises. Each warned the people not to continue on as they had been – not listening to God’s voice and making choices based only on their own comfort and greed and desires at the moment. All those choices they were making that would eventually destroy their world.
What we are doing today has all been done before us – and it has led to ruin before. And by “we” I mean all of us – everyone -- but mostly the industrialized nations of the world. When we make terrible decisions we make them on a scale that doesn’t just affect a small, local group. Our damage changes the whole world.
We may wish to ignore this, but it will not be ignored for much longer. We cannot defile the earth and expect to pay no price for it. When we read back through the scriptures and see the relationship between the earth and the people, we find an implied covenant — that God gives us this world — but our half of the covenant is that we will take care of it.
The scriptural implications are clear — we must take better care of this beautiful planet. We can continue on as we are, but that way lies ruin. That’s a harsh truth, but a truth, nonetheless.
Very few of us consciously chose this path of destruction – mostly it’s a matter of just letting things slide if they don’t affect us directly. We’ve allowed the people in charge to run things unquestioned because it was easier -- even when we suspected their reasons weren’t good for anything accept their own bank accounts.
I read a quote this week from writer G. K. Chesterton. He was speaking of something completely different, certainly not environmental issues, but his conclusion seems to me to be entirely applicable to this discussion. He said, “Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
This dragon can be defeated. We have it in our power to make good choices right now – choices for the earth and for all that lives upon it – including ourselves. Choices to treasure this precious gift we were given. The choice to be grateful and true to God’s belief in us. Do we believe this? Do we have it in us to make this our choice. It’s up to us.
AMEN.
This is the third in this brief series of attempts to look at ecology through a theological lens — or perhaps the attempt should be to look at theology through an ecological lens — I’m not sure just which this is. The first two messages were focused on God’s beautiful gift of Creation and humanity’s subsequent abuse and mis-use of that gift and the belief that we should be more grateful and more caring for that gift. It is God’s creation, after all, not ours.
Before we go any further, I want to emphasize that the issues we’re attempting to parse out here apply whether we view the bible stories literally or metaphorically.
If we view them literally, there are very real consequences we face for making God angry with our treatment of God’s creation. The Hebrew scriptures are filled with stories of the people growing arrogant and turning away from God’s laws – these stories never turn out well for the people – whether it is one person or the whole Hebrew people.
To begin with they get thrown out of Eden, and then as their histories continue they get invaded by neighboring countries, they endure drought or flood, they are hauled off into exile – until they have learned their lesson – and then, each time, they are forgiven and things are good for a while again.
If we take these stories metaphorically, there are still real consequences for playing selfish games with the life of the earth. This earth is remarkably self-healing, if given half a chance. But there comes a point where the damage is too much – too much for human life at least. The earth may well heal itself but we may not we here any longer to see it. The costs are real.
Either way, it is not a good idea to make God angry, and angry is exactly what God is in both of the readings we just heard for today. The first of the statements I read came to us through the prophet Jeremiah: "I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.” That is the cry of a Creator who has gifted a people with the best of his creation, only to have it made “detestable” by its uncaring recipients.
The second statement comes through the prophet Isaiah. It gives us a much too familiar picture of the cost of not caring for the gift – familiar at least for those of us here in the west: "The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, ..... A curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left."
Both Jeremiah and Isaiah were prophesying in the years prior to the Babylonian exile and into that exile. Each in their own time and place spoke out to the people – telling them God’s thoughts on their behavior, the choices they were making, their lack of fidelity to their promises. Each warned the people not to continue on as they had been – not listening to God’s voice and making choices based only on their own comfort and greed and desires at the moment. All those choices they were making that would eventually destroy their world.
What we are doing today has all been done before us – and it has led to ruin before. And by “we” I mean all of us – everyone -- but mostly the industrialized nations of the world. When we make terrible decisions we make them on a scale that doesn’t just affect a small, local group. Our damage changes the whole world.
We may wish to ignore this, but it will not be ignored for much longer. We cannot defile the earth and expect to pay no price for it. When we read back through the scriptures and see the relationship between the earth and the people, we find an implied covenant — that God gives us this world — but our half of the covenant is that we will take care of it.
The scriptural implications are clear — we must take better care of this beautiful planet. We can continue on as we are, but that way lies ruin. That’s a harsh truth, but a truth, nonetheless.
Very few of us consciously chose this path of destruction – mostly it’s a matter of just letting things slide if they don’t affect us directly. We’ve allowed the people in charge to run things unquestioned because it was easier -- even when we suspected their reasons weren’t good for anything accept their own bank accounts.
I read a quote this week from writer G. K. Chesterton. He was speaking of something completely different, certainly not environmental issues, but his conclusion seems to me to be entirely applicable to this discussion. He said, “Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
This dragon can be defeated. We have it in our power to make good choices right now – choices for the earth and for all that lives upon it – including ourselves. Choices to treasure this precious gift we were given. The choice to be grateful and true to God’s belief in us. Do we believe this? Do we have it in us to make this our choice. It’s up to us.
AMEN.
RSS Feed