Immediate Word

It's the nature of the news business that gripping human interest stories and immediate crises dominate the headlines. Unless a situation is deemed to have become an emergency (as with Iran's nascent nuclear weapons program), stories about broader challenges with few easy answers rarely attract the same media attention as terrorist outrages or mega-celebrity couplings and break-ups. Global warming is one example of this phenomenon. While it's something we've all been vaguely aware of for some time, the media has recently rediscovered this topic as scientists make increasingly urgent claims that global warming is rapidly reaching crisis proportions -- and that we are facing significant and perhaps irreversible environmental changes.

In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Carlos Wilton notes the mounting evidence for global warming, and suggests that while it may be difficult for our society to adjust its behavior, how we respond personally to this challenge is a supreme test of our stewardship of God's creation. George Murphy (who is both a scientist and a pastor) provides an additional perspective, focusing on three important questions: What's going on? What does it have to do with God? What should we do about it? Several related illustrations, a set of worship resources, and a children's sermon round out this week's material.


Nothing Hid From Its Heat
by Carlos Wilton
Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

THE WORLD

Global warming? It's a tricky political issue. Both sides of the debate trot out their respective scientific experts to make their case.

Yet to many of the people to whom we preach each Sunday, the truth is as simple as walking out their front door. This has been a mild winter: one of the mildest on record. And climatologists are united in predicting, for the short term, that balmier years are ahead. Do these higher average temperatures presage a long-term trend? Or is this just a short-term climatic cycle, a statistical aberration that will right itself in a few years?

The stakes in the debate couldn't be higher. If those sounding the alarm about global warming are right -- that this is indeed a long-term trend, exacerbated by the human race's rapidly growing appetite for fossil fuels -- then the consequences for civilization will be disastrous.

In a March 5 New York Times op-ed column ("Warm, Warmer, Warmest"), Nicholas Kristof warns that, with continued melting of the polar icecap, lower Manhattan could be underwater by the year 2100. That would be within the lifetime of some of the kids who come forward to listen to our children's sermons. "Historians of science will be brutal on us," says Jerry Mahlman, a climate expert at the National Center for Atmospheric Research whom Kristof quotes. "We are right now in a state of deep denial about how severe the problem is. Political people are saying, 'Well, it's not on my watch.' They're ducking for cover, because who's going to tell the American people?"

It's not our role as preachers, of course, to make scientific judgments. Yet one thing we can do is witness to the truth that the creator-God continues to be in charge of the universe. We can also call our people to renewed energy-conservation efforts, which even the conservatives in the debate are starting to conclude would be a good thing.

The author of Psalm 19 celebrates, in rich poetic imagery, God's gift of the sun:

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hid from its heat. (vv. 4b-6)

First Corinthians 1:18-25 also helps us put into perspective the ceaseless cacophony of those who debate the issues du jour, when in fact the only issues that ultimately matter are those that have to do with God's action in creating the world and redeeming it in Jesus Christ: "Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (v. 20).

Let us call our people to God's wisdom, which includes caring for the precious gift of the Earth.


THE WORD

Psalm 19
This Psalm celebrates two ways in which God is revealed to us: in creation and in the law. The first part ("the heavens are telling the glory of God") celebrates God's presence in the created order. The word "glory" (Hebrew, kabod) literally means "weight." God has a weighty reputation, one attested in the stars. In anthropomorphic terms that call to mind Apollo (the sun-god in Greek mythology), the sun is compared to a strong, young man striding forth to claim his bride. "Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat" (v. 6).

Yet can all people look to the stars and see there tracings of the creator's hand? This is the much-debated problem of natural theology. The second section of this Psalm speaks to that, praising God as the cosmic lawgiver. What we cannot read of God's character in the stars, we can see incised into the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. This law is "perfect, reviving the soul" (v. 7).

1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The Corinthian church is divided into factions, each one declaring allegiance to a specific teacher. Each faction is claiming their own teacher is wiser than the others. Paul observes that, far from seeming to be wisdom, the message of the cross is "foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (v. 18). Alluding to Isaiah 29:14, he promises that God "will destroy the wisdom of the wise" (v. 19).

"Why are you people fighting over wisdom?" Paul is asking, in effect. "There's nothing 'wise' about our proclamation of Jesus Christ, the son of God crucified. To the world, we are the people who preach utter foolishness!"

The biblical ideal of wisdom is intensely practical. While the word, for us, often calls to mind deep intellectual knowledge, in fact it means something much closer to what we know as "common sense." A wise person, in the biblical sense, is someone who knows how to live faithfully and well -- even if this goes up against the so-called "wisdom" of the world, which is often short-sighted and selfish.


CRAFTING THE SERMON

There has a growing awareness in the past year or so of the urgency of the problem of global warming, as seen in the following chronology of news stories (which is by no means exhaustive of the subject):

February 10, 2005 -- James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, announces that 2004 was the fourth warmest year since systematic global temperature measurements began in the nineteenth century; he says this is "due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." ("2004 Was Fourth-Warmest Year on Record," New York Times)

December 9, 2005 -- Former President Bill Clinton, in a warmly received address to an audience of diplomats and environmentalists attending a two week United Nations conference on global warming in Montreal, declares that the Bush administration is "flat wrong" in claiming that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions (as called for in the renounced Kyoto accords) would damage the U.S. economy. Jennifer Morgan of the environmentalist group Climate Action Network sadly notes: "The administration just doesn't seem to get it. They don't understand the world is suffering from climate change." ("Clinton Says Bush Is 'Flat Wrong' on Kyoto," Associated Press)

December 11, 2005 -- Participating nations at the Montreal conference agree to keep talking, although the group is able to reach no consensus on action steps (largely because of opposition from the American delegation). A disappointed James Hansen warns that a continuation of "business as usual" will result in so much warming as to "constitute a different planet." Also concerned, Senator John McCain observes that "democracy isn't very good at addressing incremental problems." ("Climate Debate: Incremental Gains," New York Times)

January 12, 2006 -- Andrew Revkin reports in the New York Times that a rapidly dwindling genus of harlequin frog in Central and South America is being decimated by a fungus. The fungus, scientists have found, is exacerbated by global warming. Dozens of harlequin frog species have already disappeared. ("Frog Killer Is Linked to Global Warming," New York Times)

January 25, 2006 -- NASA's Hansen announces that 2005 was the hottest year since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s. Over the past thirty years, he says, the earth has warmed slightly more than one degree in total, making it the warmest it has been in 10,000 years. ("2005 Hottest in a Century," New York Times)

January 29, 2006 -- Claiming that the Bush administration is trying to bar him from speaking out on the global-warming issue, Hansen reveals that the government has directed the NASA public-affairs staff to review all his upcoming lectures, papers, website postings, and requests for interviews from journalists. ("Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him," New York Times)

January 29, 2006 -- Juliet Elperin reports that some scientists are speculating that global warming may be reaching a "tipping point," after which climatic changes will accelerate and some changes will be irreversible. Three specific events may be happening soon: "widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe." ("Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change," Washington Post)

March 1, 2006 -- The Washington Post reports that an insect pest, the mountain pine beetle, is killing more lodgepole pine trees in Canada than either wildfires or logging, and has devastated an area three times the size of Maryland. Warmer than average temperatures are to blame for the beetle's population explosion. ("Rapid Warming Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests," Washington Post)

March 3, 2006 -- Two new satellite surveys reveal that warming air and water are causing Antarctica to lose ice faster than it can be replenished by interior snowfall. This contributes to rising global sea levels. ("Loss of Antarctic Ice Increases," New York Times)

March 5, 2006 -- Columnist Nicholas Kristof warns that, due to "feedback loops" that exponentially intensify the effects of global warming, lower Manhattan could be underwater by 2100 if nothing is done about the greenhouse gas problem. ("Warm, Warmer, Warmest," New York Times)

March 8, 2006 -- David Ignatius provides a summary of the scientific evidence for human causes of global warming, then observes that the Bush Administration's "spirit of vigilance was applied to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist -- but not to climate change, which does." ("The Planet Can't Wait," Washington Post)

March 12, 2006 -- Two new books, by Australian scientist Tim Flannery and New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert, sound further alarms. "If humans pursue a business-as-usual course for the first half of this century, I believe the collapse of civilization due to climate change becomes inevitable," Flannery warns. Kolbert recounts her visit to researchers drilling ice cores in Greenland, during which her tent filled up with water, and also tells of how in Alaska houses are falling into holes in the collapsing permafrost. ("Sweating It: Climate Change Books by Tim Flannery and Elizabeth Kolbert," New York Times)

No one disagrees that we've entered into an unprecedented time of warmer temperatures. The disagreement comes on the question of 1) whether this is a short-term or a long-term trend, and 2) whether it is mainly caused by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels, or whether it is a larger climatic trend that we are helpless to influence one way or the other.

Either way, conservation couldn't hurt. If those who are currently sounding alarms are right, then the actions we take today to reduce consumption of fossil fuels will pay handsome dividends in the future, ensuring that the world we hand on to our great-grandchildren will continue to be as habitable a place for them as it is for us.

Global warming is a tough issue to address from the pulpit because it is so, well, global. We're talking about an issue that affects every person on this planet, and that is also unfolding at an extremely slow pace. When our people wake up on Monday morning and have to make decisions such as whether or not to car-pool to work, it can be exceedingly difficult to relate that decision to the needs of generations yet unborn. When they find themselves in an auto-sales showroom, weighing the relative merits of a gargantuan SUV over against a sporty-but-small hybrid, it can be hard to make the more ecologically sensible choice when we know that China is putting thousands of new cars without pollution controls onto the road every day. Our individual choices seem like the proverbial drop in the bucket.

It's like the old story of the frog in the kettle. If you drop a frog into a pot of hot water, it will immediately leap out to safety. Yet if you put a frog into a pot of cool water, then place it on the stove and turn the heat on, the frog will sit contentedly in the gradually warming water until it cooks to death. Global warming is like that. It takes a lifetime for many of us to notice the climatic changes that are underway. By the time the problem finally grabs our attention, it may be too late.

Maybe one way to approach this tough subject would be to do so very personally -- focusing on the problem not as a global issue, but as a family issue. Perhaps we should invite our people to join us on a journey of the imagination, trying to picture the next generations of our own family, living in the year 2100. Imagine, also, that these descendants of ours hold in their hands (or view on their next-generation hand-held PDAs) a rather good genealogy that someone has prepared, describing in detail us -- their ancestors. What will the future generations of our family think about us, and our attitude toward the environment? Will they honor our memory, thinking of us as forward-looking people? Or will they shake their heads in disbelief, finding it hard to believe that we could be so confoundedly short-sighted? Imagine that the genealogy includes a photo of us, standing beside the car we're presently driving. What will they think of that car? Perhaps their thoughts will go something like this...

"Do you see that car our ancestor used to drive? Can you believe how big it is? Do you have any idea how much fuel that car used to burn, and what kind of gases it put out into the atmosphere? Can you believe that back in the early twenty-first century our ancestors were too lazy to use public transportation? They used to take those huge cars of theirs out for trivial errands, and sometimes even for joy rides. What WERE those ancestors of ours thinking? Didn't they care about us, and the environment we'd have to live in? They knew what impact their choices were having on the environment, but still they did nothing. It was like they were paralyzed or something. They had the chance to preserve the ecosystem for us, but they failed to take it. They failed US."

Psalm 19 says of the sun that "nothing is hid from its heat" (v. 6). We live on this planet, by God's grace, under a shield of protection called the atmosphere. Through most of human history, that shield has functioned admirably well. But now it appears that our choices are ever so slowly eroding its effectiveness. Is this the way God wants us to care for creation?

Imagine someone standing at the top of a mountain whose slopes are covered with talus -- loose gravel. Up at the summit there is a sign that says, "Please don't throw stones." We pick up a stone and hold it in our hand. "What could it hurt to throw this one little stone?" we ask ourselves. Glancing around first to be sure no one is looking, we haul back and let that little stone fly, then walk away. Unbeknownst to us, that stone has hit another stone, and another, and another -- birthing a landslide that eventually wipes out a village way down in the valley. That village is where our descendants live. And who was it that threw the stone? It was us.


ANOTHER VIEW
by George Murphy

When preachers are faced with an issue like global warming there are at least three obvious areas of concern -- science, theology, and politics. What's going on, what does it have to do with God, and what should we do about it? And those present rather different problems for pastors.

First, most pastors aren't scientists. I'm an exception, but that doesn't make me an expert on global warming. Oh, the basic physics (which is my field) is straightforward. The wavelength at which the most radiation is emitted by a hot object is inversely proportional to that object's absolute temperature. The hot sun emits relatively short waves that penetrate the earth's atmosphere and heat the earth. The cooler earth emits longer waves back into space -- unless they're absorbed by some material like the glass in a greenhouse (hence "greenhouse effect"), or carbon dioxide or some other gases in the atmosphere, with a resultant trapping of heat. If you've ever gotten into a car that has been parked for a while with its windows rolled up on a summer day, you know about this.

So it's not implausible that burning fossil fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere could cause the earth to warm up. But then we have to start asking questions of detail. Has the earth been warming up since the beginning of the industrial revolution? If so, could there be other causes, such as variation in the sun's luminosity? Has the amount of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" increased? If so, could there be other natural sources for them? And what will be the results of global warming if it is taking place? That last question requires computer modeling of a very complex system of the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land masses.

It's a very complicated problem, and only scientists who work on it full-time can speak authoritatively about it. But you don't have to be an expert to pay attention to the consensus of scientific opinion -- which is in fact what scientists do themselves on issues outside their specialty. There would be no reason for the non-expert to form an opinion if this were a purely academic issue, but of course it isn't. Think of another example. If the consensus of astronomers was that a comet was going to collide with the earth in one year with devastating results, it would be totally irresponsible for a preacher to say, "I'm not an astronomer and can't form any opinion on these reports, so I'll just ignore them."

Of course you can find every possible opinion on anything on the internet, but the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center can be considered pretty reliable. At http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#Q1 you can -- and should -- find answers to a number of questions about global warming. Just a couple of important pieces of information from that site are:

* "Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are about 370 ppmv." (Ppmv means "parts per million by volume.")

* "Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6C (plus or minus 0.2C) since the late-nineteenth century, and about 0.4F (0.2 to 0.3C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data)."

So it seems that global warming is a reality and is at least in part caused by human activities. How is all of this relevant for the church? Environmental theology has been discussed extensively over the past thirty years, often in connection with Genesis 1 and 2. Here it's more useful to look at some implications of our texts.

Carlos has referred to the issue of natural theology in connection with Psalm 19. What is problematic here is not just the idea that we can learn something about God and God's relationship with the world from nature (vv. 1-6), but that we can do that independently of what we know from God's historical revelation (vv. 7-14). If we try to do that, then we get a lot of the "common sense" ideas that often cause problems -- the hierarchy of being in which humans are subservient to God but can in turn dominate other lower beings, the God who will make sure everything turns out pretty much as we want it to, and so forth. Specifically Christian ideas then may get distorted to fit those notions.

The God who calls us to care for the earth and do justice with our neighbors is not a God we learn about from nature but from "the law of the Lord." And the God who is willing to die to save his own creatures is, as Paul emphasizes in the reading from 1 Corinthians, "foolishness to Gentiles." If we know the true God in the crucified Christ, then we can try to discern something of the activity and will of that God in nature -- but trying to do it the other way around doesn't work very well.

One common-sense idea that some people have is that anyone who thinks that a global catastrophe could come about because of global warming is showing a lack of faith in God. But, as Judah had to learn when all its institutions (even those instituted by God) were destroyed and they were taken into exile 600 years before Christ, God's faithfulness to his promises doesn't require the existence of the structures we're comfortable with. God will indeed bring creation to its fulfillment, but doesn't require our technology or western civilization or anything else in order to do that. And God is quite capable of letting the consequences of our foolish actions exercise judgment on our unfaithfulness.

So what should we do? It's all too easy for individuals to think "How much difference can my walking to the store, or turning down the heat, or buying a smaller car make in a world of 6.5 billion people?"

"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" (John 6:9). Andrew's question to Jesus is similar to the one we ask about our possible contribution to solving environmental problems. And Jesus' response is to tell us to go ahead and use what we've got, and he'll see to the results. That doesn't mean that we can count on miracles -- but we can count on what will happen if we keep on in the way we're going.

But global warming is a global problem, and certainly calls for action at the highest political, technological, and economic levels. It also calls for changes in some of our basic presuppositions. The idea that we have a right to the sense of power and independence that a personal car gives us is one such presupposition. Another is the excessive fear of nuclear power that afflicts many Americans. Both of these attitudes make it difficult for us to cut down on fossil fuel use and thus slow global warming.

Some preachers may have to overcome their reticence about addressing a scientific issue. Others may need to restrain their temptation to push their favorite solution. Maybe the most important thing that we can try to get across to people isn't a particular answer but the willingness to change some of our basic attitudes toward the world. One commentator who sometimes pooh-poohs environmental threats has told his audiences that they don't need to change their lifestyles. One of the things that Christ tells us is that we have to be willing to change our lives.


ILLUSTRATIONS

If you want to consider more fully the obligations humanity received from God in Genesis, there is no better resource than Claus Westermann's little book on Creation (Fortress, 1974). As the following excerpts suggest, humanity's dominion over the earth is established as one of caretaker and protector. Our fallen nature has led to kingships and power-hungry rulers who subjugate their subjects rather than accept the idea that all human beings are equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the term "dominion" over the animals, plants, etc. has been interpreted not in terms of responsibility and protection, but as public license to utilize the earth's animal and plant resources to enhance our lives (and not necessarily theirs):

"The subjection of the earth has royal overtones which must be clarified by the concept of kingship in antiquity. As lord of his realm, the king is responsible not only for the realm; he is the one who bears and mediates blessings for the realm entrusted to him. Man [sic] would fail in his royal office of dominion over the earth were he to exploit the earth's resources to the detriment of the land, plant life, animals, rivers, and seas. Only now, when there is a direct threat to the fertility of the land, to the purity of the air, and to the state of the water, has there been awakened the long-delayed horror at the lethal consequences of the sweeping progress of the age of technology." (p. 52)

"But with such objections and warnings, apart from their having been and continuing to be ineffectual, the decisive word has not been said. What is decisive is the responsibility of man for the preservation of what has been entrusted to him; and he can show this responsibility by exercising his royal office of mediator." (p. 53)

"Will man exploit the forces of nature like a vandal who is quite indifferent as to what his act of destruction leaves behind, or will he, like a noble lord, conscious of his responsibility for the whole and its future, take care to see that the whole remains healthy as each new gain is made." (p. 54)

***

"For the Beauty of the Earth" seems like an obvious hymn choice for this Sunday. If one's congregation uses a screen for visuals during worship, vivid images of the earth's beauty and examples of its desecration (pollution, sinkholes, dehydrated plants, broken and cracked dry land, etc.) could be used while this hymn is sung, or the choir could sing it while images flash before the congregation.

***

The Romantic poets like Shelley, Keats, Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth had enormous respect for and awe at the beauty of the earth. While most of these eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century poets could not anticipate twentieth- and twenty-first-century environmental problems, they all grasped the earth's magnificence and grandeur and power. While portions of their poems taken out of context sound silly and clichÈ, their poetic words revealed their own awareness that mountains will stand and oceans continue to roll long after they and we have turned to dust.

Spring began to arrive in North Carolina very early this year. We've had the mildest January on record, and by the last week of February, daffodils were already making their way through layers of dirt as precursors of spring. The following famous poem by William Wordsworth is often undervalued because certain lines are quoted out of context. Wordsworth knew the immovable power of nature and its ability to destroy as well as create. He also knew the human drive to conquer and use nature without thought or regret.

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
-- "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

It is not unusual for us to give "but little thought" to those priceless parts of nature that enrich our lives daily. Often we look at flowers, trees, plants, etc. with an indifferent eye and fail to see the ever-present miracle they illustrate in beauty and uniqueness. Because daffodils appear each spring, because the sun shines upon the earth and plants grow from its warmth, we take for granted that such natural beauty will always exist.

***

The story of Daedalus and his son Icarus who flew too close to the sun is well known. One of its lessons may be that we should never underestimate the heat from the sun and its impartial ability to preserve life or kill it. The sun is not only the center of our solar system; it also possesses power and heat no human can control. Daedalus knew that nature is fraught with dangers. The following summary of this myth is the version most frequently repeated online. This excerpt first appeared in Bulfinch's Mythology, chapter XX [emphasis added]:

[Daedalus] contrived to make his escape from his prison.... He wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird.... He next equipped his son... and taught him how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the lofty nest into the air. When all was prepared for flight, he said, "Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe." While he gave him these instructions and fitted the wings to his shoulders, the face of the father was wet with tears, and his hands trembled. He kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time. Then rising on his wings, he flew off, encouraging him to follow, and looked back from his own flight to see how his son managed his wings. As they flew the ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and the shepherd leaned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight, and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air.

They passed Samos and Delos on the left and Lebynthos on the right, when the boy, exulting in his career, began to leave the guidance of his companion and soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together, and they came off. He fluttered with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air. While his mouth uttered cries to his father it was submerged in the blue waters of the sea which thenceforth was called by his name. His father cried, "Icarus, Icarus, where are you?" At last he saw the feathers floating on the water, and bitterly lamenting his own arts, he buried the body and called the land Icaria in memory of his child. Daedalus arrived safe in Sicily, where he built a temple to Apollo, and hung up his wings, an offering to the god.

(http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/bull20.html#icarus)

***

In an 1854 address, Squamish Chief Seattle said:

"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? This we know. The earth does not belong to the humans; humans belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth. The humans did not weave the web of life; they are merely strands in it. Whatever they do to the web, they do to themselves.... This earth is precious to God, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator."
-- quoted in Maria Harris, Proclaim Jubilee! (Westminster John Knox, 1996), pp. 23-24

***

Dorothee Soelle speaks of the type of consumer mentality that leads to global warming:

"This is what the Bible means when it speaks of death. Death is what takes place within us when we look upon others not as gift, blessing, or stimulus but as threat, danger, competition. It is the death that comes to all who try to live by bread alone. This is the death that the Bible fears and gives us good reason to fear. It is not the final departure we usually think of when we speak of death; it is that purposeless, empty existence devoid of genuine human relationships and filled with anxiety, silence, and loneliness."
-- Dorothee Soelle, Death by Bread Alone (Fortress, 1978), p. 4

***

And if we are feeling overwhelmed by the challenge posed by global warming and therefore are tempted to do nothing because we feel helpless, listen to a meditation by Henri Nouwen in which he says:

"What keeps us from opening ourselves both to the reality of the world around us and to God's healing hand? Could it be that we cannot accept our powerlessness and are only willing to see those wounds that we can heal? Could it be that we do not want to give up our illusion that we are masters over our world, and therefore create our own Disneyland where we can make ourselves believe that all events of life are safely under control? Could it be that our blindness and deafness are signs of our own resistance to acknowledging that we are not the Lord of the universe? Often we don't realize how much we resent our powerlessness."
-- from Renewed for Life: Daily Lenten Meditations from the Works of Henry J.M. Nouwen (Creative Communications for the Parish)

***

Little-Known Facts in Nature
Butterflies taste with their feet.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
In ten minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs... but not downstairs.
All polar bears are left-handed.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
A snail can sleep for three years.

What does this have to do with global warming? Only that it would be tragic to destroy such a fascinating world that God has provided us.


WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman

Call To Worship
Leader: The morning stars profess God's glory:
People: the waking birds harmonize a refrain of grace.
Leader: The sun warms us with God's hope,
the night sky whispers peace to our sleepy souls:
People: creation's voice echoes continually in our hearts,
reminding us of God's steadfast love.
Leader: Our wisdom is shattered by God's absurd love;
God's vulnerability strengthens our feeble faith:
People: God's words place joy in our hearts;
we follow them to peace and hope.

Prayer Of The Day
You saw your children as slaves in Egypt,
and brought them to freedom;
you see creation held captive by our desire for more and more,
and weep;
and so you pour out your foolish love on us from day to day.

All that we have learned and think we know
has not brought meaning to our lives;
the brokenness of our world needs your peace;
our pain-shattered hearts need your healing:
and so you speak to us through the mouth of your Servant, Jesus.

All creation weeps with grief,
and cries to you for comfort;
all the broken of our world long for your wholeness;
all who hunger for hope long for the sweetness of your grace and joy;
and so you fill us with the Wisdom of your Spirit.

God in Community, Holy in One,
we tell of your glory from day to day,
even as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .

Call To Reconciliation
At the center of the law is God's love --
that divine nonsense shown in becoming human for our sake;
that weakness for us which defeats the strongest powers.
This love, this grace is of more value to us than all the stocks in our pension funds.
Let us open ourselves to such love
as we open our hearts to confess our sins to God.

(Unison) Prayer Of Confession
You give us your commandments, Holy One, so we may have new life,
but we continue to make the same old choices.
Your love can anchor us when life threatens to overwhelm us,
but we choose to cling to the slippery rocks of anger and bitterness.
Your Word can strengthen us for every moment,
but we listen to the foolish promises of the world.

Forgive us, Redeemer of our lives:
may every word be shaped by your Word;
may every thought be refined by your grace;
may every deed be inspired by your Spirit,
so we may tell everyone we meet of your work in us,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

(silent prayers may be offered)

Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: When brokenhearted prayers replace piety,
when we seek wholeness through the One broken for us,
then we remember we are saved by God's powerful love.
People: We are healed,
to bring healing to our world;
we are strengthened in faith,
to become spent for others;
we are set free from our bondage to sin,
so we may become servants of Christ.
Thanks be to God. Amen.


CHILDREN'S SERMON

A special love

Object: a bread and butter sandwich, clean clothes, books, box of band-aids

Based on 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Good morning, boys and girls. How many of you think that your mother and father love you? (let them answer) Can you prove it? (let them answer) Everyone thinks their mothers and fathers love them, even if they were pretty nasty to their parents this week. Did any of you talk bad or have to take a time out? (let them answer) Would you love someone if they talked to you that way? (let them answer) Did you tell any lies this week? (let them answer) Some of the lies were just little and some of them were pretty big, weren't they? You think that your mom and dad love you. I wonder why?

Is it because they feed you? Did they give you bread and butter (show the sandwich) and a lot of meat and potatoes and even some salad? Is this the reason that you think your parents love you? I think your mom and dad would give a very hungry perfect stranger something to eat and drink. They wouldn't have to know them at all. The stranger would just come up to the house and say that he was hungry and they would feed him.

Is it because they provide you with warm clothes when it is cold and cool clothes when it is hot? (show the clean clothes) Is it because they give you pretty clothes like the ones you are wearing today? I think your parents give a lot of people clothes. They give clothes to your family members and sometimes to people they don't even know. If there are people somewhere in the world who need clothes and blankets, they give it to them.

Maybe it is written in a book that your parents love you. There are a lot of brilliant things written in books. I read these books all week and I could not find one place where it said that your mother and father loved you. Oh, there was that band-aid that your mom put on your hand after you fell and scraped it. (hold up the box of band-aids) I think your mom would help anyone who was hurt, wouldn't she? Do you still think your mother and dad love you, really love you? (let them answer) Are you really sure? (let them answer) I think you are right. You know they love you because you can feel it inside of you. No matter what you do, they still love you and maybe a little bit more. They cry when you cry, laugh when you laugh, and like to be near you all of the time.

It is the same with God. God doesn't give us special signs to tell us that he loves us and we can't figure it out by doing a math problem or just talking to a teacher. But deep inside of us we know that God loves us even more than our mothers and fathers and that is whole bunch. Love is something special and it cannot be explained, but we sure do feel it. Amen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * The Immediate Word, March 19, 2006, issue.

Copyright 2006 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.

All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.