The Earth Is The Lord's
Sermon
Growing in Christ
Sermons for the Summer Season
Object:
... the world and all that is in it is mine.
-- Psalm 50:12b
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.
-- Psalm 24:1
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
-- Genesis 2:15
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. He was then immediately faced with a class action lawsuit for failing to file an environmental impact statement with the Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency -- an angelically staffed agency dedicated to keeping the universe pollution free. God was granted a temporary permit for the heavenly portion of the project, but was issued a cease and desist order on the earthly part, pending further investigation by The Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency.
Upon completion of his construction permit application and environmental impact statement, God appeared before the council to answer questions. When asked why he began these projects in the first place, God simply replied that he liked to be creative. This was not considered adequate reasoning, and God was required to substantiate this further. The council was unable to see any practical use for earth since "the earth was void and empty and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Then God said, "Let there be light."
God should never have brought up this point. One member of the council immediately protested, asking, "How was the light to be made? Would it involve strip mining? What about thermal pollution? Air pollution?" God explained the light would come from a huge ball of fire.
Nobody on the council really understood this, but it was provisionally accepted assuming there would be no smog or smoke resulting from the ball of fire. A separate burning permit would be required, and since continuous light would be a waste of energy, it should be dark at least one-half of the time.
So God agreed to divide light and darkness and he would call the light Day and the darkness Night. (But the council expressed no interest in in-house semantics.)
When asked how the earth would be covered, God said, "Let there be firmament made amidst the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters."
One council member accused God of double talk, but the council tabled action since God would be required first to file for a permit from the Angelic Bureau of Land Management and further would be required to obtain water permits from appropriate agencies.
The council asked if there would be only water and firmament and God said, "Let the earth bring forth the green herb and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind." The council agreed, as long as native seed would be used.
About future development, God also said, "Let the waters bring forth creatures having life and the fowl that may fly over the earth."
Here again, the council took no formal action since this would require approval of the Fish and Game Commission coordinated with the Cosmic Wildlife Federation and Audubongelic Society.
It appeared everything was in order until God stated he wanted to complete the project in six days. At this time he was advised by the council that his timing was completely out of the question. The Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency would require a minimum of 180 days to review the application and environmental impact statement; then there would be the public hearings. At a minimum, it would take ten to twelve months before a permit could be granted if the proposal was accepted by all parties.
So God said, "Forget it."
This little bit of fantasy titled, "God and the EPA" was read in the US House of Representatives last year by a member from California and recorded in the Congressional Record. A parishioner, Clark Gilman, brought it to my attention.
What is, of course, ironical about this little tale is that if humanity had responded in care and concern about the earth and the life that it supports the way God had intended from the beginning of time, there would have been no need for the various environmental protection agencies today. But centuries of human selfishness have forced such agencies, red tape and all, to be protectors of the world's various life support systems, protectors in many cases of God's intention.
The front and back of our bulletin sets the theme of this sermon, with its quotation from Psalms: "The world and all that is in it is mine." And on the back cover: "The earth is the Lord's."
"The earth is the Lord's," but what have we done to it? Have we been good tenants or responsible stewards?
I clipped out recent articles from newspapers and magazines on The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by a group of scientists who created the atomic bomb, has recorded the imminence of a nuclear holocaust with a "doomsday clock" on its cover. After the US and USSR signed their first nuclear arms limitation pact, the editors set back the clock to twelve minutes to midnight, the farthest it has ever been from that apocalyptic hour. Now the editors are no longer so optimistic. With the lack of a further arms agreement between the superpowers, the continued spread of nuclear weaponry emphasized by India's entry into the "nuclear club," the American promise of reactor technology to the volatile Middle East, the increasing vulnerability to nuclear sabotage and terrorism by amateur bomb-makers, the clock hands on the bulletin cover have been pushed forward to nine minutes before midnight.
Other articles gave facts. For example, driving an automobile 25 miles at a moderate speed uses up more air than would be breathed by seven million people during the same time period.
DDT has accumulated in the bodies of virtually all living things.
One hundred SST supersonic aircraft flying continuously for 35 years, if present calculations about the ozone layer are accurate, could make the entire ecology of earth resemble the ecology of Venus. In other words: dead.
Another article began by saying, "Dinner everyone -- First, imported sardines, then chicken croquettes in white wine sauce, with a few yummies to follow. That's for Samantha. For Buddy, there are flamed medallions of beef and vitamin-enriched doughnuts. Carol's getting fruit treats. Oh, for us and our kids, it's spaghetti again and no meatballs -- inflation, remember. But the first three guests eat well -- Samantha's the cat, Buddy is a beagle, and Carol is a canary."
Another article last week was about how many hamburgers and other food items McDonald's throws away daily because that food is no longer hot and grill fresh after being mass prepared during the heaviest hours of their business day.
Then our Lutheran Church in America's hunger information states that two-thirds of the world, two-and-a-half billion people are hungry right now, 400 million starving, over 10,000 people will be dead today, and each day due to starvation. How many brains of young children will be ill-developed because of malnutrition?
The bicentennial is a good time to consider ecology. Much is being written and printed on the way things were in our country not that long ago. For example, consider the air and water of New York City and the Hudson River.
Verrazano, who sailed up the river in 1524, noted that the trees exhaled the sweetest odors.
Robert Juet, who sailed with Henry Hudson, noted that sweet smells rose from the grass, flowers, and trees around Manhattan Island. Later, a Dutch settler noted that what is now Yonkers was a cool and pleasant resting place beside crystal clear waters. But after a few years in a throwaway culture, the river is now the home of bottles, cans, rusted refrigerators, washing machines, mattresses, radios, television sets, and the carcasses of dead automobiles.
Misuse of the environment is certainly worldwide, but because our country has always been a world leader industrially and economically in the past 100 years, we also seem to be a world leader in the misuse of our environment.
The US contains only less than 6% of the world's population but consumes almost half of the world's production of natural resources and accounts for over a quarter of the world's air and sea pollution.
But you know the situation. Answers to such complex problems are not easily solved, but they should not be ignored either.
I think there are certainly viable answers within our corporate and personal reach.
Most importantly for this brief sermon, I feel at least, we must as Christians often be reminded of the reason why life -- human life and all other forms of earthly life -- is important. It's not only a matter of feeling guilty but I do feel we have to sensitize ourselves toward a need for structural change.
I don't think we should feel guilty to the point of just feeling bad, or to the point where we give some money toward world hunger, for example, and then try to feel better.
I have listed some facts of our current situation not to cause guilt but to help us understand the situation and its future. I don't think we should feel guilty but realize that two-thirds of the world's population is not eating properly, and we should use the strength gained from our meal for our job -- to care for our families, and to work for worldwide justice politically in regard to hunger or ecology, for example.
Let me now give a very brief theological base to this whole ecology or biology problem. It is a product of human nature and therefore, it requires a moral and, for us, a Christian approach.
Humanity is considered unique in nature; it has been given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing. Genesis stated humanity was given the power to name, which meant to control nature.
But there is a real difference between "dominance" and "arrogance" -- just as there is a difference between our "use" and "abuse" of nature.
In Genesis, all creation is called good. Genesis stated, "The Lord took man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden in the world to till it and keep it, not carelessly exploit it" (Genesis 2:15 paraphrased).
The early Hebrew saw God as the source of everything that exists, including the natural process that formed a human as a relational being -- as a conscious part of nature, as made in the image of God, in the image of the source of everything that exists. We must ask: Is the destruction of our environment by pollution done as one in the image of God the creator, the source of life? A consistent biblical view would say the rest of nature is really our silent brothers and sisters.
When parts of nature die, a part of us dies also; it's a matter of quality. Humankind does not own the world; he is a part of it.
A human is in nature and a part of nature; the two cannot be separated. The word "creation" includes both the human and the nonhuman reality. God is not nature but God is in that plan behind all of life. We in our power have the responsibility and the obligation never to use the world's resources for our own selfish interest.
Today's ecology crisis is a combination of ignorance and arrogance -- ignorance in not perceiving that the nonhuman world has a God-given integrity of its own, and that we are all interrelated.
Destroying or abusing the environment is like an amputation -- we may survive, but we have lost a part of ourselves. The underlying cause of the ecological crisis also stems from our arrogance, our rebellion against God, our alienation from our neighbors; it stems from our selfishness and our sinfulness.
Our God is the ground of all being and becoming and is at the heart of the fabric of the entire cosmos and not only the God of human beings. We are affirming that the universe and our world is a community. Everything is related immediately to God as he creates, unites, and draws all things forward toward his final future. Within this community, this vast cosmic household, moreover, everything, all the creatures of nature and all the children of humanity, are intricately and essentially related to everything else.
Humans are unique in their freedom and in their participating awareness of God's overall intention but they are also unique in their choice of selfishness; human sinfulness is a radical disruption of the fabric of interrelatedness that God intended to be characteristic of the world.
It is in man's pride, his willfulness, his arrogance, which separates him from God and from his fellow men and also estranges him from his brother, the Earth, and indeed, the entire cosmos.
As Christians, we believe that Jesus as the Christ has shown us the intention of all power and meaning. God is revealed to be intimately close to all his creatures.
In Jesus' freedom for others, in his ability and willingness to give himself in love and to receive love in return, Jesus has shown the divine intention that a human is to be a responsible being.
Our innate selfishness is forgiven and we have been set free to be God's servants in the world and to be faithful to God's purposes; being faithful to God's purposes includes both the care of the Earth and the responsibility to see that all people are enabled to fulfill their humanity as God's children. Both of these are involved in our environmental crisis.
We ask that the promised hope of fulfillment in God's wholeness seen through Jesus as the Christ keeps us as the church faithful to the task of doing something constructive about the present crisis. To this end we ask for God's guidance and strength to be his obedient servants, with a love and respect for all of God's creation.
May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sermon delivered on June 8, 1975
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Hamilton Square, New Jersey
-- Psalm 50:12b
The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.
-- Psalm 24:1
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
-- Genesis 2:15
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. He was then immediately faced with a class action lawsuit for failing to file an environmental impact statement with the Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency -- an angelically staffed agency dedicated to keeping the universe pollution free. God was granted a temporary permit for the heavenly portion of the project, but was issued a cease and desist order on the earthly part, pending further investigation by The Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency.
Upon completion of his construction permit application and environmental impact statement, God appeared before the council to answer questions. When asked why he began these projects in the first place, God simply replied that he liked to be creative. This was not considered adequate reasoning, and God was required to substantiate this further. The council was unable to see any practical use for earth since "the earth was void and empty and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Then God said, "Let there be light."
God should never have brought up this point. One member of the council immediately protested, asking, "How was the light to be made? Would it involve strip mining? What about thermal pollution? Air pollution?" God explained the light would come from a huge ball of fire.
Nobody on the council really understood this, but it was provisionally accepted assuming there would be no smog or smoke resulting from the ball of fire. A separate burning permit would be required, and since continuous light would be a waste of energy, it should be dark at least one-half of the time.
So God agreed to divide light and darkness and he would call the light Day and the darkness Night. (But the council expressed no interest in in-house semantics.)
When asked how the earth would be covered, God said, "Let there be firmament made amidst the waters; and let it divide the waters from the waters."
One council member accused God of double talk, but the council tabled action since God would be required first to file for a permit from the Angelic Bureau of Land Management and further would be required to obtain water permits from appropriate agencies.
The council asked if there would be only water and firmament and God said, "Let the earth bring forth the green herb and such as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind." The council agreed, as long as native seed would be used.
About future development, God also said, "Let the waters bring forth creatures having life and the fowl that may fly over the earth."
Here again, the council took no formal action since this would require approval of the Fish and Game Commission coordinated with the Cosmic Wildlife Federation and Audubongelic Society.
It appeared everything was in order until God stated he wanted to complete the project in six days. At this time he was advised by the council that his timing was completely out of the question. The Cosmic Environmental Protection Agency would require a minimum of 180 days to review the application and environmental impact statement; then there would be the public hearings. At a minimum, it would take ten to twelve months before a permit could be granted if the proposal was accepted by all parties.
So God said, "Forget it."
This little bit of fantasy titled, "God and the EPA" was read in the US House of Representatives last year by a member from California and recorded in the Congressional Record. A parishioner, Clark Gilman, brought it to my attention.
What is, of course, ironical about this little tale is that if humanity had responded in care and concern about the earth and the life that it supports the way God had intended from the beginning of time, there would have been no need for the various environmental protection agencies today. But centuries of human selfishness have forced such agencies, red tape and all, to be protectors of the world's various life support systems, protectors in many cases of God's intention.
The front and back of our bulletin sets the theme of this sermon, with its quotation from Psalms: "The world and all that is in it is mine." And on the back cover: "The earth is the Lord's."
"The earth is the Lord's," but what have we done to it? Have we been good tenants or responsible stewards?
I clipped out recent articles from newspapers and magazines on The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by a group of scientists who created the atomic bomb, has recorded the imminence of a nuclear holocaust with a "doomsday clock" on its cover. After the US and USSR signed their first nuclear arms limitation pact, the editors set back the clock to twelve minutes to midnight, the farthest it has ever been from that apocalyptic hour. Now the editors are no longer so optimistic. With the lack of a further arms agreement between the superpowers, the continued spread of nuclear weaponry emphasized by India's entry into the "nuclear club," the American promise of reactor technology to the volatile Middle East, the increasing vulnerability to nuclear sabotage and terrorism by amateur bomb-makers, the clock hands on the bulletin cover have been pushed forward to nine minutes before midnight.
Other articles gave facts. For example, driving an automobile 25 miles at a moderate speed uses up more air than would be breathed by seven million people during the same time period.
DDT has accumulated in the bodies of virtually all living things.
One hundred SST supersonic aircraft flying continuously for 35 years, if present calculations about the ozone layer are accurate, could make the entire ecology of earth resemble the ecology of Venus. In other words: dead.
Another article began by saying, "Dinner everyone -- First, imported sardines, then chicken croquettes in white wine sauce, with a few yummies to follow. That's for Samantha. For Buddy, there are flamed medallions of beef and vitamin-enriched doughnuts. Carol's getting fruit treats. Oh, for us and our kids, it's spaghetti again and no meatballs -- inflation, remember. But the first three guests eat well -- Samantha's the cat, Buddy is a beagle, and Carol is a canary."
Another article last week was about how many hamburgers and other food items McDonald's throws away daily because that food is no longer hot and grill fresh after being mass prepared during the heaviest hours of their business day.
Then our Lutheran Church in America's hunger information states that two-thirds of the world, two-and-a-half billion people are hungry right now, 400 million starving, over 10,000 people will be dead today, and each day due to starvation. How many brains of young children will be ill-developed because of malnutrition?
The bicentennial is a good time to consider ecology. Much is being written and printed on the way things were in our country not that long ago. For example, consider the air and water of New York City and the Hudson River.
Verrazano, who sailed up the river in 1524, noted that the trees exhaled the sweetest odors.
Robert Juet, who sailed with Henry Hudson, noted that sweet smells rose from the grass, flowers, and trees around Manhattan Island. Later, a Dutch settler noted that what is now Yonkers was a cool and pleasant resting place beside crystal clear waters. But after a few years in a throwaway culture, the river is now the home of bottles, cans, rusted refrigerators, washing machines, mattresses, radios, television sets, and the carcasses of dead automobiles.
Misuse of the environment is certainly worldwide, but because our country has always been a world leader industrially and economically in the past 100 years, we also seem to be a world leader in the misuse of our environment.
The US contains only less than 6% of the world's population but consumes almost half of the world's production of natural resources and accounts for over a quarter of the world's air and sea pollution.
But you know the situation. Answers to such complex problems are not easily solved, but they should not be ignored either.
I think there are certainly viable answers within our corporate and personal reach.
Most importantly for this brief sermon, I feel at least, we must as Christians often be reminded of the reason why life -- human life and all other forms of earthly life -- is important. It's not only a matter of feeling guilty but I do feel we have to sensitize ourselves toward a need for structural change.
I don't think we should feel guilty to the point of just feeling bad, or to the point where we give some money toward world hunger, for example, and then try to feel better.
I have listed some facts of our current situation not to cause guilt but to help us understand the situation and its future. I don't think we should feel guilty but realize that two-thirds of the world's population is not eating properly, and we should use the strength gained from our meal for our job -- to care for our families, and to work for worldwide justice politically in regard to hunger or ecology, for example.
Let me now give a very brief theological base to this whole ecology or biology problem. It is a product of human nature and therefore, it requires a moral and, for us, a Christian approach.
Humanity is considered unique in nature; it has been given dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing. Genesis stated humanity was given the power to name, which meant to control nature.
But there is a real difference between "dominance" and "arrogance" -- just as there is a difference between our "use" and "abuse" of nature.
In Genesis, all creation is called good. Genesis stated, "The Lord took man [Adam] and put him in the Garden of Eden in the world to till it and keep it, not carelessly exploit it" (Genesis 2:15 paraphrased).
The early Hebrew saw God as the source of everything that exists, including the natural process that formed a human as a relational being -- as a conscious part of nature, as made in the image of God, in the image of the source of everything that exists. We must ask: Is the destruction of our environment by pollution done as one in the image of God the creator, the source of life? A consistent biblical view would say the rest of nature is really our silent brothers and sisters.
When parts of nature die, a part of us dies also; it's a matter of quality. Humankind does not own the world; he is a part of it.
A human is in nature and a part of nature; the two cannot be separated. The word "creation" includes both the human and the nonhuman reality. God is not nature but God is in that plan behind all of life. We in our power have the responsibility and the obligation never to use the world's resources for our own selfish interest.
Today's ecology crisis is a combination of ignorance and arrogance -- ignorance in not perceiving that the nonhuman world has a God-given integrity of its own, and that we are all interrelated.
Destroying or abusing the environment is like an amputation -- we may survive, but we have lost a part of ourselves. The underlying cause of the ecological crisis also stems from our arrogance, our rebellion against God, our alienation from our neighbors; it stems from our selfishness and our sinfulness.
Our God is the ground of all being and becoming and is at the heart of the fabric of the entire cosmos and not only the God of human beings. We are affirming that the universe and our world is a community. Everything is related immediately to God as he creates, unites, and draws all things forward toward his final future. Within this community, this vast cosmic household, moreover, everything, all the creatures of nature and all the children of humanity, are intricately and essentially related to everything else.
Humans are unique in their freedom and in their participating awareness of God's overall intention but they are also unique in their choice of selfishness; human sinfulness is a radical disruption of the fabric of interrelatedness that God intended to be characteristic of the world.
It is in man's pride, his willfulness, his arrogance, which separates him from God and from his fellow men and also estranges him from his brother, the Earth, and indeed, the entire cosmos.
As Christians, we believe that Jesus as the Christ has shown us the intention of all power and meaning. God is revealed to be intimately close to all his creatures.
In Jesus' freedom for others, in his ability and willingness to give himself in love and to receive love in return, Jesus has shown the divine intention that a human is to be a responsible being.
Our innate selfishness is forgiven and we have been set free to be God's servants in the world and to be faithful to God's purposes; being faithful to God's purposes includes both the care of the Earth and the responsibility to see that all people are enabled to fulfill their humanity as God's children. Both of these are involved in our environmental crisis.
We ask that the promised hope of fulfillment in God's wholeness seen through Jesus as the Christ keeps us as the church faithful to the task of doing something constructive about the present crisis. To this end we ask for God's guidance and strength to be his obedient servants, with a love and respect for all of God's creation.
May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
Sermon delivered on June 8, 1975
Resurrection Lutheran Church
Hamilton Square, New Jersey
