Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
Psalm 24:1 & 2
The earth is the Lord 's and all that is in
it,
the world, and those who live in
it;
for he has founded it on the
seas,
and established it on the rivers.
Exodus 3:4-6
When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him
out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then
he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place
on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the
God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Holy Ground.
Sacred Space.
And God’s own
creation.
Growing up as a
child I experienced a sense of awe and and appreciation for the holy in a
couple of ways. And for that I can thank
my father.
There were two
places that were holy.
The first was the
sanctuary.
From my earliest
years, Dad was a pastor and we lived near the church. What that meant for me was that the church
was an extension of our home. And more
so than most, I spent time there.
I was drawn to
the chancel area of the sanctuary.
As a young boy I
would imagine myself a pastor, and lead worship there in the solitude of the
sanctuary, even learning how to chant the liturgy as I grew in years.
There was a sense
of the Holy, the Divine Presence, and a reverent awe for this sacred space.
Most of all,
there was a sense that God was present in this space.
I think we’ve
lost some of that reverence and sense of the sacred, holy places in our lives.
The second place
that was holy to me growing up was the great outdoors, the creation in which we
lived.
One of the things
my dad did was to get us out into the creation.
All of our family
vacations were spent on the boat he had built for us. The most epic of which was when Mom and Dad
took us to Jackson Hole where we spent a few weeks on the boat at Colter Bay. I remember cruising around Jackson Lake and
being in awe of the shear grandeur of God’s creation from the mountain peaks to
the west, to the moose crossing the water immediately behind our boat as we
moved about the lake.
Another adventure
that I remember was a camping trip Dad took my older brother and me on, up into
the Cloudy Peak Wilderness area in the Bighorn Mountains.
Remove
the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground.
I will remember
to my dying day the beauty of the star lit night in the wilderness, where with
no light pollution from the earth, the stars seemed to burst to life in a
spectacular show.
From Psalm 8 we
read:
When I consider your heavens, the work of
your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what are
mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should
care for them?
Looking up at the
moon and the stars, there were two things that overwhelmed me.
First, how great
and expansive this universe is in which we lived, and second, how incredibly
small we are.
But most
important was a sense of God’s presence.
One of the things
Dad taught us was that when we visited such places, we were to leave it better
than we found it.
That meant that
not only were we expected to “pack in and pack out” all of our provisions, but
we were expected to clean up anything left behind by others.
We stood in awe
of the world God had created.
And we were
taught to be responsible for caring for that world.
Those lessons
have stayed with me over the course of my life.
Psalm 8 goes on
to say:
“Yet you have made them little less than
divine; with glory and honor you crown them. You have made them rule over the
works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet: all flocks and
cattle, even the wild beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of
the sea, and whatever passes along the paths of the sea.”
In Genesis it is
written:
"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."
And also:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the
garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
We are to be
stewards of the creation, first of all, because it is God’s creation. “The earth is the Lord 's and all that is in
it.”
And secondly,
more than any other creature, we have the capacity to care for or destroy this
creation in which we make our home.
What does it mean
to be stewards of God’s creation?
I’ve spent a lot
of time in farming communities. And much
of what I’ve learned about stewardship of creation I learned from these
farmers. And I’d add, that my father
grew up on a farm and it was the lessons he learned on the farm that shaped his
own teaching of us.
Of all the things
I learned from these farmers, one statement stands out above all others:
“If you take care of the land, the land
will take care of you.”
A second
conviction that many of these farmers had was that they were stewards of God’s
good earth, and like my Dad taught us out in the wilderness, there was an
obligation that many of these farmers felt to not only care for the land, but
to improve it and leave it to future generations better than they received it.
But caring for
creation is complex.
Two words
epitomize the complexity of this caring for creation in the farming
communities.
Conservationist.
And
Environmentalist.
All of them
considered themselves to be conservationists, caring for and protecting the land
on which they farmed.
At the same time,
they tended to view environmentalists in a negative light.
To them, an
environmentalist was a person from New York or California who was trying to
regulate how they cared for the land on which they lived in Eastern Montana. And no, those farmers and ranchers in Eastern
Montana and the western Dakotas are not interested in recreating a massive
grassland with free ranging Bison, again.
But the issues
are complex.
One example of
the complexity of issues they deal with is regarding ‘no till’ farming
practices.
When the land is
tilled, wind erosion depletes the top soil.
In order to conserve the top soil, many farmers have adopted ‘no till’
farming.
But because they
are no longer controlling the weeds by tilling the soil, they must use
herbicides like Round-Up. And as is the
case with almost all chemicals like this, there are tradeoffs and dangers.
In many cases
these chemicals are harmful to the farmers themselves, causing things like
cancer, and some of them are harmful to the environment.
For example, it
was reported recently that traces of these cancer causing chemicals have been
found in Cheerios.
We find ourselves
faced with those dilemmas time and time again as we seek to care for creation.
I grew up along
the Mighty Missouri and one of the things we were proud of was the ‘clean
energy’ generated by the massive hydroelectric dams. I did a science fair project about that as a
youth.
Now that those
dams are nearing a hundred years old we are learning that there is a long term
impact of those dams on the environment.
They are not as environmentally ‘clean’ as they were advertised to be.
Likewise, my
daughter and her boyfriend just recently bought a Tesla car, an all electric vehicle. They bought it for two reasons: First because they like the environmental
advantages of not burning fossil fuels, and second, there is also a tremendous
cost savings over gasoline. It cost Zac
only a dollar and a few cents to commute to and from Post Falls from Sandpoint.
On the other
hand, Brita also posted an article documenting some of the environment damage
being done in order to produce the batteries that are required by these cars
and other battery powered equipment and tools.
There are no easy
answers it seems.
We will make some
mistakes.
But as people of
God, we are called to seek to make faithful choices, informed by two truths.
First, The
earth is the Lord 's and all that is in it,
the
world, and those who live in it;
for
he has founded it on the seas,
and
established it on the rivers.
This is Holy
Ground on which we stand.
It is a Sacred
Place, for it is the work of God’s hands.
And second, that
we have been entrusted with the care of this creation. Caring for creation means that we will seek
to hand it on to future generations better than we first received it.
Sometimes caring
for creation will mean massive changes in how we do things, such as converting
from coal to wind and solar energy.
At other times,
caring for creation may be as simple as using recyclable grocery bags as opposed
to plastic.
Whatever choices
we make, we should make them with a sense of reverence for the creation we live
in as God’s creation, and we shouldn’t ‘bite the hand that feeds us’. Take care of the land, and it will take care
of you.
Amen
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