Creation 8 - Stewardship: Look around and see God

Lectionary: Joel 2:23-32; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18; Luke 18:9-14



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I begin today with a quote from Orison Marden, a late 19th-century entrepreneur and founder of Success magazine. It will be familiar to those of you who attended our third parish summit last November because we opened our time in summit with this quote:

“Deep within humans dwell these slumbering powers, powers that would astonish them,
that they never dreamed of possessing;
forces that would revolutionize their lives if aroused and put into action.”

We went on in our summit to review the top five values, our slumbering powers, our community discerned together at our first summit - kindness, acceptance, connection, openness, and honesty – and how our institutional structures encourage or inhibit our putting these slumbering powers into action.

It seems clear to me that we live not only in a world hungry for those discerned gifts but also in a county, a city, a college campus where there are many people hungry for them as well.

If we have a goal to grow our church, then it’s important to remember that church growth happens when we are intentional about noticing and connecting with those people whose lives would be lifted up by the gifts God has given so abundantly to our community. For some of those people, it may come as a surprise that there is a church that values what we value, given that so many people have had an experience of church and even Christianity that is unkind, judgmental, divisive, and hypocritical.

Remembering and pondering our slumbering powers is a fine way to celebrate the final Sunday in the season of Creation, a season during which we have taken the time to prayerfully notice and give thanks for the many ways God’s love is real and present in our world and ourselves. Our readings today offer the same theme.

The prophet Joel calls upon the people of God to look around and see the love of God manifested in real ways: abundant rain, threshing floors overflowing with grain, vats overflowing with wine. Joel gives voice to God’s promise of presence and power within us saying, “You shall know that I amin midst of Israel… and I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,” sons and daughters, old and young, even the least of the least in society. God will pour out God’s spirit on ALL people.

The psalmist then repeats the theme delineating the “awesome things” God will show us things when can only see when we are in right relationship with God, one another, and creation. We will recognize the beauty of God’s house – the world, and God’s temple – our very bodies. When we see this beauty in the world and in ourselves, we can only respond by loving it, caring for it, and celebrating its diversity – a real-world sign of the abundance of God’s love.

Being in right relationship with God, one another, and creation often puts us at odds with the world, however, as Paul’s letter to Timothy shows us. Being a voice for right relationship can be lonely, even punishing. Living in right relationship with God and God’s creation may place us in contentious relationship with those who, by their worldly power and self-centered perspective, have a different plan.

I recently saw an article from 2012 that spoke about the origin of the term “tree hugger” – currently a derogatory term in American political culture. Do you know the origin of this?

As you might guess, tree-hugging began as an act of nonviolent resistance. What surprised me was that it didn’t originate with environmentalist hippies in the 1960’s in the US but with a “group of 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape.” Over time, this tactic spread across India “forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.”

It can be lonely even punishing being the persistent voice calling out for right relationship, but it’s worth doing. What feels like powerlessness in the moment is often revealed to be quite powerful in the big picture, because God is in the midst of it all and God is patient to redeem.

This tree hugger is grateful to those brave souls in India who gave their lives for the truth they knew.

St. David’s knows what it’s like to perceive a truth that the world resists and live into it anyway in faithfulness to its five slumbering powers. Your history of being the first parish in the diocese to perform same-sex marriages before the institutional machine caught up is one example. Your commitment to inclusive and expansive language for God in worship is another.

The task at hand is to intentionally and fully awaken and unleash those slumbering again: kindness, acceptance, connection, openness, and honesty – for all. Is there anyone in this community to whom kindness is not extended, or from whom true connection is withheld? Is there anyone among us who experiences rigidity rather than openness or hypocrisy rather than honesty?

We are not challenged by these, but grateful for the opportunity to grow into the fullness of the community of faith God wishes us to be. The church is, after all, where we learn and practice God’s way of love. We are not expected to be flawless, just faithful.

Imagine if people knew there was a place they could connect with God, other people, and creation; a place that would respond to mistakes or difference with kindness, a place that isn’t afraid of someone’s suffering but enters it with them allowing it to strengthen them both, a place that is willing to redefine itself through prayer and discernment – a place like St. David’s.

It would be astounding and would revolutionize lives.

This coming week, as we bring the pledge portion of the Stewardship of the Entirety of Our Lives to a close, please remember that you are supporting and empowering a bunch of revolutionary tree huggers (just kidding! - - sort of…).

Seriously, your pledge is the means by which St. David’s will be enabled to fully awaken and unleash its slumbering powers of kindness, acceptance, connection, openness, and honesty, which will revolutionize the lives of this faith community, our neighbors, and our corner of God’s garden when put into action. Be alert and watch with me for the awesome things God will show us; real-world signs of the abundance of God’s love happening in and through St. David’s in 2020.

Amen.

Creation 5-Biodiversity: Everything is gift

Lectionary: Lectionary: Job 28: 1-11; Ps 148; 1 Tim 4:1-5; Mt 6: 25-33



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“For everything created by God is good,” Everything… that’s a pretty bold statement, don’t you think? It seems there are some creatures we might not judge as good. Some people hate spiders, or snakes, or certain politicians. But, and, as our epistle reminds us if we receive the gifts we are given with thanksgiving we can reject nothing.

In other words, everything is gift. Some gifts are apparent at the start, like rain that ends a drought. Other gifts are revealed as gift over time and through experience, which is another way of saying right relationship.

Job uses the metaphor of miners. Miners develop a right relationship with the earth that enables them to recognize iron ore, sapphires, or gold. When mined from the earth these are little more than dull rocks, unless one has eyes to see the gifts they will soon reveal.

Everything is gift. Everything; and those who dig deep in order to find the gifts hidden in the depths find them and bring those hidden things to life, putting an end to darkness. What a powerful promise this is: those who seek the gifts hidden in the depths of our souls, our relationships, our world, find them and enlighten us all.

Miners, as Job calls them, those who dig deep to find the hidden gifts in God’s abundance, reveal the righteousness of God, that is, the way to be in relationship with all that is. It is always a symbiotic relationship: interactive, mutually beneficial. When that symbiotic balance is lost, we have stepped out of God’s righteousness and someone or something is going to get hurt.

Despite our many advances, we just can’t see the big picture. One obvious example: kudzu. Kudzu came to the US in the 1880s as a garden novelty.

“But in 1935, as dust storms damaged the prairies, Congress declared war on soil erosion and enlisted kudzu as a primary weapon. More than 70 million kudzu seedlings were grown in nurseries by the newly created Soil Conservation Service. To overcome the lingering suspicions of farmers, the service offered as much as $8 per acre to anyone willing to plant the vine…. Railroad and highway developers, desperate for something to cover the steep and unstable gashes they were carving into the land, planted the seedlings far and wide… By 1945,…more than a million acres had been planted…Farmers still couldn’t find a way to make money from the crop [however, so by] the early 1950s, the Soil Conservation Service was quietly back-pedaling on its big kudzu push. (Source)

Driving around here now, it’s frightening how much of our beautiful WNC forests are already covered over by this vine, now classified as an invasive species. We just didn’t see this consequence coming.

Our faith reminds us, however, that everything is gift, though some gifts must be mined, refined, and shined before we see the gift they offer. Did you know that Phytochemicals found in Kudzu have disease prevention properties, including reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease? Ingesting kudzu may also inhibit binge drinking, decrease the frequency of cluster headaches, and ease stomach upset, including the discomfort from irritable bowel syndrome and acute diverticulitis. (Source)

Everything is gift.

The beauty of our faith is that God continually reminds us that we are part of all that is. All of creation is an outward expression of the love of God and is being continually cared for by God. Jesus promised us that sin and death no longer have power over us because God redeems and reconciles all things, all time, all of creation.

So when things get obviously out of balance, our response isn’t to wring our hand and rend our clothing but to wake up and be alert for the redemption about to happen and to serve as co-facilitators with God in that redemption.

Some imbalances are easier to spot than others. When the waters are visibly polluted and the air is heavy with smog, things are out of balance. When pelicans wash up dead with their stomachs full of plastic items, things are out of balance. When species become extinct due to lack of habitat, overhunting, poaching, or pollution, things are out of balance. The list of recent and impending extinctions will break your heart.

We are not helpless. We can and we must facilitate change. It is our duty. It is the living out of our faith. When we speak of re-establishing the symbiotic balance of all creation, frightened and angry voices cry out that the survival of our economic and social systems must be the priority. They rationalize that the changes in climate and species diversity aren’t the result of human interference. To some degree, they are right, but not completely.

Human impact on the environment- for good or ill - is a given. We are here and our presence has an effect. What that effect is… is up to us. It’s our choice.

I was in junior high school when President Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and I remember the rapid healing of our environment that followed. I remember boating on the Hudson River in NY before and after the pollution controls were put in place. No one was allowed to swim in the river before but we could after.

I remember the smog over Los Angeles before and after the EPA established emissions requirements for cars. I remember business leaders around the country crying out that EPA restrictions would kill free enterprise. They didn’t. In fact, they opened more avenues for business. The current burgeoning solar power industry is a present-day example.

In our gospel lesson Jesus says, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

We don’t need to believe this. Those of us who lived in the 1970s can simply remember it.

As I said, though, some imbalances not as easy to spot: relationship imbalances, for example. When relationships move from cooperative to self-centered, the balance is lost and both eventually get hurt – usually one more than the other. This is the root of domestic or interpersonal violence and it is not the righteousness of God. I bring this up as we move through another Domestic Violence Awareness month.

When church ministries move from offering shared gifts to those in need to being in-house mini-kingdoms that control which gifts are shared, how, and with whom, a balance has been lost. Not to pick on a particular ministry, and I want to be clear that this is NOT true of ours at St. David’s, but how sad is it that there is such a thing in the church as Altar Guild Nazis. I've met some of them and it wasn't pleasant.

When a church shifts from an outward mission-focus to an inward survival focus, a balance has been lost. When we worry about the “what will we eat and what will we wear” things like how to pay the electric bill, repair the roof, or cover the salary of a rector, we have forgotten what Jesus said: that our heavenly Father knows what we need. We don’t need to beg God or worry about ourselves at all. Instead, we can focus our attention on the world out there - the world God placed us and our gifts here to serve - and we can choose to be partners in the redeeming, reconciling work of God. We can choose to live out our belief that when we” strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, …all these things will be given to [us] as well.”

But this too, we don’t just need to believe. Those who were here following St. David’s last resurrection can simply remember it. Those who weren’t here can read about it in June’s book on the history of St. David’s. (Source: “do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about, A History of St David’s-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church, Cullowhee, NC 1883-2017, St. Hilda’s Press, 2019) p 53.

Redemption is a given. It is promised and delivered over and over again in our Christian narrative and in our own lives.

Everything is gift. Every circumstance, every person, every event, everything reveals more of the redeeming love of God. Let us be the eyes that see, the miners who bring these hidden gifts to light.

Amen.