| Progressive and Christian: Earth As Our Home |
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Progressive and Christian: Earth As Our Home
Douglas S. Long
So last week we started a series, for the month of October,
explaining that we think it’s possible to be progressive and Christian. That’s not the way our popular culture thinks of
Christian…. the media, at large, portrays Christians as narrow fundamentalists…
but, as I explained, and as many of you
already know, there is a growing movement, a grass roots movement within the
wider Christian community to not allow some rather noisy and large voices in
print and on the airwaves totally control the way that Christians are seen… or
understood.
Several persons have listed elements of this emerging
progressive Christian movement. There are the Eights Points of progressive
Christianity as outlined by The Center for Progressive Christianity; The Phoenix
Affirmations, another attempt to summarize progressive Christianity, comes up
with 12 points. Let me offer, to help you orient your thinking, a shorter
version offered by Fred Plumer, the current President of the Center for
Progressive Christianity, who says: … it seems to me there are at least four
[or five] components that are essential to anyone who considers themselves a Progressive
Christian today:
* to see oneself as a “follower of Jesus” or Jesus’ teachings rather than a believer in a creed; * to recognize that Christianity is not the only way; * to search the great mysteries of life with an open theology and an intellectual integrity; * to recognize that ecology and social justice are interlinked and part of your faith; * and to understand that [GLBT persons] are full participants in our world as a natural part of God’s creation.
Now, I have to say that we wrote
our Covenant here at UPUCC (then North Raleigh United) eight years ago before
any of us had read any of that stuff. Before much of it was published actually,
but it is, indeed, very much akin to what we came up with from our own honest
struggles and experiences. So now, in the month of October, as we are settling
into our new space, we felt it would be good to revisit some primary aspects of
progressive Christianity as we
understand it.
That being the case… last week we took a quick look at “Jesus As Our Window”
Today I’ll consider… “Earth
As Our Home”
Next week we’ll approach “All
Are Welcome!”
and on Oct. 28 “Justice As the Social Expression of Love.”
Earth as our home.
By the way, claiming the earth and environmentalism as a
core part of our theology doesn’t sound so strange these days when Al Gore
receives a Nobel Peace Prize for his work calling our attention to Global
warming. By raising our collective consciousness, he’s provided a wonderful
gift to the global community.
Earth as our home.
In his book, “A New Spiritual Home: Progressive Christianity at the Grass Roots”, Hal Taussig explains
that in the progressive expression of Christianity there is [among other tenets],
We said it this way in our own Covenant:
[We] -Seek, in our quest for truth,
the presence of the divine:
in
worship and prayer;
[and] in
all of creation;
And again, later in
that same Covenant:
[As one of] our steps
toward a mutual relationship with the wider world, we will:
-Claim our inescapable
connection with the sacred earth and all of creation;
We began this congregation, in fact, with an invitation to
all who, among other things,
…
believe that spiritual concerns are
inseparable from commitment to the natural world.
(Recognize that? It’s part of our “If” statement.)
So why do we say that… that our spiritual concerns are inseparable from our commitment to the natural
world?
Well, in short, because so many have separated the two…
spirit and world. It’s a product of/an extension of the mind-body dualism that
has dominated our Western mindsets. There are things of the spirit or mind and
things of the material world or earth and the two are not really
connected. I don’t really have a need to
wax philosophical here, and even if I could, it would put most of you to sleep…
so for the purposes of this morning let me try say it this way:
For some reason, popular Christianity bought into the notion
that you could separate the Creator from the Creation.
We could worship God, after all, we are God’s crowning creation (humanity)… we could worship God while using and consuming the rest of God’s
creation in any way we pleased.
In fact, in this view, the rest of creation only exists to
benefit humanity.
Further, in this common understanding, humans are the only
reason God created all the universe …most
of which we do not even know of.
Here’s my point… we’ve separated to our own detriment, most
of us, in our minds and in our practice, the Creator from the Creation.
Should not all of creation, formed by God’s hand themselves,
be as revered… or even more so?
Just this past week, when a painting by Monet was
vandalized, it made world headlines.
Why?
…Because a Master
had fashioned this work of art… this masterpiece.
And if the master painter/sculptor/creator had been God? … Would
there be any outrage at the desecration of God’s works?
There’s another important aspect of our ‘earth
responsibility’… which is our responsibility to those who come after us. …and
not just our children and grandchildren, but what about thousands of years
beyond?
We are making waste fields now, particularly in nuclear wastes, which will
pose dangers to those who come in contact with them tens of thousands of years
from now. Imagine… what we do as a society now, having an impact on those who
live here in the year 12,000 (…and just to give you a little reference in time,
that’s at least twice as long into the future as the Biblical flood was in our
past.) …and this is not even to mention the present
justice issue that most of our toxic wastes are dumped into the back yards of
the poorest among us.
Sometimes I wonder if God didn’t
make our human lifespan too short. If we lived longer, we might be more
concerned about the way we regularly squander so much of the world’s resources.
Clearly, clearly… there are limits to the resources we all
take for granted
Of course, our worry about future
generations assume there will be
future generations.
"It is important for the human race to spread out
into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said.
He's predicting a
spectacular catastrophe.
"Life on earth is at an ever-increasing risk of
being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a
genetically engineered virus or other dangers we haven't yet thought of. …But
if we can avoid killing ourselves for the next hundred years we should have
settlements that can continue without support from earth."…
Hawking then humored the crowd explaining that moving
across space is no different than moving across town: the three most important
words are "location, location, location."
[Correction
by one blogger: "Location, location, location, a great big SPACESHIP,
and a whole lotta luck."]
Think about it, though. Really…. Leave
the earth behind?… Use up its resources and then move on? Is
that not the most human-centered thought you’ve ever imagined? The ultimate hubris?
Humans and the Earth.
So where do we fit in?
When I was in Seminary, (decades ago, folks) I can remember
hearing one of the most respected scholars there make a statement about what he
referred to as "the fad of adding a chapter on environmental theology in
every book now being published." He
was not, obviously, a fan of this fad. For him, there was the realm of God which
'properly restored' was the realm of humanity, and then there was the realm of things less
holy… nature and all things inanimate.
The creation was viewed as human centered … and there was
resulting disregard for all created order considered “beneath” the human
sphere.
But that’s not the way I read it, now.
In Genesis, chapters 1 and 2 we find two stories of Creation
In them the Scriptures holy to both
Jewish and Christian traditions begin with a clear and wonder filled statement
of the connection of God, all Creation and humanity…
Creator, Creation, Humanity
In the beginning, God created the
heavens and the earth… and it was good.
In the beginning, God shaped from
the Adama (Hebrew for earth)... Adam, Humanity.
We are the stuff of the earth
We are earth infused with the
breath of God.
All of nature is,
in fact, God-made –visible.
The Creation is the Creator revealed.
And therefore all of Creation, all life, is sacred.
The image of the Creator surrounds us in plant and animal,
tree and flower.
Everything we touch is holy, made manifest by of the mind of
God.
Nature is God
embodied.
The Creation reflects
the Creator.
And therefore the creation we dwell in is the very realm of
the miraculous, for it is God before us. ‘The beauty of the earth, the glory of
the skies,’ the morning that breaks at the dawn, the singing of the birds and
delicacies of each flower, the cry of new born child… all holy, all miraculous,
all connected intimately to the Creator. We are so inundated, so surrounded by
such miracle, that we most times become satiated and unaware of its power.
Wendell Berry, the wonderful philosopher, theologian,
farmer, lover of the earth of our day, … I’ve quoted this before… Wendell Berry
was once asked about one of the miracles described in the Gospel: Jesus
producing wine from water at a wedding feast. Said
"… the turning of water to
wine… was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still
continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into
grapes."
Understanding that God is indeed embodied in the natural
world, that the miraculous and holy surrounds us, carries all sorts of
implications with it.
One is this… How we
treat this world, what we do to the earth, air, water, and animals, we do to the
body of God and, as ‘A-dam,’ we do to ourselves. We cannot earnestly pray to the Creator, and knowingly
desecrate the Creation.
We must guard and preserve the earth.
We must act to transform all those practices which bring
injury and death to the created order into practices of sacred stewardship
which promote healing and life.
For God so loved the world …that God created it. That
creating love binds us to all things bright and beautiful, and to all creatures
great and small. It connects us to each
other. It connects us to God.
So…
Pray for the wilderness vanishing fast,
Pray for the rainforest, open
and vast;
Pray for the waterfalls, pray
for the trees,
Pray for the planet brought
down by degrees.
Work for the justice created
things need,
Work for the health of each
plant and its seed;
Work for the creatures abuse
has betrayed,
Work for the Garden God’s
wisdom once made.
Pray for the atmosphere, pray
for the sea,
Learn from the river, the rock,
and the tree;
Work till Shalom in full
harmony rings,
Trust the connection of all living things. (‘Pray
for the Wilderness,’ Dan Damon)
May we simply embody, in all that we do, our own covenantal
statements.
-[Claiming] our inescapable connection with the
sacred earth and all of creation;
In the name of God, we journey on
with hopeful hearts, re-connecting Creator and Creation-
For this is a holy task, and second
to none in the spiritual assignment of our time.
Amen.
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