Sermon by John Dernbach.
Our wonderful interim dean has honored me more than I can say by asking me to speak with you today. I’m a longtime environmental lawyer and retired law professor who once considered the priesthood. And so standing here, I get to momentarily experience a road not taken. Some of us are old enough to remember the photo of Earth taken from space by an Apollo 8 astronaut in 1968. It profoundly changed how people saw life on Earth because it made clear that the Earth is a small planet in the middle of what amounts to a void. And it is said to be the most influential environmental photo ever taken.
Earlier this month, we saw similar but sharper pictures, including one on the cover of your bulletin by the Artemis 2 astronauts. You may have read about the sense of joy and wonder the astronauts experienced looking at Earth from space and at the moon close up. Afterwards, one of the two Artemis 2 astronauts, Jeremy Hansen, said, “The perspective I launched with was that we live on a fragile planet in a vacuum, the void of space.” But when he saw Earth from space, he said his perspective was absolutely reaffirmed in a profound way. It’s almost like seeing living proof of it, he said.
Now, building on this insight, I’m going to share some thoughts about what our faith teaches us about how to understand creation. But, and here’s a spoiler alert, the explanation may surprise you. The lessons for today reveal an important truth about the Easter story. No one or at least nearly no one saw the resurrection coming. for the disciples, for his other followers, for the authorities, for his enemies, and for those who are just in the crowd. This part of the story did not follow the standard script of what happens to crucified people. The gospel lesson from Luke reads like a firsthand account of how astonished the followers of Jesus were and how they struggled to make sense of
it all.
When Jesus breaks bread with them, however, their eyes are opened. In the passage from Acts, Peter tells the crowd that the crucified Jesus who should be quite dead lives as Lord and Messiah. Recognizing how much this turns their understanding of events upside down, people in the crowd ask, “Brothers, what should we do on this day? As we celebrate creation care in a special liturgy on the first day of Earth week, I’m going to describe an approach to creation care that also does not follow the standard script. The traditional story we tell about creation is from the first chapter of the book of Genesis where God says to humankind, “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 creature that moves upon
the earth.”
Nearly everything I have read about creation care over a long long time relies on this passage and often this passage alone. But this is the wrong starting point. Most importantly, the Genesis passage tends to be presented and understood as separate from and outside of our obligation to love God and love our neighbor. It’s almost like there’s two different perspectives. There’s loving God and love your neighbor. And then there’s whatever you feel about creation. And under this view, God deserves our love. Our neighbor deserves our love, but creation deserves to be subdued and subject to dominion. That view puts creation out on the fringes of Christian concern, something optional for enthusiasts, but safely ignored by those who take their faith seriously. Over the years, I’ve read a lot of deep and complex efforts at a better creation care theology.
In one, a theology professor explains in detail an approach to creation care that would require us to completely rethink grace and faith. That explanation required an entire book. But there is another way that is more simple and straightforward. It does not follow the standard creation care script. In a nutshell, it is based on love of God and love of neighbor. It explains why creation care is and should be central to our faith. Not out at the margins, not something that is optional, but that is something that is deeply part of what we need to be about. If it works, you will be able to explain it to a friend tomorrow. The starting points are the two great
commandments.
In Mark, one of the three synoptic gospels in which the two great commandments are stated, Jesus says, “The first commandment is here. O Israel, the Lord our God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. There is no other commandment greater than these. Now this is deeply familiar but in the creation care context it has enormous implications. Jesus says there is no other commandment greater than these. It means that the commandments to love God and love neighbor are superior to the commandment in the Genesis passage. The two great commandments, in other words, provide the foundation for creation care, not the Genesis passage. But how can that be, you might ask? After all, there’s nothing in the two great commandments that explicitly addresses creation. Many Christians have read the passage that way, and it is pretty easy to see why.
But there is another and more profound way to understand the two great commandments. Let’s look at the relationship between each commandment and the environment. Like Thomas, who would not believe in the resurrection until he saw the evidence, let’s see what the evidence shows. First, what is the relationship between the commandment to love God and the environment? We know God made the world and all that is in it. At the end of each day of creation, God looks at all that God has made and pronounces it good. We also know from the Psalms and elsewhere that the earth belongs to the Lord. Today’s psalm recognizes God’s love in creation by asking, “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me?” Thus, God made our natural environment. It belongs to God and God has pronounced it good.
If we love God, how do we respond to that? If we pollute what God has made, are we showing our love of God? If we permit endangered species to become extinct because they get in our way or are of no use to us, are we showing our love of God? Is this how we repay God for all the good things that creation provides for us, including air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat. Now, in Genesis, of course, God does say that humans are to have dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth. But dominion is not the same as domination or degradation. Dominion, I am told, is the English translation of a Hebrew word that means taking appropriate care or exercising appropriate rulership. Now, in my experience, this is another reason I’m not fond of starting with the Genesis passage, is having to explain words, what words mean in Hebrew as a way of understanding what they mean in English is not my idea of starting out with a strong, clear message.
God never says, “Do whatever you want.” What matters is what God wants, not what we want. The Genesis passage is best understood then in the light of the commandment to love God and not as separate from it. So our duty to love God requires us to care for and protect God’s creation. The second commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. The author of the first letter of Peter in today’s reading says, “Love one another deeply from the heart.” So, people have asked me over the years, “What’s this got to do with the environment?
Isn’t this just about people?” The most important thing here is to recognize that pretty much everything we do to the environment affects other people. If we damage the environment, we hurt other people. If we restore the environment, we help other people. We hardly do ever do anything of any consequence to the environment without affecting someone somehow. The Genesis passage absolutely does not mean that we can use the environment in ways that hurt other people. But when we damage the environment, that’s what we do. Again, the passage is best understood in light of the commandment to love our neighbor and not as separate from it. People use the environment in ways that hurt other people in many ways, both large and small.
People who throw things in a creek, and I used to live on a creek, including broken bottles, create danger for anyone who does something as simple as walking barefoot in a creek. I know that from long ago experience. Our laws concerning air pollution, toxic chemicals, waste, and other problems. Our so-called environmental laws are to a very large extent human health laws. The basic premise is pretty simple. What is good for other creatures, other living things, is also good for humans. What is good for humans is also good for other living things. And those who seek to promote environmental justice are seeking relief from the disproportionate impacts of pollutants on their health. So, our duty to love our neighbor requires us to care for and protect the environment. But who is our neighbor?
We’ve all been taught that our neighbors include strangers, the hungry, and the homeless. But how about people on the other side of the world? How about people who have not yet been born? While our environmental laws have done a remarkably good job of cleaning up air and water and improving the way we manage waste, many other issues have not been addressed effectively. Carbon dioxide levels in the environment, the atmosphere rather, are now as high as they have been in four million years. We know that from ice core and fossil data. There’s already they are all the the this high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already contributing to greater heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise. Future generations, including our children and our grandchildren, will experience more severe effects than we will.
When Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves, what does our faith call us to do for them? The reality then is that we sin against God in our neighbor when we degrade or pollute the environment. This is a challenging message. Most of us were not taught this as children. Many of us have never thought about or understood these connections and the meaning of this message in any given situation is not always obvious or self-evident. But in the light of the numerous and difficult and growing environmental problems we face, we cannot ignore this message either. In the reading today for the book from the book of Acts, the crowd responds to Peter by asking, “Well, brothers, what should we do?” Peter begins his message by saying, “Repent.”
When we ask God for forgiveness in our worship service, we say from our prayer book, “We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. But for Peter and for us, repentance is only the beginning of the answer of what we should do. As Christians, we continue to be called to love God and to love our neighbors. And we cannot do either without caring for, protecting, and restoring the environment. The Earth from space does not show national boundaries. It is not dappled with the colors of blue, purple, and red for US states. Artemis 2 astronaut Jerry Hansen, Jeremy Hansen who I quoted earlier said, “Seeing Earth from space meant to him that our purpose on the planet is as humans is to find the joy in lifting each other up by creating solutions instead of destroying.”
He has a point and not only about creation care. A basic first step is to talk with each other about these connections. In his 2015 encyclical on faith and environment, Lato C, Pope Francis urgently appealed for a respectful and Christian dialogue about how we are shaping the future of the planet. This call for dialogue is of enormous importance. Yet it is also one of the mo is also one of the most difficult particular in a culture where many demonize those who have opposing views and are in turn demonized.
Fortunately, we already have experience here at St. Stevens showing our love of God and our love of neighbor on a major project. And we did it after a lot of internal discussion and discernment. More than 20 years ago, as many here know, we converted a parking garage into the primary building for St. Steven’s School. As part of the project, we became the first church in the country to register a green building project with the US Green Building Council and one of the first churches to get that project certified.
The building project is a model of Christian stewardship for the environment. It was energy efficient, used recycled, non-toxic and recyclable material, and used natural lighting as much as possible. And for those who pay pay attention to our budget, it has saved us tens of thousands of dollars over the years in energy costs. And it’s also reduced our carbon footprint. We are all together on this tiny planet. The only place in the universe we know for sure where life exists. Because the center of our life, our faith life is love. That love must embrace not only each other and God,
but all of creation.
Amen.
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