Why Aren't You?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
April 29, 2007

Why Aren’t You?
Genesis 1:26-31
Psalm 104

“American cities are … ringed with trash
– all of them –
surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles,
and almost smothered with rubbish.
Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins,
the so-called packaging we love so much.
The mountains of things we throw away
are much greater than the things we use.
In this, if in no other way,
we can see the wild and reckless exuberance
of our production,
and waste seems to be the index.”
(John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, 22)

These are not my words,
nor are they the words of some rabid environmentalist.
These words were not written in the last few months,
or even in the last few years.
They were written by the great novelist
John Steinbeck some 47 years ago.
In 1960 he spent the year traveling around the country
exploring its nooks and crannies.
He had a sharp eye and was a keen observer
of the ordinary and the everyday.

He had no political agenda;
he simply did what he did best:
he wrote about what he saw.
And everywhere he went,
he saw garbage, and excess,
and wastefulness.

It would be another decade before we as a nation woke up
and saw what Steinbeck found so obvious.
The first Earth Day back in 1970 brought with it
a realization that we could no longer
use lakes, rivers, and oceans as our sewers,
and we could no longer pour our smoke and filth into the skies.

Growing up in Buffalo,
the effects of our disdain for the environment
were all too apparent.
Right on the shore of Lake Erie, just south of the city,
sat the hulking Bethlehem Steel plant.
Its dozens and dozens of smokestacks poured out
black, acrid, toxic smoke that literally blocked the sun.
It poured metals and poison into the sky and the lake,
turning blue to brown.

Bethlehem was hardly alone.
Just down the Niagara River, right above the magnificent Falls,
were a collection of chemical plants
that poured millions and millions of gallons
of poison into the river each year.
No one looking at the majesty of the Falls
would have had any idea
what was mixed in that water that went over the Cataracts,
but if you went a few miles downriver,
as I did regularly with my cousins,
the effects were all too clear:
tumorous fish floating on the water’s surface;
birds that lived on the fish dying,
poisoned from mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxins
that were in the tissue of the fish;
and a foul smell rising up from the river
that no boater could escape.
We knew better than even to think about swimming
in that water.
The irony in this was that legend had it that
the name Buffalo came from the French beau fleuve,
which means “beautiful river”.

One of the sparks that captured our collective attention
as a nation was the famous image of the Cuyahoga River
in Cleveland on fire:
the river itself aflame
because of the oily slime that covered the water,
along with all the garbage that floated on the surface.
Time Magazine described the river as,
“Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases,
it oozes rather than flows”

My own eyes were opened by a report of the carcass of a whale
that had washed up on a beach in New England.
Whales die of course,
and from time to time their bodies do wash up on beaches,
so that in itself was not newsworthy.
It was how the whale died:
In its feeding, it had ingested human garbage,
probably garbage tossed from a ship,
perhaps a luxury cruise ship,
because up until recently that’s what ships
did with their garbage: tossed it overboard.
Mixed in with the garbage was an otherwise ordinary
empty plastic bleach bottle:
the kind we all buy at the grocery store,
the one-gallon size.
It turned out the bottle was the ideal size
to plug the lower part of the whale’s digestive tract,
killing the whale.

Politicians of every persuasion have been involved
in passing new laws and regulations that have cleaned up
our natural world considerably since that first Earth Day.
But for all the progress we’ve made,
we still have much to do.

I have been struck by the fact that in all the conversations
that we have had since that first Earth Day,
all the debates about how best to clean up our filth,
one voice that has been quiet almost to the point of silence,
has been the church, the followers of Christ,
the children of God.
I have been puzzled by that
since I have never regarded the need
to look after our environment as a political issue
as much as it is a matter of faithfulness.

After all, didn’t God create this world?
Didn’t God look out upon his creation on the sixth day
and find it all good, very good? (Genesis 1:31)
Doesn’t God delight in all of his creation?
After the floodwaters receded, did God limit
his covenant made visible in the rainbow just to humankind?
No: the covenant included all living creatures. (Gen. 9:9ff)

The Psalmist sings the praises of God’s creation in Psalm 104:
“…You stretched out the heavens like a tent,
you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
you make the winds your messengers,
fire and flame your ministers.
You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
You cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
They rose up to the mountains,
ran down to the valleys
to the place that you appointed for them.
You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.

You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,
giving drink to every wild animal;…
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.”

This is God’s world,
God’s creation,
not ours.
We don’t create; only God can create.
God created and called it all good, all very good.

In our human arrogance, we like to think we can do anything
including creating,
but God is only too happy to knock us off our pedestal
when we begin to think that way.
Just have a look at chapter 38 of Job:
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding
Who determined its measurements –
surely you know!
or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?...
Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth…
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth.
Declare, if you know all this?” (Job 38)

The hymn we just sang is right:
“This is our Father’s World”,
our Father’s world, not ours.
(Maltbie Babcock, 1901)
The hymn was based on text from Psalm 50
in which God leaves us with no doubt:
“For every wild animal of the forest is mine,
the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the air,
and all that moves in the field is mine…
for the world and all that is in it is mine.” (Psalm 50:10ff)

But wait, you say,
didn’t God give us “dominion” over the earth?
Weren’t we told to go out and subdue the earth?
Didn’t we just hear that in the first lesson?
Yes, there’s no question that that’s what we read,
right there at the beginning of the Bible, right in Genesis.
But what does it mean to have dominion over something or someone?
Does it mean we can do whatever we want?
Is that what God intended?

The Hebrew word we translate as “dominion” or “rule” (rdh)
carries with it a strong element of responsibility.
To have dominion over something or someone,
to rule over something or someone, is to have responsibility
for that plant, that animal, or that person,
responsibility for their welfare and wellbeing.
A good ruler is not one who takes whatever he wants,
does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
A good ruler is a steward of his people, his lands,
his crops, and his animals.

Solomon had dominion over the people of Israel,
but when he prayed to God, what did he ask for:
he asked for wisdom in how he governed
because he knew that the people over whom he had dominion
were not his people, they were God’s people,
He had been entrusted by God to rule over them.
(1 Kings 3:7ff)

To have dominion is to understand the farmer’s adage:
“I didn’t inherit this land from my father,
as much as I was given the responsibility
to look after it for my children.”

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 104 understood this
as he continued his song of praise for God’s creation:
“The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has its home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the [rabbits].
You have made the moon to make the season;
the sun knows its time for setting.
You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens.
People go out to work and to their labor until evening.
O Lord how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works.”

You and I are to care for this earth,
we are to care for it for the Creator
precisely because the Creator has given us dominion
given us responsibility to look after his creation,
his creation that he delights in.

God created a delicate balance, and as we are learning,
when we do things that disrupt that balance,
we interfere with God’s creation.
Biblical scholar James May has written,
“To intervene in the flow of water,
the habitat of birds and animals,
the topography of earth,
is to breach an intricate divine ecology into which
human life is integrated….
We are learning slowly that we damage ourselves,
live in alienation from that to which we belong,
and threaten the future of life,”
when we live without regard for this earth
or how our actions affect it.

It is time for us to live green and act green,
not for political reasons,
but because our faith demands that we do.
It is time for churches to take the lead
because this is our Father’s World.

In a recent article in the New York Times,
author Thomas Friedman observed,
“One of the things that struck me about the term ‘green’
was the degree to which, for so many years,
it was defined by its opponents,
by the people who wanted to disparage it.”
(New York Times Magazine, 42, April 15, 2007)

Let’s embrace that term because of our faith,
because we have been given dominion over the earth,
because we understand the responsibility
that comes with having dominion,
because God rejoices in his creation.

As a man of faith,
child of God, and disciple of Jesus Christ,
I will state here and now that I am
proud to be green,
and I will go farther: I will say that
I am proud to be a tree-hugger,
proud because I glorify and honor the one who created the trees:
whether it is a beautiful cherry tree in its peacock best display
in early Spring,
or a sugar maple ablaze with color in the fall,
or a mighty sequoia out in California
that stretches so high in the sky that the very top
must tickle God’s feet as he walks the heavens.

Being a good steward means that we are called to learn to use
the resources that God has entrusted us with responsibly,
not just for our own comfort, but always mindful
of the generations to come.
Being a good steward is remembering that how we live today
will determine whether a group of children will gather here
in this Sanctuary in a clean, safe world to mark
the second 140 years of this congregation.

Are you willing to learn more about the impact that you have
on the divine ecology that God has created?
Are you willing to accept your responsibility as a steward
of God’s Creation?
Are you ready to remember that this is our Father’s world?
Are you ready to live green as a matter of your faith,
as a child of God and disciple of Jesus Christ?

Are you ready to do these things so that
the glory of the Lord may endure forever?
So that you and I may be good and faithful stewards
of all of God’s creation?
So that the Lord, our Creator,
may rejoice forever in his works?

AMEN