Selective Interpretation
The
Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
April 15, 2012
Selective Interpretation
Isaiah
55:12
Four million.
That’s a big number
4,000,000
We are a congregation of four hundred.
Four million would be
10,000 Manassas Presbyterian Churches.
Four million.
That’s the number of plastic bottles
we’ll go through in
this country…
in the next hour.
Four million plastic bottles per hour:
water bottles,
Coke bottles,
Pepsi bottles,
Iced-tea bottles -
Four million bottles
every hour,
more than 30 billion in a year,
just in this country.
Plastic bottles–
made from petroleum,
the same oil we turn into gasoline
and heat our homes with.
Thirty billion plastic bottles,
and most of them will end up in landfill,
garbage dumps,
buried in the ground,
adding to the small mountains like the one
just south of my home out 234 –
the Prince William County Landfill.
Some things break down and decompose quickly in landfills
but not plastic.
Dig up the landfill one hundred years from now,
and you’d still find that bottle of Coke, Pepsi,
or Poland Spring you had last week.
Plastic bottles are easy to recycle,
but we are a throw-away culture;
when we are done with something
we toss it in the garbage.
Only about a quarter of the 30 billion plastic bottles
we will use this year will be recycled.
Check the garbage cans around our church
from time to time and you’ll see that even here,
even with recycling containers
too much plastic ends up in the garbage can.
For decades the very word “environmentalism”
has been tainted,
branded as something that lures only radicals,
leftists, socialists,
“tree-huggers;”
something that gets in the way of progress,
jobs,
a growing economy,
something that is vaguely un-American.
Up until a few years ago among the groups
most resistant to embracing environmentalism,
most vocal in condemning it,
were church groups:
men and women of faith,
children of God,
followers of Jesus Christ.
For decades we stood firmly,
resolutely, behind the language we find
at the very beginning of the Bible,
in the very first chapter of Genesis,
in the first of the two creation stories –
when God said to the man and woman he created,
“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.”
(Genesis 1:28)
“Subdue the earth”;
“Have dominion” over all living creatures.
We’ve read these passages as God giving us power,
God giving us license to do with this earth as we pleased,
to do with every creature as we pleased.
We may use the earth for our benefit
and without regard to consequences.
It has only been in the past few years that we’ve realized
that we’ve been guilty of selective reading,
selective interpretation of God’s word to us
as it comes to us through Scripture.
We now understand that God did not give us license
to do whatever we want to the earth.
We now understand that this earth is God’s,
God’s creation,
and that God has entrusted its care to us,
that we have been called by God
to look after this earth for God,
for ourselves,
for all creatures,
and for all those who will come long after us.
The Hebrew word we translate as “dominion”
doesn’t mean power;
it means “responsibility”.
In giving us dominion, God has given us responsibility
for all living creatures:
the birds in the air,
the fish in the sea,
everything in God’s creation.
It has only been in the past few years
that a growing number of men and women,
boys and girls in churches of all different denominations
have begun to understand our call as children of God
to creation care,
creation stewardship.
We understand that not to care for God’s creation
is to live the sin of self-indulgence,
the sin of irresponsibility,
the sin of faithlessness.
The Psalmist helps us to understand with his words,
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;”
the world, and those who live in it;”
(Psalm 24)
“The earth is the Lord’s,
and all that is in it.”
The oceans, the mountains,
the rivers, the trees, the animals,
everything:
it is all the Lord’s.
God the Creator,
God the Author,
God the Owner.
God himself tells us that we are but tenants
and that the very land on which we walk
belongs to God.
(Leviticus 25:23)
The Psalmist teaches us the song we should all be singing:
“May the glory of the Lord endure for ever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
The glory of God—let
it last forever!
Let God enjoy his
creation!”
(Psalm 104:31)
But how can God enjoy his creation,
when we fill the earth with our garbage,
our four million plastic bottles each hour?
How can God enjoy his creation when we rip apart mountains
and leave behind toxic debris
all so we can get at a seam of coal?
How can God enjoy his creation
when we pump hundreds of millions of tons of poison
into the atmosphere
from our cars, our trucks, our factories?
We tell God we do these things in the name of progress,
that what we are doing provides jobs and opportunity.
But God sees through our rationalization,
our greed,
our self-indulgence;
We cannot hide our faithlessness from God
as we foul his creation.
Do you suppose that God is proud of us
that we are the #1
trash-producing country in the world,
that we are 5% of the world’s population
yet we generate 40% of the world’s waste?
Do you suppose God is proud of us
that we have had to fight for every major effort
to clean up the environment over the past 40 years?
Do suppose God is proud of us
that our default position is to deny we need to do anything
that we put our own needs, wants and desires first,
and God’s creation, second.
“Use the resources I have given you,
the oil, the coal, the timber,
the air, the water,”
God surely says to us.
“But use them wisely,
use them responsibly, carefully;
In taking them from my Creation,
do no harm,
and remember your responsibility
to me,
to all living creatures,
and to the generations to come.”
There was a wonderful article in yesterday’s paper
(New York Times, April 14, 2012)
about the partnership Wal-Mart has forged with
the Environmental Defense Fund
to reduce the amount of waste Wal-Mart generates as a
company,
and to find other ways for the company
to be responsible stewards of God’s earth.
For years the company has had a dismal reputation
within the environmental community,
as an organization that focused only on profit,
and never cared about its impact on the environment.
The company’s senior executives admit
their motivation isn’t altruistic:
but they have learned,
with help from the folks at the Environmental Defense Fund,
that reducing waste and working to be “green”
is good for the company’s bottom line.
The Environmental Defense Fund
is one of the oldest and largest
environmental advocacy organizations in this country
and it has been out in the forefront building partnerships
with a growing number of companies
to help the companies find ways to reduce waste,
to learn to be better stewards of our earth,
all in ways that can benefit the company
even as they benefit earth:
a win:win situation.
(for more information see
Jesus teaches us,
“From everyone to whom
much has been given,
much will be required;
and from one to whom
much has been entrusted,
even more will be
demanded.
(Luke 12:48)
You and I have been given much in this magnificent earth,
and much is required of us in return:
to care for this creation that feeds us,
shelters us, nourishes us,
protects us:
God’s creation.
God has entrusted this earth to us,
and in turn expects us to care for his creation.
We are to care for it not just to satisfy ourselves,
our own needs,
but in such a way
that, as our lesson teaches us,
the mountains and hills burst into song,
the trees of the field clap their hands
as they join in the music that we hear only in part,
the great chorus of praise
that all creation sings to the glory of God,
to the glory of our Creator.
Our ears may not hear the mountains sing
or the trees clapping;
we may even laugh at the idea that Isaiah writes of,
but let’s ask ourselves:
why wouldn’t God create everything on this earth
with the capability to sing its praises to its Creator?
And if God can hear the song his creation sings,
then surely God can also hear the cries of agony and anguish
coming from his creation
as we poison God’s oceans, lakes and rivers,
as we bury our garbage under God’s hills,
as we foul God’s air.
A recent article in the Christian
Century,
calls on us to look at creation
with our first thought always,
“How can I honor God in my use of this place,
this part of creation for which I have responsibility?”
If I am to cut down trees,
or mine for minerals,
or drill for gas and oil,
how can I do so in a way
that minimizes my impact on God’s creation?
How can I live my life in a way
that preserves the beauty and majesty of God’s creation
for the generations that will come?
The article sets before us the very harsh reality
that we are the only creature who has the ability
to “destroy our own
kind,
other kinds,
and even the creation itself.”
(“Behold The Hippo”, by Calvin DeWitt, April 18, 2012)
Four million plastic bottles every hour.
What are we as faithful stewards of God’s earth to do?
The first step is to embrace our call to creation care;
to realize that environmental stewardship
is not a political matter,
it is how we are called to live our faith.
It is to live our lives remembering that
the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.
It is to remember that much has been given to us,
and so much is expected of us.
It is to live our lives assuring that all God’s creation
sings its song of praise to its Creator,
a chorus we are only a part of,
that our Lord may always rejoice in his works,
that the glory of God will shine brightly
forever and ever.
AMEN
posted by Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson @ 11:00 AM
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