Third Sunday of Easter – Earth Day Sunday – April 18, 2021
Grace to you and peace from God the Creator, the Holy Spirit and Christ our Redeemer. Amen.
When we reflect on the seasons and days of the church year that we have just come through, there is a familiar pattern to them all. The Passion stories of Holy Week and Easter have common scenarios and traditions, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday to Easter Sunday morning that we know and find spiritually nourishing for our faith. Following Easter, though, the stories in the New Testament range all over the place. They seem to go a little crazy! Jesus appears in a locked room, on the seashore, to a few people, to many people, in the city, in the countryside. There is no uniformity or predictability at all. But the notable characteristics are that these are an overpowering, puzzling, almost magical series of events. The fear, anxiety, wonder, doubt, joy and worship cannot be matched in the entire record of the Jewish scriptures by this historical event that proclaims the dawn of God’s new creation.
God’s New Creation – that is our jumping off point – on this Earth Day Sunday we have to ask – is it possible to expand this wide diversity of resurrection and redemption accounts to include more than human followers – to add to it hope for creation itself? Does the promise of the risen Christ apply to birds and plants, cycles of the seasons, weather patterns, marvels of the circle of the sky and the depth of the oceans? Apparently, Paul believed so. He wrote in Romans 8 that the Creation itself waits with eager longing …..to be set free from its bondage to decay and to obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Nature itself shares the stress, the anxiety, the pain that we ourselves feel as we wait for the promised revelation – the redemptive first fruits of the Spirit of God.
God as Creator was the core of Hebrew faith and the basis for trusting in the divine covenant God made with the Hebrew people. The power and trustworthiness of God brought creation into being, established order and decreed that every creature – living its fully authentic being – fulfill God’s will. The honor and responsibility given humans from the beginning was in that context, that we partner with the Creator God in caring for all God created and: to find joy in God’s service!
It did not mean, though, that God’s work could not be overshadowed by darkness and chaos. These threats were not destroyed, only pushed back to places with no boundaries where darkness reigned. It gives us a knot in our stomachs to think how close we have come in the 21st century with extreme storms, devastating drought, artic melting, and warming oceans, to resurrecting the chaos and overturing the goodness of all God created.
That not to say we do not respond. Theologian Elizabeth Johnson writes in her examination of Darwin and Christianity, ASK THE BEASTS, that is commendable that church groups put together wonderful statements, inspire committed volunteers, and hold observances on Earth Day Sunday.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth Johnson says, we are not responding as fully as we ought. Most churches are more committed to stewardship and evangelism than care of the earth. It is, she writes, as is the Earth is undergoing agony in the Garden, facing crucifixion and we, Jesus’ disciples, are curled up, fast asleep.
The theme for this year’s interfaith community’s Earth Day Sunday observances is Cultivating Connections. The online site Earth Beat tells about Brother Moy Hitchen, promoter of environmental justice for his order, whose message to the students with whom he worked was ‘love your local ecosystem.’ Get out, find the rocks, the birds, the trees, bushes, all the things in your part of the world, he told them, and ask, what does the Earth want us to do? He pointed out that youth from industrialized counties could not describe the natural systems where they grew up as those from African and Asia could. Those young people knew the savannas, the forests, the deserts of their nations. Young people in this country are much less connected to the soil and the earth. Tied to that reality is the fact that the US passed a tipping point in 1970 when we began to consume more of the earth’s goods than the planet can regenerate. We forget, Hitchens said, that the earth is charged with a divine spirit, so that, wherever we live, all land is Holy Ground.
Earlier this year, seventeen scientists from several different countries asked the International Criminal Court in the Hague to add Ecocide as the 5th type of international crime. They say that humanity is running a kind of ecological Ponzi scheme, robbing nature now and leaving future generations to pay the price.
So – what do we do? Is there anything that matters at this point? Happily, the answer is ‘yes’ there are a number of ways to make a difference right where we live. One of the guides to help us alter some of our habits is Prof. Doug Tallamy from the University of Delaware. He gave a webinar last month that some of you may have watched for Olbrich Botanical Gardens. His book BRINGING NATURE HOME describes how landscaping our yards can make a real impact on the environment. In most suburban communities, front yards and lawns present a statement of income, social status, and estimates of real estate values. Property owners in the US have planted an area the size of New England in grass that we fertilize, spray, dethatch, water and mow, so, when we are finished, hardly anything can survive under or on it. In addition, we invest in attractive, flowering plants and shrubs for landscaping that are not natural to our region and so unintentionally deprive bugs and birds and wildlife the resources they need to survive.
Terry’s cousin and his wife wrote recently out a farm report to his siblings on land they farm for the cousins and described the results of soil tests from their no-till method of farming. Volunteers from the Conservation Stewardship Program they have participated in for a dozen years found their soil to be almost perfectly healthy. Without chemicals and cultivation, an abundance of plant fungi underground was engaged in complementing, interacting, and nourishing one another. Paul and Jeryl know that ecology is planetary housekeeping. It builds the elaborate network of living organisms which are suited to and affect the environment in which they exist and reinforce the health of the soil that we rightly can say is Holy Ground.
Doug Tallamy suggests converting half of all the lawns in the United States into what he calls the Homegrown National Park. That means planting native flowers and shrubs around the edge of smaller lawns to provide food for the bugs and worms that all nesting birds feed on when they raise their young and pollinate the flowers and vegetables, we all need to survive.
Last week I saw a chickadee on the deck and remembered that the professor said every chickadee pair needs to find 6000-9000 caterpillars in the spring to feed one nest of hatchlings. I looked at that chickadee and thought, thank goodness you are here and, boy, do I hope you are finding all the caterpillars you need to build a nest and raise your young!
This year, as the planet warms and it is tempting to sink into despair, consider instead the large and small ways it is possible to transform the world that is close at hand. See how you can expand and restore nature’s diversity in your backyard to honor the redemptive message of Christ’s resurrection for humanity and for all creation.
Note: Resources from Professor Doug Tallamy: