Fairmont United Methodist Church • Raleigh NC

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Creation Care and Justice: Repairing All the World

Creation Care and Justice: Repairing All the World
Jim Galloway
July 16, 2023

Greetings from Creation Care Teams of the NC Conference, the Capital District, & Soapstone UMC to say. We are in a time of both Crisis and Hope. Yet God through us can repair the world.

Genesis 2:7-9, 15

The Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. 8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and put there the human he had formed. 9 In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….15 The Lord God took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to farm it and to take care of it.

Romans 8:12-22 selected verses.

So, then, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it isn’t an obligation to ourselves to live our lives on the basis of selfishness. 14 All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children…. 19 The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. 20 Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice — it was the choice of the one who subjected it — but in the HOPE 21 that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

A certain 3-yr old bully had a bright idea: to push our new puppy off a two-foot-high porch onto the grass. He yelped and gazed at me sadly. Instantly I felt both empathy and sorrow. But what was done was done. Freddy was sore for a day, but emotionally wary of me for much longer. It took time to win his trust back. Mom had cried: “Don’t you hurt that little dog! He’s just as human as you are!”

Gen. Ch. 2-9 is a divinely inspired story. All the names have symbolic meanings. The story portrays Humanity, in the person of an individual Human (ADAM means both Human & Humanity), given a mandate to develop (farm) yet protect (keep, take care of) the Garden to which ADAM is assigned. We are guardians. Our Gen. 2 Story teaches that (1) our Creator is trustworthy, & (2) we are meant to learn at a responsible pace, always using our learning both to develop and protect creation. We harmed the Garden badly. THE END? NO! Our God is relentless at healing, always reappearing from the bushes AHEAD of us. The story goes on thru its climax in Gen. Ch. 9, when after the Flood, God makes a rainbow covenant with Noah’s family (humanity), yet equally with God’s non-human creation (all the ark animals). As guardians, we are to share God’s love — it’s not all about me. — Our Scripture is warning us both against distrusting God, and against. using creation as if it were our property: it belongs to its Creator.

A 4 yr.-old in 1957 entered the hallway between bedrooms in the gray dawn. My Dad said, come here, son, and watch this: He took one puff of his unfiltered cigarette & exhaled through his undershirt, which grew black with tar. I burst into tears. He said: I can’t stop, but please, don’t you ever start!-- My Mom’s family were tobacco farmers who didn’t understand the danger. Finally, they all stopped: My Dad too. The lesson: we get trapped in our prosperous work & confused, even willingly deceived, by voices telling us we, our kind, deserve it but others don’t, that nothing unhealthy will happen to us: by a false “prosperity gospel”: by a lie. We are entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. Facts are facts.

What are the results of human misbehavior for creation? Let’s look at some symptoms.

  • First, Ice is melting near both poles. The sea level is rising. Low-lying islands and coastal regions are flooding.
  • Second, the seas have become acidic from dissolved carbon dioxide. Ocean life, fishing grounds, and coral reefs have been greatly damaged.
  • Third, the average annual temperature of our planet is rising annually at a rate 10,000 times as fast as during the dinosaur era of high earth temperatures: what took long ages back then has happened in less than six decades.
  • Fourth, climate zones in North Carolina and the whole USA have been steadily changing, as warm winters creep up to high elevations. Hot summers have introduced deadly pests like disease-bearing ticks, spreading NW through our state.
  • Fifth, irreversible wildfires, rain and windstorms and flooding are destroying forests and eroding soil, even washing away structures. (Your own Dr. Richard Loeppert, my colleague on the District Team, has much to teach us about healthy and endangered soil).
  • Sixth, animal and plant species are migrating uphill and away from the equator, often dying on the way.
  • Seventh, the tropical rain forests have been greatly cut down, especially in Brazil. Such forests replenish the atmosphere with oxygen and capture carbon dioxide.
  • Eighth, Factory farming and agribusiness, especially of beef cattle, have led to greatly increased methane (the main component of natural gas) being released into the atmosphere.
  • Ninth, all of these symptoms hurt some humans much more than others! Some are doing the most harm; others are suffering the most.

There can be no effective Creation CARE without Creation JUSTICE!

What does scientific analysis of these symptoms tell us about the causes? Different types of things are occurring at the same time. Some of the heat wave we have this year is due to El Nino, a natural, recurring cycle that slows westerly Pacific ocean equatorial winds. This natural weather cycle has piled on top of the other symptoms, all of which have a human, artificial origin.

The “Greenhouse Effect” was known before the year 1900. White sunlight of all wavelengths is absorbed by earth then re-radiated, mainly as infrared, into the atmosphere. Certain greenhouse gases absorb and trap this infrared radiation as heat energy. The effect is like a greenhouse, or like piling many quilts on top of ourselves in bed on an already hot summer night. On a clear night in Raleigh in the Julys of my first 20 years, the open skies let our neighborhood cool off. Now warm, muggy nights are the norm.

The Greenhouse gases are primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), such as from beef cattle, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFC’s) from refrigeration. They are released by human industry and agribusiness. White sunlight contains all wavelengths, all energy levels. Any pure element or compound has only certain energy levels. So it only can absorb a few specific wavelengths. We can measure and graph a spectrum of absorption intensity by wavelength. The result is a characteristic fingerprint pattern, by which we can identify the compound and its concentration in the upper atmosphere.

When the amounts and effects of all the greenhouse gases are taken into account, the graphs of Greenhouse gas concentration over time and of temperature over time synchronize perfectly. The jumps match the industrial revolutions first in Britain, then in Germany and the USA, and finally in Asia. We Humans did it. It was unintended, like the ill effects of tobacco. Yet it was negligent, a result of using creation rather than tending and protecting it.

What can we do? First: never despair at the opposition or the indifference. Like Jim Valvano, “Never give up!” We must not crawl into bed, or into our daily lives, and despair or play at routine. We can act and interact, individually but especially in small teams, starting from the grassroots. As we do things together, let us discuss our anxiety, our anger and how we can affect the higher levels. This is where our Romans 8 Scripture really helps!

Jesus truly IS risen and empowered. Jesus is back with all creation thru God’s Holy Spirit in all. Humanity needs the triune God, and we need one another! Our hope lies here. Our Higher Power wants therapeutically to help all of us grow, that we may help each other and all creation. Moreover, for those of us who DO know God as personal and working in us, who have been consciously responding to God’s specific proactive grace toward us, let’s GO! NOW!!

So, second, Let us draw from all the good analysis being done of the most effective things to do. I will send to Fairmont an electronic handout that links to many different sources of analysis, discernment, helpful activities, and to a long version of this sermon.

Third, as individual households and small accountability groups we can do several important things. We can make mutual commitments to do them and keep in touch with each other. They will have a real overall impact. Eat a very low beef diet, plant-based to the extent possible. Drive as little as possible, carpool or use public transportation. Fly much less. Run the AC warmer & the heat cooler. Go solar unless you live in a forest like we do. -- Electricity and recycling call for careful discernment. Electricity is like cash: it’s a medium of exchange of energy from many sources. Electricity made from fossil fuels should be avoided. The amount of carbon released in making components of electric cars also should be taken into account. With respect to recycling, re-use of permanent items is best for the environment. Careful composting is second best. Recycling is a very distant third. Plastic has piled up in Africa and is forming islands in the Pacific.

Fourth, as a Church, form a Creation Care team or connect your existing ones with others through the new Capital District team as a clearinghouse of ideas and mutual projects. Avail yourself of rich, dense local resources like free energy audits of your church through Interfaith Power and Light. Consider going solar, availing yourself of free energy analyses and discounts. Plant a pollinator garden of native perennial plants. (My intro to creation care was in kindergarten chapel. The pastor told of how our Creator was present in the bees who, seeking nectar, unwittingly spread pollen from the plants that fed them. But the Creator’s hand was in it. I was awestruck, and still am, at God’s quiet Providence.) Do joint projects with other church committees, especially Trustees, Worship, Children’s & Youth Councils, and take every opportunity to participate in church education. You will gain allies. Never compete with other good groups trying to provide love or justice. At recent Annual Conferences, Creation Care, LGBTQ, Youth, and racial justice advocates have supported one another and won! Divided, we are merely pawns, checkmating each other as the Enemy laughs all the way to the bank. Cooperating, we shine forth the image of God.

Fifth, Advocate. Advocacy trainings are taking place all summer on-line, where we can learn to use our specific niche of ability or interest. Mine is energy efficiency. Yours may be soil health or clean water. If you own stock, advocate for Creation on Corporate boards with your shares and proxies. John Wesley’s final letter was to young member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, urging him to act against the slave trade and slavery. William obeyed.

Sixth, Seek JUSTICE. Justice for people of color, for low-wealth people, for those exiled from parental homes due to LGBTQ, for Youth & Young adults, for people with disabilities or addictions and in Healing Transitions. And for millions who in future centuries might be conceived and born. All these will suffer the most and the longest from climate change.

TRULY: while it may be too late to roll back all the damage, we can stop it from getting worse.

Seventh, let us walk through each day in constant listening to and learning from the Spirit, never in our own strength. God can, and God will work thru us — repairing all the world. The Hebrew phrase is Tikkun Holam, repairing the Whole.

God, heal and reveal ALL your children! Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done ON EARTH as in heaven. AMEN.

Events:

Youth Leaders Initiative — Pullen Memorial Baptist Church This Sunday, July 23

Websites: -- United Methodist

Causes of Climate Change

Articles: