it's around me so tight
Prayer: Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts dwell on the gift of life, prosperity and blessings you have set before us. Amen.
Intro: It’s Love the Earth Sunday: Have you made a valentine to that favorite shade tree of yours yet? What about that that favorite trail of yours?
No?
Well, me either. It isn’t too late, though, I suppose. It is no accident that Love the Earth Sunday is on Valentine’s Day weekend. Interfaith Power and Life, along with local partners, such as Earth Ministry, have coordinated a national Valentine’s Day celebration for the Earth this weekend.
On this Valentine’s Day celebration, congregations across North America are reflecting on loving their fellow creation, the Earth. The goal of Love the Earth Sunday is to get discussion of the climate into pews this, and I have gotten the impression that this goal is being achieved swimmingly.
It is worth noting, though, that bringing concerns for the earth is nothing new to St. John United. After the produce is gathered on Garden Workdays, that harvest is brought to the altar along with our weekly offering. This is a specific example of bringing concerns for the earth into our sanctuary. Additionally, when all you bring your concerns for the world with you into the sanctuary, you are all bringing concern for creation is brought into the pulpit.
In this way, bringing care for creation into the pulpit is nothing new for us. Bringing the concerns of the world into our sanctuary is part of the living tradition of this congregation. Today, though, we get to celebrate Valentine’s Day for the earth, and we get to celebrate with congregations across the United States. That’s pretty neat.
As we planned this Love the Earth Sunday, we thought about whether we should choose a special text to read from, something like Genesis. As we heard this reading in Deuteronomy, however, it was clear the lectionary provided us with a perfect reading.
In the reading in Deuteronomy, Moses tells his listeners that life and death have been set before them, and they should choose live. This call to choose life makes perfect sense given that the God we worship is a God who wills the flourishing of all creation. This call to life is perfectly in line with the image of God who created the cosmos out of love.
But, let’s be honest.
Often, when we hear these readings we do not hear them as a promise. Instead of hearing a call to life, we hear a demand to obey God’s commandments, decrees and ordinances. Instead of hearing a promise of life, we tend to hear a threat.
I think this has a lot to do with how the Bible is often portrayed.
Often the Bible is imagined as an ordinances book of God. These ordinances are some kind of hard and fast code. In fact, I imagine that expression, “set in stone,” is evoking the image of the Ten Commandments. If a rule is set in stone, it is apparent and clear, it must be obeyed.
So, when we hear Moses tell his hearers to obey God ordinances, we jump to the idea of Moses giving some unmovable code of conduct.
The promise of life becomes a demand to ‘behave.’
We also read other parts of the Bible this way. Today, I am specifically thinking of Jesus’ preaching to the community about divorce. It is worth remembering that Jesus gave these commands in a culture where a woman had no power, so speaking to the women’s right at all is incredibly radical.
This flat reading of the text, though, ignores the circumstances of the sayings. Reading the Bible as a rule book ignores so much. While it might be tempting to read some rigid code of conduct into the Bible, this way of reading the Bible removes all the living power these words hold. It makes the living Word of God, dead words in an old book.
So, let’s let the story really preach to us:
Moses gives this speech to fellow wanders in the wilderness. Moses is delivering his farewell address before the people go to live into the land promised them.
And, out there in the wilderness, surrounded by threats to life, Moses dares to remind his hearers that God has set life, prosperity and blessings in front of them.
Think about that.
In the wilderness, Moses says, “Today I have set before you life and death.”
Wow. I mean, yeah, sure the death is self-evident. Every day in the wilderness Moses’ hearers saw death laid in front of them.
But life?!?
Yes, Moses say, ‘life.’ And not only life but also prosperity and blessing. In the midst of a threatening wilderness Moses reminds his hearers that life is set before them.
Not only is life set before them, but it is there for them to hold fast to.
Moses says that by loving the Lord their God, by walking in God’s ways, and by observing the Lord’s commandments the people will grasp God’s promise of life.
It is striking, too, that that what comes first is something as ambiguous and all consuming as love. Not behave. But, in the midst of the wilderness, God calls God’s people to love.
So, in the midst of the wilderness Moses dares to say, indeed, God has set before us life. So, let us choose this life.
That is the context of this speech…
And, honestly, this image really isn’t too far away from us today.
When we consider the scope of the ecological challenges facing us it begins to feel like we too are in the wilderness. It begins to feel like we are surrounded by death. It becomes easy to believe that death has been set before us. But life?
The claim that life is there too becomes almost laughable. In the face of all these difficulty and complicated issues it is easy to feel trapped, hopeless, or even a little angry. If there is life in the midst of this wilderness how are we ever going to find it, let alone choose it?!
Yet, this promise of life is part of the alternative realm Jesus has been inviting us into these past three weeks. While the world may not see the meek as blessed, we grasp that promise. So too, where the world might see a hopeless situation, we hear God calling this wilderness a place where life has been set before us.
In these days, when we consider the threats to our earth it is easy to become afraid, it is easy to become hopeless, it is easy to become angry, but we’re invited to fall in love. Happy Valentine’s Day, indeed.
Love the Lord our God. In this love the wilderness is no longer a place of threat, but instead a garden blossoming with promises.
Suddenly threats yield to promises. Love has made the wilderness a promise. This promise was just as true for Moses and his community then, as it is for us today.
When we consider the scope of the ecological crises planting a garden in a city could seem silly.
But for us, it is part of God’s promise of life.
When we consider the scope of the damage done to creation, writing letter to our representatives could seem silly, but for us it is part of the promise.
When working for ecology causes many to become bitter or depressed, we work out of joy and hope, trusting that promise.
While many work for ecology out of self-survival, we work for our fellow creation, for our descendants, to those youth who reminded us of the human capacity to love creation. This is what it means to be blessed to be a blessing; choosing life not for ourselves, but for our neighbor.
Our living into this promise is not for our selves; after all, we are salt and light. Instead it is for the rest of the community, for future generations.
This is part of living into the alternative realm of Jesus. It is part of the incredible promise of God’s.
This ecological message, is really part and parcel to the work God has always been up to.
Where the world saw a dead rebel, God saw (and made) a resurrected and living messiah. This work of creating life in the despoils of the world is the very nature of the God we worship. This resurrected messiah, this teacher on the mount, is the hope of the world, and our hope too.
When we find ourselves wondering about the future of this creation Jesus preaches to us.
Jesus preaches through meeting us in earthly elements such as bread and wine.
Jesus preaches through the children here who have this natural ability to love creation.
Jesus preaches through organizations like Earth Ministry.
Jesus preaches though books like Natural Saints.
Natural Saints. Jesus preaches through Natural Saints like you all, as we heard last week, we are Jesus’ living Sermon on the Mount.
Where many may see death, we see a promise.
Amen.
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