Sermon

INTRODUCTION: There’s a famous Talmudic story about two men in a rowboat heading toward land. One man suddenly starts to bore a hole in the bottom of their craft. When challenged, he retorts angrily, "It’s none of your business. I am boring the hole under my seat!"

If there’s nothing else the environmental movement is teaching us, it is that we are all riding this boat we call Earth. No longer can we sustain claims to individual rights – like boring a hole where we’re sitting…or after fertility treatments, a mother choosing to give birth to eight children, when she already had six – without understanding that what each of us does, affects us all…very deeply.

This morning’s sermon has a very simple outline. It comes from the railroad signs of many years ago: “Stop. Look. And Listen.”

One of the ways we could describe what we’re doing here this morning is that rather than follow our normal routines, we have stopped…stopped to see our friends…stopped to sing and to hear beautiful music. We have stopped and chosen to put our motors in neutral. We might even call it a “spiritual time out.” Time out from working…from reading…from conversation…from shopping or driving…chores or running errands…fixing a meal…or doing all the 100 and 1 things life is all about.

And why have we stopped to be here this morning? The answer: To engage in the practice of religion. Now I’m well aware that “religion” as a word and concept is not very popular. Wars are being fought in the name of religion as we speak…people are being killed…women are being discriminated against…racial prejudice is being effected…all in the name of religion. In fact, we could justifiably say that religion has an awful history, a pathetic present, and a not-very-promising future.

Because of that, most of us prefer to use a much more popular word in religion…one important to many of us who are seeking to deepen our interior lives: “spiritual.” But if I may, let me suggest that “religion” also has something to offer even though it seldom has lived up to its claims, especially if we peel it back to find a more appropriate, and perhaps more correct, meaning. Here’s how a University of Chicago theologian (Wayne C. Booth) describes what religion really means:

“Religion is the passion to live rightly on earth and to spread right living.”

Within that understanding, we’ve stopped this morning to consider how to “live rightly on earth” and to “spread right living.” But what does that mean?

(I asked the board at their last meeting if it would be okay to read the Bible today in the service, and they gave permission, but only if it were no more than one verse.) And here’s the verse of sacred scripture I want to recite (from the King James Version of course found in the Torah of Judaism, Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26:

And God said, Le us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Before going further, let me ask you something: How many of you have seen the monthly magazine, Science? Do you know what is the single most requested reprint in its entire history as a magazine? It was an article written in the mid-60s, by an historian, Lynn White Jr. In that piece, he placed responsibility for the modern ecological crisis squarely at the feet of Christian cultures and Christian colonial powers. He charged that they recklessly used the verse I just read as a way to justify that we could do what we want on the Earth. It was a part of humankind’s portfolio: a god-given right, as the scripture said, to subdue the earth and have dominion over this planet we call home.

Now many of you are thinking, “Right on, brother. That’s preaching. Blame the Christians for the mess we’re in.”

But an evangelical theologian, Cal DeWitt, has made a convincing case that the root of the word translated as “dominion,” also means stewardship or service, which is also a root of “conservation.” In other words, were we to be true to the biblical mandate, we would be “serving” the planet and “conserving” its bounty…not dominating…not eradicating…not polluting…not poisoning, not burning nor destroying.

In that context then, let me suggest that one of religion’s most fundamental tasks is not only to “live rightly on Earth” and to “spread right living,” but for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, one of their most signally important sacred scriptures – in which the verse I read is found – states that their followers are supposed to be stewards. And to steward means judiciously administering the resources…in this case, the resources of the planet on which we live. Namely, we should be conserving our home, Planet Earth.

So as we take a moment to STOP, I want to underscore that while this month of February is about The Earth Charter, it’s much, much more. It’s about who we are as a species, and how we should go about living out our lives here on the Earth. And when we stop:

Some time back, NPR had a program entitled, “Speaking of Faith and the Environment.” One of the persons interviewed was Majora Carter. She’s a fascinating young woman, who tells during the interview of growing up in the Bronx of New York, going away to college, majoring in art, and wanting to work in arts-related community development. But, when she graduated, there wasn’t a long line of people wanting to hire a young Black woman with an art degree and no experience, to work in community development.

So she went back home to the Bronx. Immediately, she realized upon coming back that her neighborhood smelled; in fact, it stunk. And the reason it stunk was because the Bronx was one of the major dumping grounds for the garbage of the rest of New York City.

To add insult to injury, the City of New York announced that it was going to build a brand new landfill in the Bronx which would have the capacity to handle 40% of the garbage of New York City!

Not surprisingly, the Bronx had one of the highest rates in the country of asthma among children…with the attendant rushes by parents and their children to hospital emergency rooms because their breathing pipes were swollen shut by the toxic environment.

And rather than helping one of its boroughs, the City was going to make it worse, and add a humongous landfill, which is a polite word for garbage dump. That meant there would be heavily loaded vehicles daily trucking more than 5,000 tons of waste per day, to add to the “landfill” already there.

But what’s a person to do…especially a recently graduated-unemployed-young-African-American-woman-with-an-art-degree?

In the midst of this approaching calamity, early one morning, Ms Carter went to walk her dog. Actually, the dog was walking her. (Does that sound familiar?) So her dog walked her into one of the many dumps they had in the Bronx. But what was more, the dog pulled her past the piles of garbage and weeds and other disgusting things, down to a part of the Bronx she didn’t even know existed, despite being raised there: It was the Bronx River. It was right there in front of her eyes, behind the garbage dump and ugly industrial buildings that dotted the landscape.

It was six o’clock in the morning, and the sun had just arisen and its rays were glinting off the water. And she made this wonderfully insightful statement: “If I didn’t look behind me, I didn’t see the piles of garbage…all I saw was this amazing possibility.” Even though she lacked all the tools we think are so critically important to shake the movers and move the shakers of a city…in front of enormous heaps of garbage and run down buildings…she saw “amazing possibility” – a river with parks and children playing, and no more stench and toxic chemicals in the air, and no more being the garbage dump for New York City.

Let me suggest to you this morning that when we are discussing ecology and faith, we aren’t evangelizing for tree huggers…nor seeking to enlist landfill opponents. Quite simply, we’re asking that rather than looking at the garbage behind us, in the past, with all of its waste…instead to turn our gaze forward, and to see the “amazing possibilities.” Or as the railroad sign puts it, not only STOP, but also LOOK. And when we do that, we can then:

Here’s something rather incredible about ecological history: At the first ever major United Nations meeting on the environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, scientists and environmentalists made powerful presentations on the fact that many countries were selling their rain forests for cash – sometimes for reasons of poverty, and other times, pure opportunism -- leaving eroded and impoverished soils which were increasing their desperate poverty.

The experts presenting the case at this first-ever-UN-Conference, assumed that their audience would share their concern at this loss, and stop the deforestation. But that was not what some present were hearing. Instead, a number of the persons present went home to their developing countries and informed their superiors that apparently there were groups who would pay good money for all that rain forest. Would you believe that the rate of the destruction of the rain forests rose measurably after the Stockholm conference?

As Pope Benedict has written, “Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message if we want to survive."

Now let me pause for a more specific explication of the relationship between ecology and faith.

I want you to get your hymnals out for a moment. (When I do something like this with our hymnals, it makes me always want to mention that when we first were creating All Faiths, Dorothy Lee and Phebe Scott gifted us with our first 100 hymn books. Thank you again, Phebe and Dorothy.)

Turn to page 1, then turn back one page, to where it says, “We, the member congregations….” Okay, there are sort of two big paragraphs or groupings of text there. And in the first paragraph, the very last line starts with “Respect….” Everyone find that? Let’s read that in unison, if you would please:

“Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

We all know what “respect” means, don’t we. Don’t trash it…don’t pollute it…don’t devastate it. Respect it. And the interdependent web? That means we are all in the boat together…dependent upon one another. That says it beautifully and succinctly.

Now let’s dig a little deeper. Theologian Joseph Sittler wrote: “Ecology is defined as the science that deals with the mutual relationship between organisms and their environment.”

To illustrate that, let’s examine a common reality in many forests located on hills and mountainsides. Under the bark of many of the enormous number of trees, there are millions of beetles which, undisturbed, would destroy the trees. But do you know why the beetles do not destroy the trees? Because beetles are food for birds, especially woodpeckers. The birds devour the beetles in such numbers that they keep the margin of beetle numbers safe for the well-being of the trees. And because they do, the trees and their roots remain strong.

In the Spring, when the snows melt and waters begin to pour down the mountain sides, the trees, with billions of miles of earth-gripping-hair-roots, act like a sponge and slow the melting snow’s pace so that the top soil is saved, and its vegetation and canopy, home to many.

In other words, there’s an interdependence between the beetles and the woodpeckers and the tree roots and the snow…but even more: It extends to the rivers and the lakes and to the people who live on this good earth. Because eventually the snow waters will work their way down to the rivers, and the rivers will feed the dams that distribute precious water to cities and towns, which provide us and most other species the water we need. That’s interdependency. We and the beetles. You and the birds.

I mentioned Majora Carter earlier and her dog walking her in the garbage infested Bronx. Because she was an artist, she saw what could be. She convened community-wide visioning meetings, and she founded a nonprofit organization named, “Sustainable South Bronx.” She used a grant of $10,000 and leveraged it more than 300 times, resulting in a $28 million dollar restoration of the Bronx.

In addition, she went to the 2006 Technology Education Design Conference, where Al Gore was the major speaker. She approached him in the hallway to ask how grassroots groups such as hers were part of his vision. It was the hallway and he thought she wanted money. He responded by directing her to a grant program.

Later in the program, she went up to the speaker’s stand unsolicited and told Gore and the assembled audience, “What troubles me is this top-down approach. Don’t get me wrong: we need money. But grassroots groups are needed at the table during the decision-making process. Of the 90 percent of the energy that Mr. Gore reminded us that we waste every day, don’t add wasting our energy, intelligence, and hard-earned experience. I have come from so far to meet you like this. Please don’t waste me. By working together, we can make a difference.” Mr. Gore apologized and added her to his efforts. We need everybody.

Several years ago there was a book written (followed by a sequel) entitled, Fifty Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth. While well-intentioned, its title highlights the problem: What we’re really about is saving the planet so as to save our home and the home of offspring to come. And that’s also what the Earth Charter is all about.

We will pause for 7½ minutes of brief questions as a part of our Conversation Café. The Service and Support Council will provide microphones for you to speak into.

[1] A sermon presented on February 01, 2009, as the first in a series focusing on “The Earth Charter: Respect and Care for the Community of Life (I), followed by the Conversation Café at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, with the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

A similar presentation was made at the UU of the Islands, Sanibel, that same evening.