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Care of the earth: does our theology help us?

 Susan Adams speaks in the 2018 Season of Creation about how our theology of creation needs to be refreshed if we are to save our planet.
This is the first sermon in Susan Adams "Care of creation" story.
Part two can be found here
Rev Dr Susan Adams

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Care of the earth: does our theology help us?

Transcript
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts. Bring to us, wisdom and insight and Hope. I mean. It's not difficult these days to nod our heads at the thought we have to do our bit to take care of creation. We know that, don't we In the words of my eight year old great nephew. Who assures me he knows all about this because they teach it at school. He says we have to look after the environment and not throw our rubbish about especially not our plastic stuff because it gets into the food chain and it could make us sick as well as the fish. And the birds. He's got it, I think. And I'm really glad that schools have Environmental Studies in the curriculum, these days and that youngsters are aware of our human responsibilities to clean up after ourselves. But for me, it doesn't seem so long ago that we expected the Earth herself to take care of all our waste. Be there. The vegetable waste from our kitchens our food packaging oil spills or carbon emissions. Nowadays we know we are converting more energy into consumables and pouring more rubbish into our environment at a faster rate than the earth and its atmosphere can biodegrade or clean. We're growing heaps of plastic and other non biodegradable matter on land and creating floating islands of it. In the sea, our climate is changing along with all we pump into the atmosphere. We know we have to do more to care for the earth and the Sea and the sky. We know we have to do something urgently, why then is it so difficult? We seem reluctant to change our lifestyle to bring about those changes. We know, I needed, we seemed reluctant to put sufficient pressure on those in government to legislate for care. We seemed somehow to be more concerned about what the changes needed to manage environmental degradation will do to our current lifestyle, and to employment we heard, About that. And we see it over and over on television. When we hear discussions about mining permits on conservation land and Drilling in our offshore beds. I want to speculate for a while on how we got into this precarious situation regarding the Earth's capacity to support life on into the future in the first place. It seems to me as inheritors of Western Christianity that are originating. Problems are theological. It is primarily from within the Christian nations of Western Europe that industrialization made as impact on the world with both its upsides and its downsides. And it's hard for Christians to imagine that God the Creator who we've heard this morning invited us to have dominion over the fish and the birds and over every living thing and the plants and the trees. How will that create a god? Allow the world to self-destruct just because we humans are using the resources of the earth to ever improve our lives. Just as the creation story, invites us to do Medieval Christianity which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire wasn't worried about human responsibility. The idea was not on the agenda. They had a mandate set out in the Bible. They knew all life was God's responsibility his to give or take hours to make the best of what we were given. God was father of all The creator of all things progenitor to use the term in theological jargon. a few centuries later during the time of the Renaissance theologians began to wonder about the nature of Being Human and how we shaped ourselves and our world, they set the scene for the Reformation movements in the church during the 16th century and for the enlightenment, which followed with its emphasis on human reason, and with its quest to understand the world, scientifically New ways of under tating undertaking, Bible, study, and Theological inquiry developed reasoning and scientific inquiry into theology to humanity emerged from all this as partners with God to use language. We're familiar with today, we morphed from being the Pinnacle of God's creative efforts, the ones for whom all else was Made to whom the charge, was to have dominion over. We morphed from that to being stewards or caretakers of creation. As the debates over theology took place. We moved on further to becoming that part of creation Humanity, that must now share with God, in ensuring creation keeps happening and keeps healthy. We gave ourselves more responsibility. For co-creation with God. Some would argue therefore when that we should not worry at all about our, current precarious state of ecological and environmental Affairs about what God has in mind for the earth and its creatures. Don't worry after all one who creates something has in mind the purpose for their creation. They know or they imagine how their creation will function according to that Piss, and they care for what they've made and they can repair it. Some say we should leave the worry and the repair of creation to God to speak of God as the Creator is to acknowledge this point of view. It locates the Creator outside of that which has been created and that includes outside our human nature Beyond us Transcendent to us. In this way, God the Creator can keep an eye on his creation and be petition to fix things that go wrong. Our language is important here yet. We don't think about it very often. We simply accept what has become common Creator, God, or God the Creator. It seems to me that here at st. Matthews. We are exploring. The idea that God is with us within each of us between us working with us yet, we use God creator language because we have no other as yet. And we want to signify a reverence for nature and all living things for diversity, for individuals. And for Community, we want to Wonder in awe at life. I believe we need to rethink the concept of creation and Creator all together. To shift from an external creator with whom we are a junior partner to an ongoing creative process here and now in which we are active participants with the Earth herself. Along with that, the Christians at critical stages of change at various times, throughout history as I've outlined. We are also in a time of transition, in a time of a new Reformation in Theology. And in how we be Church, while we are not part of the early church, trying to describe ascribe to Jesus in story and song The Importance that You've experienced and we're not part of the emerging, Roman Church establishing doctrines and formularies to Mark ourselves as different from the Myriad of other Faith expressions. And we're not part of the Renaissance or Reformation humanist movements. And we're not struggling to assert scientific Authority. No, but we are struggling to hold on to a concept of God in our time of postmodern fragmentation. And consequently, we often find ourselves without the language. We need to express what we're feeling and sometimes, without the confidence, to express our thoughts, in case of this think we are weird or not really Christian at all to that end. We are like people in those earlier times struggling to find their way with God. After church today and again next week, there'll be time to talk about all of this plus the material from next week's to sermon and over in the side Chapel, the as we Face the ecological, environmental crisis of our time, in history, and watch on television, the fires of the northern Summer and the ocean floods washing away, land and home. Becomes important for us to go deep within ourselves and find our desire for life and find out why we are reluctant to change. And as we search, we need to expose the centuries of church teaching about helpless and sinful Humanity, alongside the teachings about the power and the benevolence of God, Somehow instead of learning all the Earth is for our benefit and we are the high point of God's creation. We have to experience in that deep place our Oneness with the Earth itself. We have to experience our very nature as Earth creatures made of the same substances as water air. Rocks and mountains along with all other sentient beings. In this way, we can say the Earth has made us. We and God who moves among it all are of the same substance as the Earth herself. This is what we reverence, this is what we must honor with our care and our love. Our environmental and ecological crisis, did not manifest overnight, nor will its repair happen overnight. According to the scientists, who study the Earth, we do not have the luxury of hundreds of years to adjust our understanding of our human relationship with God, nor to reconceptualize our understanding of God, nor to change our behaviors accordingly. What we do know is that it is critical to use all the Contemporary means of communication at our disposal right now to persuade our contemporaries and our governments of what we value. Those things being life and freedom for all a sustainable Earth, shared wealth, peace non-violence and loving respect for each other. If we really do value those things we will act to ensure they happen and to maintain them as the way we live together in community and with the Earth, if we choose these things instead of the accrual of wealth by any means whatsoever, Our Lives will more adequately demonstrate The God Who lives and breathes within and between us and to borrow the words of theologians selling mcfame egg, we will respectfully be honoring the Earth as God's body, which sustains life The reformation and our time. Is an ecological Reformation. It is both personal and it is political. It is theological. And it is urgent. And it is disturbing. God, help us.