Connected
I think it was James Burke who first made me realise that everything is connected. Do you remember his TV series Connections – where he showed us how one development is connected to the next and so on until we get where we are today. While that was primarily about science, engineering and mass production, the idea that everything is connected was the most valuable lesson to me.
It’s not just our discoveries and inventions that are connected. Each of the environmental systems we know about – the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and all the others are also connected and depend in some way on each other to support the environment we live in. Those things feed into the weather systems, which are supported and sometimes generated by the ocean and it’s currents.
Oceans
The ocean currents are affected by the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, which cause the tides. The constant movement of the oceans caused by the tides provides unique environments on the coast which support different types of life and provide food for birds and other animals.
I could go on, but I hope, by now, that you’re getting the picture. Literally everything we do has some effect on our environment. Climate scientists will tell you that they can even see the Roman Empire in the climate record.
So what we do, or don’t do makes a difference even if that difference is very small.
5 Marks of Mission
As a Christian and an Anglican, I have a particular calling, as do each of you. That calling is defined as the 5 Marks of Mission. Here are all five.
To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
To respond to human need by loving service
To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation
To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth
It’s the last one that we are looking at today. I hope you can see that all these are connected too.
Integrity of Creation
If we are to safeguard the integrity of creation, we will have to challenge violence and pursue peace. War, and any other sort of violence against the person is hugely wasteful of resources. Just watch any reality program about ambulances or police and you will see how much time and effort goes into dealing with drunken fights. War is much more wasteful, England was partially deforested to build ships to defeat the Spanish. If we look at Ukraine, we see modern buildings destroyed, all of which will have to be re-built when the war is over.
Unjust Structures - environmental racism
We will have to transform unjust structures to allow areas that need to remain wild to be untouched by greedy humans. Have you heard the term ‘environmental racism’. It means that those in particular environments are discriminated against and that rich countries and corporations, by their actions, keep it that way.
Jeremiah 2:7 says:
I brought you into a fertile
land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my
land and made my inheritance detestable.
As things go wrong we will need to respond to human need, recently we have heard that about a third of the population of Pakistan have been adversely affected by flooding – the rains made worse by global warming. They will need support to recover, and that effort will put more CO2 in the atmosphere and cause other pollution, making things worse.
Proclaiming the Kingdom
We might have most effect though by proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and teaching, baptising and nurturing new believers. That way, we give the Holy Spirit that chance to change hearts and minds, so we have more people trying harder to sustain and renew the life of the earth.
Bible Verses
Of course, the 5 marks of mission were not simply dreamt up by some old archbishop, they have been carefully put together looking at the whole Bible.
So, let's take a look at the verses we read today, and see where that takes us.
Intro to Bible verses
Paul has been saying that we are co-heirs with Christ, if we share in his sufferings. Now, at the start of our reading he says that our current sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. It is not our glory that will be revealed, as though we are somehow equal with God, but it is God’s glory in Christ Jesus, that will be revealed in us through the Holy Spirit.
Creation Waits
The whole of creation waits for this, indeed it can’t wait, but it has to. It’s that sense of excitement that we all know when a great event in our lives is about to occur – like getting married perhaps. For creation, that great event is the glory of God being revealed in the children of God.
Creation needs that because it is under a curse. The curse is the result of Adam eating the fruit. Here’s Genesis 3:17b-19:
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Amazing Idea
I find this whole idea truly amazing. How did a people come to believe that their ancestors messed up and as a result the whole of creation is cursed? Human beings are so good at deflecting blame, but somehow God’s powerful revelation got through to them enough for them to write it down – and so to share the guilt, to inherit the guilt. It’s our actions as fallen humans that cause the problem, not some random god who we’ve upset, who then punishes us.
Superior place of Humanity
That’s because we are not just another animal in the animal kingdom. God placed Adam just 'a little lower than the angels' as Psalm 8 tells, and He gave us responsibility for all of creation. Genesis 1:26-28 says humans are to rule over creation. Although we are created, the rest of creation is ours – it’s all for us.
So, because of Adam’s sin, and the sin of his descendants, right to the present generation, creation – all of it - is in bondage to decay.
Liberation
Look around you – everything decays. Nothing we make lasts more than a few years, few of the living things we see around us last for more than 100 years, and even the hills are eroded over thousands of years. If the scientists are right, even the earth itself will be gone in a few billion years, and the universe is headed for heat death, where even atoms will no longer exist.
But this is not how it should be. Creation is waiting for liberation from its bondage to decay.
Groaning
Paul says that creation is groaning – we’ve certainly seen some examples of that this year. Droughts in Europe, while in Pakistan one third of the population is devastated by flooding. I don’t know if you’ve tried to pray about all of this – if you have, I suspect your prayers are reduced to groans and sighs, it’s just too big for us. Sure, we can pray for the individual issues, those on our minds at a particular time, but it’s impossible to keep a complete list. Anyway, what to say beyond ‘make it stop’, which doesn’t sound very useful.
Sonship
Like creation,
we, who have the
first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”.
Redemption will come, either when Jesus returns, or we are taken from this world. That is the hope that we have – and this passage is meant to be about hope.
Hope
Our hope is not that we can solve all the problems that we have caused, but that God has saved us.
So, while we should be concerned and actively doing whatever we can – reduce, reuse, recycle, but mainly reduce, we should not be worried and fearful. Remember what Jesus says in Matthew 6:34 “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Paul reminded the Romans, and us at the start of the reading that “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Peter says a similar thing:
1 Peter 1:6-9 In this you
greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to
suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so
that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even
though refined by fire —may be proved genuine and may result in
praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do
not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an
inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving
the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Frugal
So, let us be careful, frugal even with the things of this world, and generous to those who have nothing. But also let us celebrate the promises of God, and the hope that the resurrection of Jesus gives us.
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