Hear again these Earth Sunday words from Psalm 104 (vss. 24-25),
shared now in a somewhat different translation:
"O Lord, countless are Your works!
In wisdom You have made them all;
the earth is full of Your creatures.
Yonder is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with species beyond number,
living things both large and small."
Reflecting on this psalm, Clinton McCann, a Presbyterian seminary professor, explains why it's such a good text for Earth Sunday: "Thousands of years before smog, acid rain, [and] global warming ...the poet who wrote Psalm 104 was an environmentalist. The psalmist knew about the intricate interconnectedness and subtle interdependence of air, soil, water, plants, and animals, including [us] humans." (in "Psalms," The New Interpreters Bible, IV [Abingdon, 1996], p. 1099)
Yes, this psalmist of ours sings of the world of land and sea described in the first chapter of Genesis, a world teeming with the creatures of God and throbbing with the life that the Creator has bestowed. Our psalmist sings of a world whose fields and streams nourish both beasts and humankind, of a world that rejoices in God, just as God rejoices in it. Our psalmist sings of a world that the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins [1844-1889] has described as "charged with the grandeur of God." [Poems (1918), No. 31, "God's Grandeur," line 1]
There's an old Jewish story about the Creation that goes like this [Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13]: God guided the first man and woman around the Garden of Eden and then said to them, "Look at my creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are. Make sure you don't ruin or devastate my world. For if you do, there will be no one after you to fix it."
I doubt that this ancient Jewish story was ever heard by the 19th-century English poet William Wordsworth. Still, as Wordsworth surveyed the harmful effects that Europe's "Industrial Revolution" was inflicting on the natural world, he recognized instinctively that western Christians needed to hear from God a message very much like the one conveyed in that story—the message: "Don't ruin my creation; there's no one after you to fix it." Wordsworth believed that the people of Europe, focused as they were on the worldly pursuit of wealth and profit, were living in a tragically flawed relationship with nature. And imagining himself to be standing on a grassy coastal promontory looking out over the quiet moonlit sea below, Wordsworth penned this sonnet [published 1807]:
"The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn."
Pagans like the ancient Greeks, in Wordsworth's view, at least believed that deity, and humanity, and nature were to live with each other in respectful community. Pagans at least saw the phenomena of the natural world—like oceans and the fish therein—not as "things" exploitable for human advantage but as "wonders" charged with the living presence and dynamic grandeur of divinity itself.
And Wordsworth anticipated, with great sorrow, that here in the industrialized western world we Christians would not live in that same kind of harmonious community with nature, that here the growth of industry and of the capitalist economic system of production and consumption would lead not to our communing with the precious resources of nature but to our exploiting of them for personal profit and gain.
Now, in some of the eastern world, there still is an understanding of the community of nature, of the interdependence of the phenomena of the natural world. For example, there's an old Buddhist story that's still told today that goes like this. There was a certain Buddhist monk who whenever he put on his sweater gave thanks to the clouds. For you see, it was the clouds that had provided the rain that had raised the grass that had fed the sheep that had given the wool that had then been knit into his sweater. Clouds, rain, grass, sheep, wool, sweater—a community of nature!
I doubt that Wordsworth ever heard this story about the Buddhist monk. But I'm sure he did know stories about a certain 13th-century Christian monk who lived in pre-industrial Europe—a monk named Francis of Assisi. I'm sure Wordsworth knew that Francis had understood and appreciated the community of nature, the interdependence of phenomena in the natural world.
Living largely out of doors, Francis had a very clear vision of the interconnectedness between himself and the rest of nature. Francis embraced the four elements as warmly as he embraced creatures. He spoke of Earth as our Mother. He praised Brother Wind for bringing us changes in weather. Sister Water was so precious to him that after washing he refused to toss her away anywhere she was likely to be trodden on. And Francis loved Brother Fire for his gaiety, and Francis simply hated to extinguish candles and lamps or to smother campfires.
Well, today we western Christians stand nearly two centuries after Wordsworth, eight centuries after Francis, and who knows how many centuries after that Buddhist monk, the Jewish storyteller, and the author of Psalm 104. Yet from all of these we seem to have absorbed and learned next to nothing. For the treatment of God's good and beautiful creation by us and by others today seems to have gotten only worse.
Earth's oceans are being fished beyond their capacity to maintain a steady yield. Earth's water tables on every continent are falling. Earth's rangelands are being denuded through overgrazing. Earth's forests have been diminished by over half in the last century. And the rate at which we've been depleting Earth's reservoirs of fossil fuels has increased 6-fold in just the past twenty-five years—during which time the fifteen or so warmest years on record have all occurred. Yes, "...Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; ...We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!"
So, the struggle to preserve the beauty and integrity of God's good Earth requires of us that we change our present values and behavior, that we change them thoroughly and speedily.
The Worldwatch Institute warns that we humans have a timeframe of just 25 years in which to voluntarily carry out a major decrease in our levels of consumption to levels sustainable by the Earth's limited resources. After that, if we haven't changed our patterns of usage, we face a collapse of Earth's life systems, a collapse that will lead inevitably to widespread famine and ecological disaster.
The fact that we must change our values and behavior so thoroughly and so speedily suggests that the answer to the problem of the survival of our planet's habitability lies every bit as much in the realm of spirituality as it does in that of politics, or science, or economics. For the fact that we must change our values and behavior so thoroughly and so speedily suggests that we absolutely must seek the help and transformative power of God's Holy Spirit.
Now, the theme for this year's Earth Sunday commended to us by the National Council of Churches is "SOS—S.acred O.ceans (and) S.eas." So during the rest of today's sermon I want to reflect with you on these sacred oceans and seas of ours and on our need to come to their aid speedily in this time of their great distress—SOS. For as God's stewards, we are called upon not only to enjoy the oceans but also to care for them and for their more than one million species of life—all given to us as a sacred trust from God.
Our overfishing of God's oceans is a problem we have long known about. Our appetites have caused nearly one-third of all the oceans' fishing grounds to collapse or come near collapse, particularly in the waters off New England and Atlantic Canada. Humans have consumed an estimated 90% of all the tuna and swordfish in the world. And our overfishing has robbed future generations of one of the world's primary sources of animal protein.
Another grave ecological problem is the way we have treated these sacred oceans as garbage dumps. Not only does our marine trash and sewage—millions of tons of it annually, much of it plastic—pollute the world's beaches, but it also causes the deaths of more than 100,000 sea mammals and turtles each and every year.
Next, consider some of the findings announced just this past February by 200 of the world's leading climate scientists, meeting in Exeter, England, at the request of Prime Minister Tony Blair. They reported that the oceans and seas are now warmer and more acidic than ever before in human history. Herewith some of the consequences.
(1) As a result of global warming, Arctic sea ice has lost almost half of its thickness in recent decades. As it continues to melt over the next several centuries, the sea level will be raised some 20 feet, inundating many coastlines. About 90% of the world's people live at or near current sea levels. Before too long, the really low-lying island nations, like the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean, could disappear altogether from the face of the Earth.
(2) Sand eels have abandoned the now-warmer waters of the North Sea, with the result in this region that just last year the bird populations that had fed off these eels collapsed.
(3) Even the West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt, which threatens to raise sea levels by yet another 15 feet over the next several centuries.
(4) The shutdown of the Atlantic Gulf Stream from Mexico to northern Europe was once seen as "a low probability event." But because of the melting ice caps, it is now thought to be 45% probable by the year 2100 and 70% probable by 2200. Without the Gulf Stream, the weather in Great Britain and much of northern Europe will become like that found at the same latitude in the far north of Canada, in places like Hudson Bay, and Labrador!
(5) As oceans absorb more and more of the carbon dioxide that we humans are spewing forth into the air in astonishing quantities, what is formed in the seas is dilute carbonic acid. And as the seas turn more and more acidic, coral reefs, and shellfish, and plankton—on which all ocean life depends—these will die off, threatening most of the ocean's life forms with extinction. 20% of the coral reefs have already been lost, and another 20% have been seriously degraded. Some scientists predict that at the present rate all the world's coral reefs may die within just 35 years.
So what are some of the positive steps we can take to reverse our human desecration of these sacred oceans and seas? Well, first, here are some small but important habits to develop. When enjoying a vacation of snorkeling and diving, "don't touch, break, stand on, or attempt to collect coral or other marine organisms. Instead, take only pictures and leave only bubbles." And on trips to the beach, "carry out" whatever you "carry in" so that wildlife will not ingest or become entangled in the trash you leave behind.
So far, so good. Seems pretty easy! But such massive problems as we face call also for a number of large-scale responses from us, large-scale spiritual and political responses.
So pray daily for guidance from God about how to change the patterns of consumption in your own life and pray for the grace and willpower to actually implement such changes. You'll be surprised! God will help you to walk to more places. God will help you to find ways to use more-energy-efficient cars, appliances, and light bulbs. God will help you to find ways to consume less and to live more simply.
And pray daily that others too will come to the rescue of the beauty and goodness of God's creation. Pray especially for those with the power to lead us in right directions: the president, those in the Environmental Protection Agency, and all legislators. And then be sure to write to tell them what you're praying for. Tell them that you're praying for them to acknowledge that there is such a thing as global warming (duh!), that you're praying for them to legislate reductions in greenhouse emissions. Tell them that you're praying for them to take steps to save God's glorious oceans, praying for them to put a stop to the mercury and PCB pollution that is rendering our fish supply not only harmed but harmful, praying for them to add certain fish to the endangered species list, praying for them to put a stop to our navy's use of the low-frequency sonar that is endangering so many whales and other marine mammals.
Yes, pray and write, and act to change your own patterns of over-consumption. For God said to the first man and woman, "Look at my creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are. Make sure you don't ruin or devastate my world. For if you do, there will be no one after you to fix it."
Let us pray:
O God, our Creator, through the power of Your Holy Spirit, change us, so that, like Francis of Assisi, we may come to love, and to respect, and to honor all that You have made. And strengthen us, so that we can become faithful in our task of tending to Your creation and mending that which we have already broken. This we pray in the name of our risen Christ. Amen.