How Long Will the Land Mourn
A Sermon in The Other Six Days Series
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
April 17, 2005
Genesis 2:4b-9, 15; Jeremiah 12:1-4; Psalm 104: 1-13, 24-35
Genesis 2 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
¶ In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up — for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground — 7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
15 ¶ The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Jeremiah 12 1 ¶ You will be in the right, O LORD, when I lay charges against you; but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? 2 You plant them, and they take root; they grow and bring forth fruit; you are near in their mouths yet far from their hearts. 3 But you, O LORD, know me; You see me and test me — my heart is with you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter. 4 How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.”
Psalm 104 1 ¶ Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, 3 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, 4 you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.
5 ¶ You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 ¶ You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
24 ¶ O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
27 ¶ These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.
31 ¶ May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works — 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. 33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD!
INTRODUCTION
A few years ago I tried my hand at gardening. This idea, perhaps funny enough on its own, is all the funnier when you realize that I live in a high-rise apartment building and don’t even have a yard. Nevertheless, I bought a number of clay pots and filled them with soil and tried the best I could to grow snow peas, cherry tomatoes, and even corn from my apartment balcony. It was something of a limited success. While the tomatoes did rather well, the corn yielded only a couple ears and they were very small. I did manage to grow an elm tree but that’s another story.
I really wanted to be able to have that garden, to work with growing things. Alas, gardening and urban apartment living don’t really mix.
It’s too bad, because there’s something really rewarding about working the soil. Something spiritual even. It should come as no surprise, then, that the first task that God gives to humanity is to till and keep the Garden of Eden. God created us—it seems—to be gardeners.
TEXT
Now, it is during this stint as Eden’s gardeners that we get into so much trouble, but it is interesting that tilling the soil should have been our first divinely appointed task. According to Genesis 2, humanity was seemingly created with this purpose in mind. Humanity was created to till the soil. To be caretakers of the Creation.
THE MOURNING LAND
We haven’t always done a good job of that. In fact, in recent decades, we have taken neglect of the environment and abuse of the creation to the level of an art form. Sure, we have passed the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. We have cars with better mileage and lower emissions. But the problem itself remains great.
The picture
Air Pollution
According to the American Lung Association, by 2020 asthma will affect 1 in 14 Americans and 1 in 5 families. Asthma is the leading serious chronic illness in children: approximately 25 percent of children between the ages of 15 and 17 have their activities limited due to asthma. Medical studies increasingly show that air pollution plays a major role in triggering asthma attacks. Exposure to air pollution has been linked to increased use of asthma medications and an increased rate of emergency room visits and hospitalizations for asthma sufferers. (http://www.earthday.org/resources/materialsdownloads/air_pollution.aspx)
While emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide are decreasing after a decade of market-based regulation, carbon dioxide emissions have increased, according to analysis of power plant pollution data for 2002. The data also show that wide disparities in pollution rates persist throughout the electricity industry, with some companies responsible for far higher pollution rates than their electricity production would account for, and few power plants using currently available, state-of-the-art emissions control technologies. http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/benchmarking/default.asp
Global Warming
Since 1979, the size of the summer polar ice cap has shrunk more than 20 percent. The polar ice cap as a whole is shrinking. Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free by the end of the centuryhttp://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/qthinice.asp
Water
A June 2003 NRDC study of drinking water quality in 19 U.S. cities finds that pollution and deteriorating, out-of-date plumbing are sometimes delivering drinking water that might pose health risks to some residents — and unless steps are taken now, tap water will get worse. http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities/contents.asp
Animals & Fish
The destruction of fisheries, poaching wild animals, the elimination of habitats. Over grazing. Over fishing. Our impact on the other species on earth is demonstrable and devastating. (www.nrdc.org)
Attitudes toward Environmental Issues
One wonders how we got to this place. Much of it has to do with our attitudes, of course.
It is amazing how often issues of the environment are treated as economic issues and legal issues. Whether or not to mine, whether or not to cut down trees, to dam a river… these issues are all usually determined by things like the cheaper cost of energy produced, the convenience, and the number of jobs produced. I am not saying those things are not issues to be considered, but it is fascinating how they are often the only things considered.
Law
In fact, our thinking on these issues is so driven by our traditional ways of thinking that in its infancy, environmental law was often a hard sell. One of the essential issues in the prosecution of a case at law is called “standing”—it means possessing an interest in the outcome of a case. If you and your neighbor get into an automobile accident, I can’t sue your neighbor on your behalf. Only you can do that. I have no standing. I was not injured or even involved. In the same way, it was argued, if I own land and want to cut down trees on it, how does an environmentalist have standing to challenge my actions? The question was framed “Does a tree have standing?” The law had to expand, but is still in need of expansion.
Economics
In addition to the legal side, people view environmental issues from a market orientation, often using supply and demand. The fewer the trees, the argument goes, the more expensive wood and paper become. This becomes an economic disincentive to cutting them all down and not replacing them. The major problem with that is that there is a market lag and what you would likely wind up with is one really, really expensive tree.
Politics
And of course, we think about these issues politically. Jobs. Cheap fuel. These are political hot button issues, not likely to change any time soon. They can often sap a politician’s courage to protect the environment at the expense of jobs or low gas prices.
Faith
What is astounding to me is how rarely faith is one of the ways we use to think about the environment. In fact, our stereotype of an environmentalist is a sixties-era hippie hugging a tree and going on about the spotted owl. We, in our prejudices, do not tend to associate such individuals with the church.
And yet, care for the environment is an issue of concern for Christians. It is, in fact, a Christian obligation. It is an element of Christian faith because we recognize that the earth does not belong to us—we are only the gardeners:
The Earth is the Lord’s
The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. (Psalm 24:1-2)
Listen again to some of the words we read responsively earlier:
5 ¶ You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 ¶ You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
As people of faith, we can talk about law, economics, and politics, but we must first come from a perspective of faith. And our faith tells us that the earth is the Lord’s and not ours to use as we wish. We are the caretakers, the stewards, the gardeners of creation, not its masters.
The Prophet’s Warning
In a way, our neglect of the environment is another form of idolatry—an idolatry of self. A reflection of our belief in ourselves as masters of nature. We can change the courses of rivers (in Chicago they even changed the direction a river flowed). We can turn desert into green land and we can turn swampland into bustling cities. We can convince ourselves that the earth is here for our use as we see fit.
Yet, the prophets remind us that we are not apart from the earth, but are a part of the earth and that our sin beings with it consequences in the creation itself. Hear again these words of the Prophet Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 12 1 ¶ You will be in the right, O LORD, when I lay charges against you; but let me put my case to you. Why does the way of the guilty prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? 2 You plant them, and they take root; they grow and bring forth fruit; you are near in their mouths yet far from their hearts. 3 But you, O LORD, know me; You see me and test me — my heart is with you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter. 4 How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways.”
Now, we may be skeptical about the prophet’s claim that our sins will affect things like flocks and herds and harvests. I know I am a sinner, but am reasonably certain that my sins had little to do with why my balcony garden failed.
And yet, there is a truth to the prophets words that continues to have meaning and power today. Our sins against the creation, and creation’s God, will and do have consequences in the land. “How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and birds are swept away, and because people said, ‘He is blind to our ways.’”
We neglect and abuse the environment. We sin against God and God’s good creation—we believe God is blind to our neglect—and the animals and birds are swept away. The land mourns.
CREATION AND NEW CREATION
Now, perhaps as self-evident as this may be to some, there are numbers of Christians who see no point to environmentalism. Some of these “Christians” even own their own cable networks and run for president every once in a while. Their basic attitude is that the Second Coming of Christ is due any moment now, and so what is the point? Jesus is coming back and we’re all going to heaven (well, they’re all going to heaven would be a better summary of their views) and there will be no need to worry about depleted resources, spotted owls, or anything of the kind.
But other than its reliance on the imminent return of Christ as an excuse for poor environmental stewardship, this viewpoint makes another critical mistake. It assumes that God will abandon the Creation when the Second Coming takes place. It assumes that God’s salvation extends only to one species out of the myriad species on this planet: humanity.
Humanity is formed from the dust of the earth. We rebel and the creation bears the marks of our rebellion. And yet in spite of our rebellion God abandons neither us nor the creation. Instead, God redeems us and the creation. God demonstrates this in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The Resurrection is proof that we are not abandoned to our mortality and our brokenness. It shows that God is a God who will raise us to new life, that same new life that we share with Jesus Christ and in whose resurrection we will also share.
There is something else worth noting. Jesus is resurrected in bodily form. He is not a phantom or a spirit. He does not reside on another plane of being communicating to us through a medium like that guy on UPN or that kid from the Sixth Sense. Christ is raised and eats and drinks with his disciples. He shares in embodied life. And will return to do so.
God will not beam us all up to heaven and abandon the creation. God will redeem it. Christ will return, the trumpet shall sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and God will dwell among us in a redeemed and restored creation. In the Longer Ending to the Gospel of Mark, the great commission is framed: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” [1] (Mark 16:15) Salvation is not for us alone, but for the whole creation. Isaiah wrote that “the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” (Isaiah 40:5)
CONCLUSION
If God demonstrates through Jesus’ resurrection that God will not abandon the creation, how can we—as people who proclaim that resurrection—abandon it? As Christians we are called to live into the reality we proclaim. That means living as communities of justice when the world can be unjust. Communities of peace in times of war and violence. Communities of unity in times of divisiveness and hatred. Communities of stewardship in times of neglect.
If we are serious about our faith, we cannot ignore the environment. We are in the garden of the Lord and are his good planting. Christians must take environmental stewardship seriously as a Christian obligation, a reflection of our faith in a God who does not abandon his creation. Until we really exercise stewardship over this good creation, until we act out our faith in ways that respect God’s love of nature, we will continue to ask: “How long will the land mourn?”
Notes
[1] I am indebted to the Rev. Dean Snyder for this reference and connection.
