DISCIPLESHIP: STEWARDSHIP OF ALL GOD’S GIFTS

1 Chronicles 16:23-36 Matthew 6:25-34

June 22, 2008 - Rev. Janet Robertson Duggins

In our Vacation Bible School, we spent some time thinking about God’s creation, and some of God’s creatures, especially some of the “critters” who live in the rainforest. You have probably heard about what a fascinating and diverse place the rainforest is, and how important it is to protect and preserve it. But every year 40 million acres of tropical rainforest are destroyed. That may seem like a fact very far away from and perhaps not too significant to us… until you know that the tropical rainforest best is responsible for about 40 per cent of the world’s oxygen supply! And then there are all those interesting and diverse creatures… some of which haven’t yet been even identified or studied. One thing I do know about them, though: they belong to God and God cares about them, in the same way that God cares about the birds and the grass and the lilies Jesus spoke of. In the Sermon on the mount.

But some of the other things Jesus said in that same sermon are harder for us to take in. Like the part about not worrying. We have lots to worry about, and lately one of the things many of us have been worrying about is the price of gasoline. It seems that the subject of gas prices is coming up in every conversation these days. It’s certainly been painful filling the tank lately!

The good part of it is that many more of us are taking conservation seriously – thinking before we hop in the car, consolidating our trips, carpooling, using public transportation, considering more fuel-efficient vehicles and rethinking the big gas guzzlers with more horsepower than anybody who doesn’t pull horse trailers really needs.

A lot of us are trying to buy local, too, and doing things to reduce our energy consumption around the house. Every day we can read or hear news stories about how people are changing their habits and there are lots of tips, too, for things we can do ourselves to reduce our consumption and shrink the size of the footprint we are leaving on the earth.

That’s all good. But what’s sad is what it took to get us to do these things.

Pollution didn’t make us do it.

Climate change didn’t.

Concern about depleting the world’s oil supply didn’t make us do it.

The unattractive truth that the U.S. has 4 per cent of the world’s population yet accounts for 25 per cent of the fossil fuels used in the world didn’t motivate us.

The reality that oil revenues support some of the world’s most repressive governments didn’t make us change.

Outrage about windfall profits for oil companies which have at the same time benefited from enormous tax subsidies didn’t do it.

Concern for our children’s and grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s future didn’t.

Love for the earth didn’t.

Only $4-a-gallon gas got us to get this serious about conservation.

I see why this is so. It’s not news that we human beings often begin to understand and appreciate a problem only when it affects us personally.

But as Christians I think maybe we ought to find the situation a little troubling – especially insofar as we may find ourselves among those who are now looking for ways to conserve. How can it be that $4 a gallon for gasoline has gotten our attention, but God’s call to stewardship and care for the earth has not?

Sometimes, I think, we haven’t really taken that call seriously because we’ve determined so firmly to keep our faith separate from our social policies and our science. Nearly every pastor has had someone pull him or her aside and say something like “Let me give you some advice: stay away from social issues and politics and just stick to talking about spiritual things and preaching the Bible.” This can sometimes be a little amusing, because very often the people who say these things don’t know much about the Bible. And that’s especially true if they don’t think the Bible has anything to say about care for the earth.

Consider this: “The earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their doings.” That’s not a hippie environmentalist talking, that’s the prophet Amos. From beginning to end, the Old and New Testaments remind us that the earth and everything in it belong to God, that the earth’s beauty and bounty are expressions of God’s majesty and goodness, that God cares for everything God has made, that God makes God’s self known to human beings in and through the wonders of the world. It’s clear that God’s intention for human beings is that we love and care for and use carefully and justly everything God has given us.

And there’s much, much more. It was all there before we ever thought that environmentalism was an “issue” (and maybe a controversial one at that) and so was perhaps one of those things that ought to be kept separate from discussions of faith.

I came across this interesting quote in my reading: “I used to think we could solve environmental crises – conditions so bad in Africa [that] much of the land won’t grow crops; clean water not available to millions; rainforest shrinking fast; all this landing heavily on the poor in developing nations or inner cities where asthma rates are skyrocketing, lead poisoning harming kids – [I used to think we could solve all this] by throwing enough good science at the problem. I was wrong. The primary threat isn’t pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, or habitat destruction. It’s selfishness, greed, and apathy. We need a spiritual and cultural transformation to deal with that.”

That comes from a man named Gus Speth, and what’s really interesting is that he’s not a preacher or theologian, but a scientist.

I think he’s right; it IS a spiritual issue. (If a scientist can say that, maybe we ought to be able to say it, too?) Environmental concern is both religious and biblical. To destroy nature is to act as if it belongs to us, not to God, and as if we have a right to do anything we want with it. It’s acting as if we (not God) are in charge. And that’s what traditional religious language calls ‘sin.’ It is fundamentally a matter of the heart, and only a real and deep transformation will make any permanent difference. I hope maybe we are ready for that spiritual and cultural transformation… but I’m not ready to start celebrating yet.. Because if the surge of interest in conservation we’re seeing now is only because gas is $4 a gallon, it may be that we have a ways to go before selfishness, greed, and apathy have been truly transformed.

I was thinking about Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 about “taking no thought for tomorrow,” and I wondered if some people might read in them permission to take as much as we need (or want… we sometimes have trouble telling the difference) without thought for the future. It’s tempting to embrace the idea that God will take care of us no matter what, so we don’t have to pay attention to the voices telling us that our way of life isn’t sustainable. But I’m pretty sure that Jesus isn’t saying “greed is good.” In fact, his point is just about the opposite.

He points out that the sparrows and lilies are of value to God, and cared for by God; that we therefore must be even more valuable and cared for. Like one of our Vacation Bible School songs says, “we are a part of creation, too Jesus urges trust in God’s care for all creation… as opposed to anxious hoarding or greedy pursuit of self-interest. He says to “seek God’s kingdom”; in other words, we are to be about doing God’s work, caring for the same things God cares for,

That’s what we Christians call “stewardship.” It’s a matter of seeing any and every resource as really belonging to God, but entrusted to our care. It’s about every part of our lives – our personal lives and our lives in community, the “secular” as well as the “sacred.” It’s challenging, life-changing, and important. It’s an integral part of being a disciple.

What it’s not is legalism.

The real motivation is love – love for the world as God’s creation and an expression of God’s heart. Only love will gladly make the changes (maybe sacrifices) that a real stewardship of the earth for the future requires. Only love will take us beyond “10 Simple and Painless Things You Can Do to Feel Good about Saving the Earth.”

Love is probably, in the long run, a better motivation than $4 a gallon gas prices. So maybe we Christians really have something to contribute here. Maybe our voices and leadership and actions can help shape a different future.

Sometimes people who are concerned about the church’s mission of “making disciples” (you’ll remember we have been talking about the “great commission” lately) are afraid that if we get involved in acting and speaking and working on some concern like care for the environment – or, really, any area of need – it will be a distraction from evangelism.

Sometimes people who are concerned about an area of need in our world – like the environment and stewardship of resources – are afraid that if the church is really committed to evangelism that means being narrow, otherworldly, disengaged from or even dismissive of the problems of the world.

I say that the choice between evangelism and environmental stewardship is as much a false dichotomy as the distinction between what is “spiritual” and what is “secular.”

I say we will only be distracted from evangelism if we want to be and we will only be disengaged from the problems of the world if we choose disengagement. And we can choose instead the more biblical way of evangelism and engagement.

Certainly the church has been accused – sometimes rightly – of not caring about the problems of the world outside its doors. But I for one am tired of hearing uninformed people repeat the notion that the Bible and the Christian tradition support destruction of the environment. And I’m convinced that being more firmly committed to environmental stewardship, in both what we say and what we do, out of love for God’s creation, would be a powerful and positive witness for the church.

Certainly an “issue” by itself can distract from the church’s bigger purpose, but when the church concerns itself with something because of GOD’S CALL, in response to scripture, and as an expression of faith… that ’something’ is no longer just an issue – it’s larger context is discipleship.

And you know we aren’t ultimately about any single issue or even a bunch of issues, and we aren’t just about filling the seats or adding to the numbers on the rolls, and we aren’t about saying only things that make everyone comfortable and happy so they will like us – we are about making disciples. We can’t do that, not really, without being honest about the way discipleship - following Jesus - reorients our lives. And one of the most significant expressions of that reorientation is stewardship of God’s gifts in every aspect of life… even if that means questioning or re-imagining the way of life we’ve been used to.

Is it possible that some people will find that off-putting? Maybe. But we ought to remember that passion and commitment are compelling, too. The invitation to discipleship is an invitation to a purposeful, meaningful life. Stewardship connects faith with real life. And our love for God’s creation is a powerful witness of hope we have to offer to the world. These are gifts we have to offer; why would we hesitate?