Today is Earth Day, an event that traces its roots back to 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson, of Wisconsin, announced a day in which concern for the environment would be the focus.  He said that the people of our nation were concerned about what they saw happening to the environment, but the politicians were slow to respond.  Nelson tapped into the grassroots concern and made Congress take note, and protection and preservation of the environment came onto the agenda of the Congress and gathered momentum in our nation and world.

            What does our faith tell us about our role in creation?  Some environmentalists have blamed the Judeo/Christian worldview with causing much of the damage done to the environment because God tells human beings to have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth, and God gives us every plant for food (Gen. 1:28-31).

If we take those words in isolation, as some believers have, we might come to the conclusion that we have carte blanche to do as we will with nature.  Get out the bulldozers, the power saws, the dragnets, the high powered rifles and take what you want; it all exists for you.  But if we read on in Genesis we see that God places human beings in the garden to till and keep it (Gen. 2:15).  Wendell Berry, the poet and small farmer from Kentucky, summarizes what a Christian approach to the environment ought to be by reminding us that after each successive day of creation God saw that it was good, and we ought to value what God values.  We are to treat people with respect because they are created in God’s image and loved by God. We ought also to treat creation with respect because God values it.  The heavens declare the glory of God, says Psalm 19, and our first reading today notes God at work in the passing of the clouds, the blowing of the winds, the bursting forth of springs, the growing of plants, and the presence of animals.

            One thing to note is that the Psalmist thanks God for the gift of wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.  All of these products come from nature, but require the work of humans in harvesting and transforming grapes into wine, olives into oil and wheat into bread.  The Psalmist assumes a divine/human partnership as part of God’s good plan.  And the Psalmist assumes that humans are called to till the earth and not just be hunter/ gatherers.  It’s not that such cultures are inferior in God’s sight, but we know that without agriculture the earth has a very limited number of people it can sustain, and without a secure food source it is hard to find leisure to think, ponder, invent, write and build with any degree of complexity.

            If we read on in Genesis we learn of Adam and Eve’s disobedience by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only tree in the garden off limits.  The temptation from the serpent was that it would make them like God.  When we over reach in that fashion the consequences are not happy.  Expulsion from the garden followed, and humans would have to toil and sweat and deal with thorns.  Just as humans need redemption, which means being reclaimed and restored to one’s proper place in right relation to God, so does the created order.  Paul says that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God for that will set in motion its being freed from bondage to decay.  He describes creation groaning in travail as do human beings, waiting for adoption as God’s children and the redemption of our bodies and the created order in which we find ourselves.

            As beautiful as creation is, it is not quite right.  It too is fallen, and the redemption of humans and creation are linked in this passage.  Isaiah describes what a redeemed world will look like when he says: “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Is. 11:9)  The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” (Is 35:1-2a) Nature is all tooth and claw; there are any number of microbes and viruses attacking us constantly, and though our body usually defends against them, our defenses are not always up to the challenge.  In the Twentieth Century alone 300 million persons died of small pox, and in previous centuries the number of such deaths is beyond calculating.  We estimate that eighty-five percent of the Indians in what is now the United States died because of small pox.  Now if I think that nature is just as God intends it to be then I will just stand back and watch Small Pox do its work, and Polio, and Whooping Cough and Pneumonia and Malaria and AIDS and all the many cancers that take people in their prime.  But I don’t believe that such diseases are the will of God, and so I support research to eradicate them and I make sure that vaccination against such diseases if available and administered.  Rotary International set a goal twenty five years ago to rid the world of polio, and they along with governments and non governmental organizations have made stunning progress with only two or three nations showing some incidence of the disease.  That is a step toward redeeming creation.

            Tonight we begin a four week series looking at our world and species and what threatens the life of the planet, and what can enhance it.  It will take our best minds to study what steps should be taken, but then it will take the will to act on what we know.  Tomorrow night we will hear from J. Matthew Sleeth, an emergency physician and head of staff of a large hospital who got tired of treating children and others for asthma caused by dirty air and decided to do what he could to clean up the air and water we breathe and drink so that we stop making people sick.  Sixty thousand people die each year in America of Asthma attacks, most of which are caused by pollution.  We don’t want to make nature any more dangerous than it is, but we have in many instances.  Streams and lakes that once were pure and from which we could freely drink, are no longer so.  The oceans which makes up 99% of the earth’s biosphere are under attack from over fishing and harmful fishing practices as well as from massive pollution.  The oceans are the lungs of our planet.  Phyto plankton produce most of the life giving oxygen we and all things need to live.

            Human beings have god-like power to harm or heal creation, and unless we change our ways as individuals, companies, corporations and nation states, the harm will outweigh the healing.  Jared Diamond in his book, Collapse, tells of several civilizations that went from health and prosperity to decline and disintegration because they did not care for the environment which once had provided more than enough.  In some cases, as with the Mayan civilization, drought had a major role to play, but in other cases like Rwanda/Burundi, overpopulation created pressures that erupted along ethnic lines and led to the slaughter of 800,000 people in a matter of a few months.  I read an article recently in the Atlantic Monthly that said that the genocide going on in Darfur is fueled by the encroachment of the desert and drought which has changed a way of life in which farmers and nomads who once could share the same land, can no longer because there is not enough rain to produce crops with sufficient stubble and native grasses to sustain the herds of the nomads who make up the feared Janjaweed militias. 

We cannot know everything that affects our world, but we can know a lot and make course corrections to enhance the health and productivity of the earth for human beings and for the wild things whose fates are intertwined with ours.  Striking the balance is a challenge as we know even in our own area where Mountain Lions now live and hunt, and on rare occasions humans are their prey.  I no longer run at close of day through the chaparral near where I live because there is a Mountain Lion who lives in that area.  I have seen it, and I don’t want to be mistaken for a deer, which is its favorite meal. Recent legislation has set aside several areas on our coast where no fishing or harvesting of sea life will be allowed, an idea not favored by some fishermen.  Yet the current issue of  National Geographic points out that a similar strategy adopted in New Zealand has led to a resurgence in sea life and has benefited fishermen because some of the sea creatures nurtured in those refuges leave them and are harvested for food.  Reintroducing wolves into areas of the West has not always been welcomed by ranchers, yet wolves cull out weak animals from deer and elk herds and promote the health of the very prey that they seek. A look at he deer herd on our Peninsula shows what lack of culling by natural predators results in: too many deer and many of which are not very healthy.

My point is that our faith urges us to take an active role in caring for the earth not just for our species and our time, but for subsequent generations and all creatures great and small.