Our family loves to go to the beach. It was something Cheri & I loved before we found each other. This summer, we’re going to a new beach, Rehobeth Beach in Delaware. Before we found each other, Cheri used to go to Panama City, Florida, and Sunset Beach in North Carolina. I used to go with friends or family to Nags Head in North Carolina. Since we added kids we go to Saugatuck in Michigan. While the rest of you suffered through a blizzard a few years ago, Cheri & I were on Miami Beach, sorry.
It restores our souls to go to the beach. We try to get there every summer, and if possible in February as well, Cheri and gloomy, cold Februarys don’t get along. Maybe you like the mountains, plenty of people enjoy that. Others love fishing on a lake or sailing. Some of us enjoy long cycle rides. Maybe your thing is gardening. Cheri gets a little “mini-connection” to God’s creation by taking a walk in a garden or working on one. I just get environmental allergies, so . . .
Connecting to creation is the point. Because God created this world for us. And God gave it to us as a gift. It restores our souls to connect to this creation, in our own ways. But God also gave us a responsibility. To make sure it was there and took, it’s in the FIRST Chapter of the FIRST Book of the Bible. In Genesis, Chapter 1 we are given the job of caring for creation. Stewardship is the old school, church word for this. We are given Stewardship of all of God’s creation, to use it wisely, and it is good, as the Message Translation says “So very good”.
Then, something awful happens like the Deep Horizon Oil Well Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, that explodes and burns and bursts and starts spewing so much oil into the ocean. So much oil we can’t even get an accurate measurement of it (10,000 Barrels, 20,000 Barrels, 60,000 barrels a day). And one attempt, after another (Containment Vessel, Top Hat 1, Top Kill, Top Hat 2, etc) fails, days and weeks go by. Eleven Human lives were lost on day one, and countless lives will be lost later as workers get sick from cleaning the mess. Next we see vegetation and animals, and food sources, and marshes, and jobs and beautiful coast lands are affected. And still the oil is pouring into the ocean and moving towards almost all of the beautiful beaches named above, and so on.
And I turn back to the scripture this week “Take charge! Be responsible for every living thing that moves on the Earth”. Hmm . . . If we humans are responsible for every living thing, well, we have failed, haven’t we? A big, fat, enormous “F” on this one.
And it’s easy to point fingers. Cheri watched several mornings on CNN as “that guy” as she calls him, Tony Hayward, the guy who is the CEO and in charge of the clean up until this last week, appeared. Every morning he appeared with John Roberts and I swear they got him ready by taking him into a room, putting a helmet and shoulder pads on him and hitting him repeatedly with a baseball bat. Because that’s what the press is doing to him, he had no answers and took no real ownership of the mess, and we wish that he didn’t have the pads on, don’t we? Or maybe they had something more painful than a baseball bat. They made horrible mistakes to get us there and they have no answers.
Still others blame the President for not having a way to cap a flow of oil gushing out so hard it would fling a bulldozer into the air in a place where no human can go. Or, the nameless, faceless SOMEONE, who should be able to fix this. There’s blame out there alright and maybe plenty to go around.
Now, of course, we can get mad at BP specifically, or the oil industry in general, or corporate greed & Wall Steet, or the Government, etc. and make the scape goats. But, most of us drive cars or ride buses don’t we? We have some kind of plastic gadgets or bottles in our possession, right now? I sure do with one strapped to my belt and one I’m typing on now. So we are participate in this. We are all dependant upon oil. We are part of a system that makes those “evil” oil companies desperate to dig deeper and deeper wells in the ocean, at depths where indeed the oil comes out as such a great pressure it would fling bulldozers into the air and keep it up there and depths where only specially designed robots can go. Sure, maybe they are greedy, but we still need more oil because we have a system that is not sustainable. And we know it.
And friends, this is just one part of that unsustainable system. It’s a very big, and very timely, part of this system. But it’s just one thing.
We’ve heard this message for years. In the 1970's we got a look at the fragile little ball that sustains us, the Earth, from space and the environmental movement took fire. And modern prophet after prophet has tried to tell us. Folks like Al Gore are called every name in the book, “Captain Plan Nut”, “tree hugger”, “fear monger”, etc. The science is called into question, etc. Ok, sure, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” did win an Academy award, and his group with the UN did win the Noble Peace Prize, but don’t tell me it didn’t cost him (the presidency among other things) and others dearly. Lots of us don’t want to hear it. And it’s not just the “Right”.
Again, there is a religious word again for what we are called to do and it’s called Stewardship. Most people hear stewardship and they think it’s about money. No, it’s about using the resources we have been given wisely. It’s about using money, true, but it’s also about using water, and trees, and minerals, etc wisely. Again, this is in BOOK ONE, CHAPTER ONE of the Bible. God gives us this as “Job One”. How are we doing? If you’re answer is anything but LOUSY, you’re kidding yourself.
When we pause and let this all sink in, the problem, and the task ahead is overwhelming. Cheri took a test on our use of resources, and found out that if we are the norm, and we’re actually only slightly better than the norm, we are going to use up 3 ½ times the Earth’s resources. Now, again, we got ONE Earth, but we’re going to chew it up and spit it out. We’ve got some changes to make.
Whew! That’s overwhelming, depressing, way too heavy, right? Well, in worship, we broke this up with a little comedy to introduce the solution. We showed an old, funny movie, “What About Bob”. Bill Murray plays Bob. He’s got really huge problems. Richard Dreyfus is a psychologist who is given the job of “fixing” him. The scene include Richard Dreyfus saying: wait a minute now, you’re a multi-phobic person who is almost paralyzed by fear and you’re saying you dumped your wife because she likes Neil Diamond too much?
Richard Dreyfus introduces Bob to his new book, which he hopes will be a best seller, and for which he dutifully bills Bob the $29.99 cover price “Baby Steps”. Bob, as he does throughout the movie, misunderstands, and misapplies the lesson, taking actual baby steps as he leaves the office. But, the message is a good one. Take small, realistic, sustainable steps to fix a larger, seemingly overwhelming problem.
I think that in order for us to become better stewards for God, and reclaim our power to care for creation, we are going to have to start with some “baby steps”. We didn’t get into this mess in the last few months, or years or decades even. We are NOT going to fix this overnight either. But we have to make some changes. Because you see, we mean it when we say every week in worship that “we are followers of Jesus and WE ARE going to change the world”. Our actions have to be consistent in all areas of our life, including how we care for this beautiful planet we have been entrusted with.
Cheri found the baby steps clip at her training for how to plant The Village. That’s an enormous, often overwhelming undertaking too. But you need to, just like we are, take multiple, easy to achieve steps, to tackle a large problem.
There are lots of things we, mere mortals, can do to reduce our impact on this planet and be better stewards of it’s gifts. Here’s just a small sample of “baby steps” you can take:
Turn off lights you are not using and unplug electronic devices and chargers when not in use.
Use CFL’s (Compact Florescent Light Bulbs), those funny little lights that use a whole lot less electricity & last longer. (And yes, you have to dispose of them properly when they’re done as they have issues too).
Use less hot water by using cold water detergents and taking shorter showers
Fix leaks and never let the water run
Don’t buy those plastic bottles of water, get a re-useable water bottle, we’ll give you one.
Ride your bike or walk on trips where a car is not really needed
Check your tire pressure in your car.
These steps not only will help the Earth, they actually will lower your Gas, Natural Gas, Electric and Food bills. And they’re easy steps to start doing. Pick one, accomplish it, and then movement. You don’t have to plug this leak yourself. So far, no one has found the magic formula on that.
Let’s start with the little steps. As our one song in the service said “let what we do in here, fill the streets out there”. Let us follow Jesus and change the world, because we are the Village Church and we can, by baby steps, change the world. If you want to help, join us on Sundays at 10:30, or via the web.
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