“A
conversation with the maker of
heaven
and earth”
Me: Oh…I am so stressed out. It’s Saturday
night. My sermon isn’t done. I sit and stare at the scripture readings from the
lectionary and the longer I stare the blanker my mind.
GOD:
Hey…Rodger
Me: Uh Gawd, it’s you again? I mean Oh God!
It’s YOU again.
GOD:
Don’t mess with me. I am in no mood for it. What is that you’re reading?
Me: It’s the lectionary. I’m working on
Sunday’s sermon.
GOD:
The lectionary? Sometimes I think the elves would have you preachers preaching
about anything just so it’s not relevant to what’s going on in the world. You
ought to be preaching about the United Nations Report on climate change.
Me: That’s mixing politics with religion. No
can do
GOD:
POLITICS? POLITICS? The fate of God’s creation…the earth, the seas, the rivers,
the mountains, animals, fish and all you humans…that is not POLITICS. That’s
spiritual.
Me: Okay. Okay, didn’t mean to set you off.
GOD:
Well, I am not a very happy camper. Don’t you humans ever learn? I gave you the
Garden of Eden. Everything you needed. You would go without nothing. I asked
only one small favor. Don’t eat the fruit of one lousy tree and you went right
for it.
Me: But that really was the woman’s fault.
She’s the one who said Adam should try it…and that snake! Why did you put a
talking snake in the Garden to begin with? What good could possibly come from
that.
GOD:
Myth, Rodger. Don’t you understand that was a myth? The earth would only be
6000 years old if you read that stuff literally. It was a story I used to try
to teach humans that if they just take care of the Garden, they would never
lack for anything.
Me: What about the Great Flood? I suppose that
was a myth too? 40 days and 40 nights of rain, all the earth destroyed.
GOD:
Yeah, myth, all myth. A story designed to teach that the behavior of humans has
a consequence. If you are corrupt and violent toward one another and the earth,
you will lose it all.
Me: Then you promised the earth would never
ever be destroyed again.
GOD:
That is not what I said.
Me: Au contraire mon fraire. I have it right here. Genesis 9 and I
quote you, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants
after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the
cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the
ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be
cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to
destroy the earth." Do those words ring a bell?
GOD: So, now you think the
Bible is literally a science book? The Bible is not a science book, never
intended to be…that’s why you and I have to listen to the scientists. We can
hold the Bible in one hand and the UN study in the other and figure this thing
out. The two are not mutually exclusive. The myths, allegories, and metaphors I
used in the Bible are there to help you understands yourselves. It takes
scientists to tell you how threatening climate change is to the earth.
It just made my head
explode when I listened to that Senator say climate change was no problem
because I promised after the flood I would never again destroy the earth. Blah,
blah, blah. Talk about false prophets. Even in the myth, I said I would
not destroy the earth again.
I couldn’t speak for you
humans. Science can explain it better than me, but this is your doing. Look, I
created the earth, the trees, plants, rivers and seas, the animals, birds and
bees, and last I looked, before I created humans, all was good.
Well Rodger, all is not
good now. It’s like Jeremiah said when he was quoting me, “I brought you into a plentiful land to
enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came, you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.”
Me: Yeah,
I fear you are right. What are you telling me? Are you getting ready to destroy
it all again?
GOD: Hey, don’t put it on me. You all are doing the job
yourselves. Let me read from the UN report.
QUOTE: “Unless the
world makes some drastic and immediate changes to combat the damage already
done, hundreds of millions of people may be irreversibly imperiled by drought,
flooding, extreme heat and increased poverty in the decades to come.”
Me: Pretty bleak. It says a team
of 91 scientists from 40 countries analyzed over 6,000 scientific studies
before reaching that conclusion. So, God, what are you doing about it?
GOD: Me? What am I doing about it? What you humans are doing
about it. After all, I did my job. I created you with free will and the
intellectual ability to reason and think for yourselves.
Me: That’s the problem. You see
God, that free-will experiment hasn’t worked too well. As you may have
overheard, we have a lot of politicians who believe the whole thing is a hoax. Many
of them believe the fault does not lie with human beings. Know what that means?
If it’s not our fault, it must be yours!
GOD: Why am I reminded of Adam & Eve trying to cover
themselves with fig leaves? As you know, I don’t tend to view things in a political
sense. I’m more theological, a ‘right or wrong’ sort of guy and how you all
have treated the earth is just plain wrong.
Must I remind you of how this came about. There it is in the
Book of Genesis and I quote myself, "God made the beasts
of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds,
and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw
that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
Me: Well, we humans have
certainly exercised dominion over them all…just as you asked. We’ve created an
entire economic and political system that depends on how well we exercise
dominion over the earth and its creatures.
GOD: “Dominion” is your English translation of the words I used. You
all think the scripture was written in English. Well, it wasn’t written in
English. Genesis was written in ancient Hebrew and your word “dominion” was
actually “radah” and it doesn’t mean “control.” It means “responsibility.” I
was saying that humans had a responsibility to the rest of God’s creation.
Me: Hmm, that changes
everything. But, we’re going to need some time. As things stand today, most
everything we do depends on not changing anything. Coal miners need jobs, the
economy depends on us buying more things we don’t need. Did you hear the
Presbyterians debate whether the church should divest itself from fossil fuels
investments?
The
denomination has about $150 million invested in companies that either produce
or consume fossil fuels. The Presbyterians decided rather than anger the
congregations in fossil fuel states like Wyoming, we’d kick the can down the
road by joining a five-year initiative to pressure companies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Apparently even church
attendance depends on ignoring the issue. How much time will you give us to
turn it around? We’re going to need a lot.
GOD: Well, you don’t have five years to study the issue. It has
been studied to death…literally. And besides that, it is not up to me. It’s up
to you. Here’s the problem. According to the scientists, a 2-degree-Celsius rise in temperatures will spell widespread
disaster, causing flooded coastlines, intensified droughts and altered weather
worldwide, wreaking havoc on agriculture and natural ecosystems.
According to the UN report, a crippling wave of poverty would
ensue. To make matters worse, the world is already clocking in at
1-degree-Celsius warmer than preindustrial levels, which means we’re more than
halfway there. At the rate we’re going, global temperatures are set to hit the
mark by 2040—unless a lot changes, and fast.
Me: Reminds me of the words of
Jesus in Matthew. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom, and there will be famines & earthquakes. But as soon as 2040? That’s only 22 years away. People my age may not be around
for it but my oldest grandchild will be 30 years old, my youngest only 27 when
all of this comes to pass. What kind of planet will they inherit?
GOD: I tried my best to make sure you all had the best science
available in order to encourage you to think about this long ago, but there’s
still time, not much, but there is still time to act. What are you going to do
to change attitudes, persuade your fellow humans to act to keep the planet from
reaping the whirlwind?
Me: As James said in the Bible,
“We have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.”
What can we do? There is so little time and we are just a small church and we already
do what we can. We recycle and plant trees, nurture the bees. We study the
issue and use our voices as we can to encourage others. What more can we do?
GOD: Well,
I was listening to NPR the other day.
Me: You listen to NPR? I hope you called in a pledge.
GOD: Of course, what did you
think, that I listen to Rush Limbaugh? Of course I get my news about what you
all are doing from NPR as they go to and fro upon the earth. In any event, this
fellow, a scientist who helped write the report said that saving the earth is possible within the laws of
chemistry and physics, but maybe not within the laws of politics.
Me: Yes, that
is the problem. So long as climate change is only a political issue the earth
is in trouble.
GOD: So, change that dynamic. Use the voice I
gave you; use the feet and hands I gave you. Take your brains and apply your
intellect to the word of God I gave you. Speak and act as though the future of
the earth mattered to you as much as it matters to God.
Me: How do we
do that?
GOD: Study the science. Know the truth. Study
the Hebrew prophets. Study Jesus. Learn how they confronted the empires in the
times in which they lived and do the same. Use the words of Hosea who stood
before a cruel king and said, “Hear the
word of the Lord, O children
of Israel, for the Lord has
a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast
love, and no knowledge of God in the land; therefore the land mourns, and all
who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the
heavens, and the fish of the sea are taken away.”
Above
all, remind the people and their elected officials. The earth is not theirs to
do with as they choose. The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord that your
children may have a future on the land.
Me: We’ll talk about it among
ourselves and get back to you.
GOD: Dilly, dilly. You do that. But make it quick. There isn’t
much time left.
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