Sunday's Sermon @ Highlands

If you don’t believe human activity is destroying this planet, listen to this story of how Henry Ford’s mass production of automobiles generated demand for inflatable tires. It led ambitious entrepreneurs to head up the Amazon River in search of rubber trees. They encountered the Zapara Tribe, and according to Alan Weisman’s book “The World Without Us.” They raped the women and worked the men to death harvesting the rubber that Henry Ford needed for his inflatable tires.

Eventually SE Asia plantations undermined the South American market. The surviving Zapara peoples emerged from hiding. By then, the forests on which they relied were gone. Their food source no longer existed. They needed a new food source and over time, the only one available were spider monkeys, once considered sacred because the Zapara believed themselves descended from that animal.  

Their civilization was exploited so Americans could have inflatable tires on their carbon emitting autos. Now the Zapara were forced to hunt, kill, and eat the spider monkey. An elderly Zapara woman refused, saying, “If we must eat our ancestors, life is not worth living.” So it is today. We are poisoning the land, air, and water that sustains us in order to pursue a life that destroys us. We are eating our ancestors.  

Highlands celebrates Earth Day as the threat we live under is much like the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads by a slender thread for us not to find ways to cry for help.

The UW slogan reads, “What the world needs is more cowboys,” when what the world really needs is more prophets. Where are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Micah now that we need them? They’re here Lord, in these pews.  I have taken the liberty to draft a “Help Wanted Ad” for your consideration. It’s on the front of your bulletin.

Prophets Needed. Need not be able to sing or recite poetry, but must be willing to castigate. Sharp wit and sharper tongue required. Must be more interested in truth than in facts. Ability to suffer embarrassment and disdain required. A shrill voice is helpful. A clear sense of God’s hope for the world is essential. The willingness to cast severe judgment on those who are indifferent is mandatory. Grave responsibility with no expectation of gratitude. A successful applicant must believe the end times are upon us.

The prophets  predicted what the future would bring to those who ignored the truth and failed to turn to a different path. If Isaiah, Amos, Micah or Jeremiah were here today, they would say, “The end is near.”

Jesus said so; Jesus said you’ll know the end is near when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, when nations rise against nations, and there are famines and earthquakes in various places. The scientists who wrote a recent report on the threats posed by climate change would agree with Jesus. Is that not exactly what the scientists are saying?

As we read through the UN report we might consider whether we should regard scientists as today's prophets. The dire warning Jesus sounded in Matthew’s gospel is precisely what is predicted by the report of the United Nations on Climate Change.

The report was written by 91 scientists from 40 countries, analyzing 6,000 scientific studies. It is the gold standard of climate science. Like the prophets in the Bible their warnings need to be heeded.

They warn climate change now affects every country on every continent, disrupting national economies and affecting lives. Weather patterns are changing, becoming more extreme as greenhouse gas emissions are at their highest levels in history. Sea levels rising, God’s creatures becoming extinct at alarming rates.

The UN report describes a world of increasing food shortages, increasing numbers of wandering refugees forced from their homelands, wars fought over dwindling resources, wildfires, hurricanes, deadly tidal waves and other unnatural disasters within the lifetime of your family and mine. Some of us won’t be around for the worst of it, but we’ll be remembered when our grandchildren ask who is to blame.

These scientists say there is no way to mitigate climate change soon enough to avoid the harshest consequences in the next two decades without getting rid of coal which is why Wyoming’s politicians call it a hoax and refuse to lead.

Unless that’s done, 50 million people along the coasts of the US, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam will suffer coastal flooding by 2040, 21 years from now, when my youngest grandchild will be but 27 years old. How old will yours be?

National borders will be irrelevant as millions of refugees wander inland seeking new homes, causing dangerous political instability such as that which has already given rise to nationalist movements here and  worldwide. There will be a mass extinction of insects, plants and mammals as the globe undergoes a transformation of ecosystems.

Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth will increase. Disproportionately higher risk populations include disadvantaged and poverty-stricken communities, indigenous peoples, and those dependent on agricultural or coastal livelihoods. Poverty will increase as yields of maize, rice, and wheat decrease. Herds of livestock will die as rising temperatures cause the spread of diseases and dwindling water supplies.  

The report says we have the science and the technology to do what needs to be done. We don’t have the political will or spiritual wherewithal. Not unlike Paul, who had too much at stake as a leader among those whom persecuted Jesus to learn what God wanted him to learn, Paul hung around a crowd that rejected Jesus’s teachings as politicians hang around lobbyists and others who make certain they won’t learn what God wants them to know. Today’s New Testament reading is about what it took to get Paul’s attention. It reminds us that some people are slow to learn and teaches us something about what it will take to get the attention of lawmakers in our generation.

Today, there is no political arena in which serious choices are seriously debated and serious decisions made. Our politicians talk all day about things that don’t matter with an ample vocabulary to give tax breaks to the wealthy and deregulate the polluters. But, as theologian Walter Brueggeman says, “The politically powerful are illiterate when it comes to the language of hope.”

Some of us recently completed a study of Francisco Cantu’s book, entitled “The Line Becomes a River.” It is about the immigration crisis we are facing at our Southern border. As we finished the book, we felt overwhelmed. It too is an issue disclosing the failure of our political system to solve looming problems. It too proves the politically powerful are illiterate when it comes to the language of hope.

But, we said, “We can’t simply finish reading the last page of this book and put it back on the shelf without doing something.” And so, after much thought and deliberation, here’s what the book club decided to do, a list that can be equally applied to Earth Care.

1. Highlands will organize regular letter-writing events, bringing people of faith together to write letters to lawmakers urging action on issues ranging from immigration reform to climate change and others. These are “the Epistolary Missionaries.” Our work is based on a belief that  regular and numerous letters from a diverse group of constituents might just matter. 

2. Next, we’ve invited Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, Representative Liz Cheney and Governor Mark Gordon to speak about immigration and refugees during a Sunday morning worship service. This event will provide an opportunity to ask questions and to urge our elected officials to act.

3. Then, we sent a copy of Mr. Cantu’s book to each of our Members of Congress and the Governor in the hope that they might read it and find it as compelling as did the members of Highlands’ Book Club.

4. Finally, we will ask the Session and others to consider financial contributions to one of the many faith-based organizations working at the border to meet the growing needs of asylum seekers for shelter, food, clothing, and legal assistance. 

You see, I believe God has given we Jesus followers a vocabulary to speak the truth and calls us to use it. The language of hope may well be absent from political talking points, but we know where to find it and we must use it, to lay it on the hearts of our politicians. So, on the day we celebrate the earth and the fullness thereof, I ask you to choose one of the books of the prophets. Read it. Study it. Familiarize yourself with the language, for it is the language of hopeful confrontation.

Listen as Hosea says “Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.”

And Jeremiah “I looked on the earth and, lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light, on the mountains, and they were quaking, and the hills moved to and fro. All the birds of the air had fled, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins.” 

Then Google “UN Report on Climate Change.” Familiarize yourself with its predictions and warnings. Become an Epistolary Missionary. Use what you learn from the report, employ the prophets’ language and style, and write letters to your congressmen or a letter to the editor about climate change.

Finally, send in your application for that prophet’s job; I assure you, you  will be hired. And then you can stand on the corner, holding up a sign reading, “The End is Near.” Because, my dear friends, the end is nearer than anyone might believe.