Sermon 2023.05.21
Rev. Wesley Menke
Happy Sunday! We are more than halfway through May and it is beginning to feel more like summer. But this heat is nothing compared to the 2023 Asia heat wave. Have you seen the news stories? A massive heat wave has been wreaking havoc in several Asian countries since April. Temperatures reached 40 degrees celsius or 104 degrees fahrenheit. This heat wave is part of the consequences of the amount of greenhouse gasses we release into the atmosphere because of the burning of fossil fuels.
The problem of a climate catastrophe and extreme heat is caused by Christianity. The Christian idea of life after death and a heavenly paradise is to blame for many people not taking seriously our responsibility to take care of the earth, our atmosphere, and the climate. Many people are just giving up, and thinking that it isn’t important, that the true reality is a spiritual life after death.
Today and earlier this past week we observe the ascension of Jesus. We read about it in Acts this morning. The story goes like this. 40 days after Jesus resurrected from the dead his body was taken up into heaven. The disciples are very impressed by this and they stand there in awe looking up to where they last saw him. After some time passes some angels of God roust the disciples to get up and get moving. They say, “Why are you staring up into heaven? Jesus will come back the same way he went.”
Isn’t there a contradiction here? If Jesus is going to come back from heaven riding majestically on clouds coming down from the sky, can you blame the disciples for waiting and staring up? What would be the reason to bother doing anything at all? Why bother taking care of planet Earth, the ecosystems, and the climate, if we are just waiting for Jesus to come back and fix everything? Why bother about the long term effects of burning oil and gas if we are going to spend the rest of our soul’s journey in a spiritual realm of paradise?
We ought to heed the words of the first letter Peter wrote when he says:
5:8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. 5:9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. 5:10 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. 5:11 To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.
It is none other than the work of the devil that devours our conscience making us numb, cynical, and fatalistic about the fate of the planet. Satan is the one who whispers in our ear that we don’t need to take seriously the warnings of the entire scientific community about the potential destruction of habitable life on earth.
In order to resist the evil one and their lies we must think and feel deeply about the truth of what heaven is. This past week I asked the preschoolers about heaven, and they shared with me some very deep and thoughtful ideas about what heaven is. Over and over again they said that heaven is where God is. Heaven isn’t a place we go after we die. Heaven is a state of being with God, of living with God in harmony and peace. Throughout his ministry on earth Jesus said and taught that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and was coming here, and it could already be here. The truth is that this is our forever home. This is the only habitable planet we know of. Christian faith is not about believing in some other place and neglecting the earth. Christian faith is about accepting our ultimate responsibility to take care of this planet, its ecosystems, and the climate. Jesus isn’t going to take us away from here. Jesus is coming back here. This is Jesus’ forever home, and this is our forever home.
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was reading a book called, “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Well I finished the book this week, and I would definitely recommend it as worthy of your time. Dr. Kimmerer’s main thesis is that the biggest problem we have with taking care of the environment is that we as humans have actually lost faith in ourselves as being able to steward the land. She reflects that when she teaches biology to college students she will begin by asking what if anything can humans do to contribute positively to the flourishing of the environment. Most of her students say, “nothing.” Most people today think that humans can only destroy the environment, and that the best way for the earth to heal and flourish is for human beings to stay away from nature. But this is wrong. She has discovered through scientific experiments with many native plant species of Turtle Island also known as America, that human cultivation and activity is actually necessary for species to survive, thrive, and spread.
A new picture is emerging of what life was like here before Europeans arrived. The tribes who lived here were not so much hunter gatherers as highly sophisticated agriculturalists. The forests, fields, rivers, lakes, and swamps were constantly tended by people and a mutual relationship of dependence existed. The trees and grass actually need humans to carefully harvest them, and spread them, they don’t want to be left alone. They want and need human interaction! That is what faith is. It is believing that we are not at our core evil and destructive, but we are caretakers and it is possible for us to actually leave the earth better than we found it. It’s not just possible it’s the aim of a life of faith.
So when Jesus ascended into heaven the angels told the disciples to not stand around idle, but to go out and live their lives. The angels said that Jesus would come again from heaven just as he went into heaven. If we open our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds, we can see Jesus coming to us from heaven in many different ways. We can see Jesus in a baby oak tree planted in a parking lot or in our back yard that we can water with love.
We can see Jesus in an old appliance, that instead of throwing away we spend the time and money to repair to get a few more months or years of service with.
We can see Jesus in furry critters who make us giggle and laugh with their playfulness.
We can see Jesus coming from heaven the same way he went into heaven when we go to a hospital and spend time with a loved one appreciating the sweetness, tenderness, and brevity of our personal lives.
We can see Jesus growing up out of the earth in small plants and mighty trees. A miracle. A miracle that life exists at all! Earth, air, fire, and water, giving rise to myriad species.
We can see Jesus, coming to us from heaven, in the little ones. The ones who we will give this earth to after our days are over. And the ones who are yet to be born.
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