Sermon September 4, 2011

“The Forests of the World”

This morning we read two scriptures in dialogue with one another—speaking the words of creation and Paul's realization of God's hand in the formation and growth of the whole world, even when that action and hand was not particularly recognized. What I mean is that the Greek people realized entities or gods beyond themselves, but didn't know that God is one and all creation speaks of the one God.

Today's creation theme of Forest isn't about making the forest or the tree an idol, like replacing God—in fact, it's more about seeing the whole of the life—flora and fauna—in all the places on earth as co-worshipers of God along with humanity.

We look at the gospel of Jesus Christ as it applies to the living things of this created world. We look at how they mesh together in webs of living; we will listen to the needs that the living things of creation express; and we will explore how we can engage as a congregation to be apply our vision and purpose to our interaction with all living things.

Paul preached to the people of Athens, “²⁶From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said,
'For we too are his offspring.'¹

Though we may not have seen this text in this light before, we can read Paul's interpretation of God's creation of the universe with the realization that God's hand was in the making of every thing—living and non-living. And the realization that it was from the hand and voice and person of one God that all things had been made—the more pleasant and beautiful and the things that some may consider ugly, creepy or dangerous.

But because the whole of creation came from the genius and being of one God—as Paul proposes—it all works together for the continuation of life. Now, much of this working together involves the passing of energy from one being to the next—plants absorb the energy of the sun, animals eat the plants and other animals eat those animals and other plants and some animals just eat other animals. Even though there is competition to glean the energy from God's creation—it is an amazing miracle of cooperation and co-development as microscopic living things and plants and animals live and move and exist within the incredible web of life. This is the tree of life through which God continues to nurture and grow through God's own action and through the hands and feet of humanity—the ones that God gave the responsibility for nurture and tending, what we might call stewardship in the church.

This isn't the first or only place where God's blessing and nurture of all created things was revealed even within the book of Acts. In Chapter 10 of Acts, Peter's eyes had been opened about God's blessing and nurture through a dream where God revealed that all animals that God had made were clean or edible to the newly growing and thriving movement that followed Jesus' teaching. We often see this as God's blessing of the church's newly found evangelism of the Gentiles, but it is also a literal broadening of how God's people were to see the whole of creation.

In our realization that the web of life is a genius of God's creation—that all of God's creation works together to nurture and prosper all living things, including humanity—then we are called upon to realize that not only is humanity the offspring of God, but that all beings and things of creation are God's offspring, God's own children.

The forest represents how all things live and work and thrive together and how all living things will die if we are not responsible for the life and health and care of life everywhere. It reminds us that we are a part of all that God has done—not the purpose, but a part of the whole.

I was very happy to know that when I moved to Robinson, Carl and I could recycle with ease. Before, we saved and saved our recyclables and looked for places we could take them. Here we know that most of what we have will be recycled, what we throw away is much less than what we recycle. I believe that we are called upon as responsible people of faith to do as much as we can to care for the places where we live—and to understand how what we buy and use effects systems of life around the world.

As Paul preached, “In God, we live and move and have our being.” Isn't it basic to our faith to do as much as we can to care for the world where God lives along side of us, in spirit and in truth?

According to Paul's sermon to the Athenians, “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands.” God lives, according to this, in the universe that God's own hands have made. If we respect the sanctuary where we worship because we believe God to meet us here, we are called upon to respect the world that God has created as a place of being for God's creatures.

In the dialogue reading, we heard that Paul commented on the creation story—lifting the faith in the God he had followed all of his life. He spoke his message to a people who created another deity each time that they encounter another mystery within the world. He truly did understand, but he also knew that the function of Israel's faith and the faith of the followers of Jesus was to open the eyes of the nations to the wonders of one God over all the mysteries of the world and the universe.

In another place in first testament scriptures Psalm 148, we hear:

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;Praise him, sun and moon;
   praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
   and you waters above the heavens!

Praise the Lord from the earth,
   you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
   stormy wind fulfilling his command!

Mountains and all hills,
   fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,
   creeping things and flying birds!

Kings of the earth and all peoples,
   princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
   old and young together!

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
   for his name alone is exalted;
   his glory is above earth and heaven.
Praise the Lord!

I've heard stories of how families have had what might be called miraculous experiences as they entered natural settings together. They connected their and share their most treasured memories of those times. Being taught to hunt with responsibility and respect for how we fit into the system of life and how we are not to abuse our power and ability to kill for food or trophies. Tent-camping responsibly can help children of all ages to respect the natural places where people spend time outside of populated areas. Gardening with a mind to the local plants and animals that live in a place can help children and other adults see how we can take care of what is around us. And reminding ourselves that God moves and lives and breathes among us—as Paul reminds us—may help us smile at the beauty and mystery of all that God has given us.

Even in the gospels, we are made aware that God has not rejected the created world that God made. In John's gospel, we are told, “God so loved the world that God gave his only Son, . . . in order that the world might be saved through him.”

We've sometimes gotten the idea that this world is nothing, a shadow of things to come and that we are simply in a time of limbo, waiting to pass on to the other side, through death and into the life that God promises. While we can believe in the promise of eternal life, we don't have to let go of the glorious and miraculous, the mystery and the wonder that surrounds us in the living systems that God has created. We can glory in the systems of life that we understand more and more each day—following the scientist and doctors into the deepest depths of the cells of living things and into the atoms that make up all that surrounds us.

Though we might find out that today's miracles are tomorrow's discoveries—each step can draw us farther and farther into the universe that God creates around us each and every moment of every day.

By spending time recognizing God's care for us in all of creation and our care and love for God as we care for what God makes, we participate and co-create the relationship and community and love where God can reach into the lives of all people. We can recognize that only respect and love for all ecosystems will allow us to speak and act with respect with all creation, with humanity and with all living things.

To the glory of God, in a sense of wonder and love. Amen.

1Acts 17:26-28