Sermons

Sun, Feb 16, 2020

For who's benefit?

A sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving
Series:Sermons

With the torrential rains in Sydney… 

this past week…

the last of the bushfires in New South Wales have finally been contained.

One of them burned for two hundred and ten days!

In total…

across the whole country…

more than eighteen million hectares have been burnt;

about six thousand buildings––

including nearly three thousand homes––

have been lost;

up to one hundred thousand sheep were killed in the Kangaroo Island fires alone…

while estimates suggest that around ten percent of the country’s total livestock has been affected;

and more than six thousand beehives have also been destroyed.

Economists are still trying to calculate the total financial impact of the bushfires.

Insurance claims have already reached almost a billion dollars.

Current estimates suggest losses of some two to three billion from tourism;

and possibly at least that much again from agriculture.

The total cost may approach twenty billion dollars.

 

And it’s not as though we haven’t been warned.

 

Twelve years ago, the Garnaut Climate Change Review cautioned:

“fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense”…

and this, he claimed, “should be directly observable by 2020”.

Twelve years ago… 

we were warned that climate change would have a significant impact on bushfires in this country.

Mind you, we have been warned for some time.

It was, in fact, in eighteen ninety-six, when scientists first warned about the impact of burning fossil fuels on our climate.

Those warnings re-appeared in major newspapers in the mid-nineteen fifties.

Meanwhile, internal studies by major fossil fuel companies––

like Shell and Exxon–– 

confirmed these claims.

But they sat on them.

In fact, they did much more than that.

The major oil and mining companies copied the strategies of the tobacco industry…

and poured vast amounts of money into conservative, right-wing think tanks…

in an effort to sow doubt about the credibility of scientific claims.

They have promoted the views of divergent, discredited scientists;

downplayed the significance of the evidence… 

and the overwhelming strength of the scientific consensus;

and tried to convince the public that peak scientific bodies like NASA… 

the CSIRO… 

or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…

are all part of some loony left-wing conspiracy––

when… 

ironically… 

climate-denialism is being promulgated by those who truly do have a vested interest in the status quo.

Even within the last month, eighty of Australia’s best academics––

the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellows…

which includes the top academics in the scientific disciplines, as well as economics, health, history, and law––

have written an urgent letter to the government…

urging “deep cuts” in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That letter follows another one… 

only a few weeks earlier… 

from the Australian Academy of Science warning that:

“The scientific evidence base shows that as the world warms due to human-induced climate change, we experience an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events”––

and that includes bushfires––

and we must deal with that “more effectively than we currently do”. 

But it’s only going to get worse.

Professor Steven Sherwood––

a scientist from the University of New South Wales––

points out:

“The current impacts are happening with just one Celsius of global temperature increase, but we are set for the best part of another degree”.

The result of that will be–– 

not just greatly increased bushfire risks––

but a major impact on the survival of native species…

a disruption of agriculture and “food security”…

and broad-scale social disruption.

 

Today, as we celebrate Harvest Festival––

as we give thanks for the food production that sustains us––

it’s worth sparing a thought for future generations…

and the sort of world that we’re going to leave behind.

The problem is… 

that we have treated this earth simply as a commodity to be used––

and, all too often, as one to be abused––

if it served our purposes.

We have mined and refined…

cleared and burned…

all in the name of prosperity and progress…

acting as if our actions had no consequences––

or because those consequences seemed too distant or disconnected.

But it’s also worth considering that…

perhaps…

religion has had a role to play in all of this.

And, perhaps, part of the problem actually stems from our reading this morning from Genesis––

from the first Creation narrative.

And… 

even though few of us would subscribe to some sort of literal understanding of this foundational myth…

it has certainly shaped our history…

our culture…

and our psychology.

Here, in our reading––

having given form and shape to the world…

and bringing forth all kinds of living things––

God creates humankind…

seemingly as the pinnacle of creation.

And, in so doing, God says:

“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness”…

and, in blessing humankind, God’s instructs them:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion…over every living thing”.

And haven’t we taken that instruction literally!

We have, indeed, multiplied and filled the earth––

in a way, perhaps, that no other species has.

In the case of many species, there’s an inherent symbiosis…

where reproduction is linked to…

and moderated according to…

the available resources.

But not so with humans!

And we have taken those words “subdue” and “dominion” to mean…

that we have a right to control and use whatever we need…

for our sake or own benefit.

We have interpreted them to mean that the world––

and all of its resources and its creatures––

are at our disposal…

to use as we see fit.

Such an attitude is a gross misinterpretation of these words…

and of the meaning of this story.

God’s blessing and instruction here is predicated…

first and foremost…

on the prior declaration…

that God is ‘creating’ humankind in God’s image.

Leaving aside the whole mythic language of ‘create’…

what does it mean for us to reflect something of the nature of God?

Previously, I have argued that this involves three things:

that we are capable of altruism;

that we are capable of empathy––

the incarnation itself proves that;

and that we are capable of moral reasoning.

So, at the outset, our “subjugation” and “dominion” of creation…

only exists in that context…

namely…

in our being altruistic, empathic, and moral.

In other words, our relationship to creation cannot be selfish.

It’s not that creation exists for our benefit…

but, rather, the opposite.

We exist for the benefit of creation.

Whatever power or control that we have…

it is meant to be used for the benefit of all other living things…

and for the earth itself.

God’s instructions to humankind are…

in fact…

a summons…

an invitation…

even a vocation.

We are called into a co-creative relationship to the cosmos with God.

We are invited to exercise care and control in the way that God does:

not selfishly…

or exploitatively…

or coercively…

but, rather, compassionately…

and responsibly.

We are called to exercise care and control in the way that Jesus demonstrated––

via self-sacrificial servant-hood.

And… 

if we were to start to think like that…

if we were to relate to other creatures like that…

if we were to treat the earth like that…

then we might just leave something worthwhile for future generations…

to enjoy…

and to care for as well.

 

Powered by: truthengaged