This morning’s sermon is about the way the relationship of God’s gift of nature and God’s gift of grace call us to work for justice.
Day 3 – The third week of our look at Celtic Christianity, as guided by Philip Newell’s The Book of Creation. (pp. 33-47)..Philip, I did better on citations this week:).
Speaking of Genesis chapter 1, Newell says:
“Out of the elemental swirl of the second day there now emerges ‘the most beautiful firmness’ of the earth.
If the second day points to the wild creativity of God in the vast expanses of space,
the third day portrays God fashioning the earth in stability and fruitfulness.
Fertile land appears out of the fermentation of the waters and brings forth vegetation, ‘plants yielding seed,’ and trees of every kind bearing fruit.’ The picture is of the [abundance] of life” and the rich generosity of God. p. 35
A perfect image for Earth day.
What a glorious time of year to celebrate the earth.
The sunrises have been awakening. The skies clear blue.
The colors on the flowering trees!
plants bursting forth!
Smells of sweet lilac,
breathe in the freshness—as long as you don’t have allergies J
The sunsets have been spectacular.
The night sky with dazzling stars and the crisp new moon.
WOW! Just Wow. I love it.
I absolutely love it. Creation: God’s word spoken!
“All things have come into being through the Word,” says the gospel of John.
All things at heart are a birth or embodiment of God’s word.
And John says the Christ is the Word ‘made flesh.’…
As the spirit conceives of the Christ-child in the waters of Mary’s womb,
so creation is born of the Spirit in the virgin womb of the universe.
What a wonderful image!
Christ reveals the essential truth of the cosmos.
It is born of God; it is good.
Seeds planted in the earth.
An inoculation of fruit-bearing life hidden within…
And from which there is an abundance of growth and potential.
“God saw all the life springing forth from the ground, and said,
It’s all good.’
“Divine Goodness.’
Goodness is not just a characteristic…
goodness is the very source of life.
Our lives and all of creation come from that which is good.
And yet, this notion stands in sharp contrast to much of our life experiences in which there is much harm, suffering, and distortions.
The Celtic tradition does not deny the reality of evil in the world.
It has come to define evil as essentially that which is destructive.
Eriugena, a ninth century Celtic father, said it this way:
“As goodness conducts existing things out of non-existence in order that they may be, so wickedness strives to corrupt all things that are and to dissolve them utterly so that they may not be.
The momentum of evil is always towards non-being and meaninglessness.
The degree to which any created thing becomes evil is the extent to which it ceases to truly exist. It becomes false to itself.” (Newell, 1999, 37-38)
At it’s core, I define the work of ministry—for all of us—as one of meaning making. And much of how we discover meaning is when we are able to accept our present realities and see the good deep within. And to help others do this as well.
It is when we experience the goodness in life, we are in touch with the gift of God.
Celebration of Earth Day serves as a reminder that we are to be in touch with the gift of God, and can point out ways we have lost touch. Dick, would you consider your song, Every Morning is Easter Morning, and make an earth day revision:
Every morning is earthday morning from now on…to help us from losing touch?
In touch with the earth.
Moses encounters God in the burning bush, and God tells him to remove his sandals,
for the place where he was standing was holy ground.
In the celtic tradition all ground is holy,
because the goodness of God is within.
Ruby’s discovered this goodness,
more and more she is wandering around barefoot (or as she calls it barafooted).
How many of us did this as children?
Many cultures and traditions – such as in predominantly muslim countries, or countries in much of Asia—continue, as adults to take their shoes off both in homes, and in worship settings,
and for sacred rituals.
Most of us don’t, even though Moses offers an example for the Judeo-Chrsitian tradtion,
because our feet stink J, or too many goatheads or shards of glass
Want to begin a practice of removing our shoes before walking into church?
We’ve limited our contact with the earth.
And going barafooted more often, or playing around in the dirt, doesn’t change how modes of transportation is the overwhelming reason we’ve lost touch with the earth.
We’ve become extremely insensitivity to creation.
And as a result, we witness or turn a blind eye to:
- the terrible destruction of forests and habitats (hundreds of species are going extinct every year);
- rapid poisoning of waters and fields;
- incessant drillings and decapitations of mountains -
The forces behind this destruction (evil according to the Celtic understanding) are firmly in place,
and won’t be defeated by a home garden or going barafooted.
But this does not mean that we who long to honor God by caring for God’s creation stop searching for new ways to create sensitivities to creation, whether we live in city high rises or in the isolated country-side.
Maybe walking barafooted—feeling the earth with our feet—could be a symbolic way of a reawakening that needs to happen if we are to be in a more whole relationship with creation?
Maybe a meditative practice of prayer while walking could create a heightened awareness of the essential goodness of God all around us…
And taking it a step further:
Newell asks us to consider the relationship of the way we care for the earth and the way we care for the people of the earth.
Does our attitude toward the earth translate to our attitude toward other people?
Do we celebrate the gifts of people as we celebrate the gifts of creation?
Or, In a throw it away society, do we easily discard people?
The Celts suggest that there is a direct relationship.
And it essentially comes down to the relationship between our understanding of nature and grace.
The 5th Century Celtic father, Pelagius pointed to what he called
”the good of nature and the good of grace.”
Both free gifts of God…
And theologically speaking,
there is to be no inequality in the distribution of these gifts of God.
Pelagius saw the way nature worked as a way to understand grace,
and the way grace was understood as a way to understand nature.
He said, ‘the moon and stars are not more to serve one instead of another.’
In the same way he refused to put limits on who would be recipient of God’s grace.
Which turned out to be a problem…
Teaching no limits on God’s grace was in direct conflict with Augustine, who was teaching a doctrine of predestination that limited the grace of God.
“Only some were chosen by God to receive the grace of salvation.
The rest of humanity was to be judged for its essentially sinful nature” (Newell, 42).
Which teaching did the dominate church ultimately adopt?
Is grace a free gift for all?
Are there limits?
Who’s in and who’s out?
Are the earth’s resources a free gift for all?
Who receives and who does not?
Pelagius was declared a heretic and deposed from the ministry precisely because he refused to accept there were limitations to God’s gift of grace.
Be careful about who you think receives grace J.
Still, the Celtic tradition preserved an understanding
that the very rising of the sun each morning is a gift of God,
given for the whole of creation,
no less than the gift of redemption,
given to restore creation to its essential well-being “ (42)
Grace and nature, nature and grace.
If one teaches that grace can be limited, available for some,
but not for all,
can that lead to a rationale that nature and resources are available for some but not for all?
Are some more deserving of God’s goodness than others?
Are some more deserving of God’s gift grace than others?
Are some more deserving of God’s good gifts of nature and the abundance described in Genesis 1, than others?
Pelagius said, “God’s generosity to humankind is given for all people, both through the gift of nature and the gift of grace.
Any inequality in the dispensation of these gifts is due not to God
but to human injustice.
He simply appealed to reason:
Does it seem just to you then:
- that one man should have an abundance of riches over and above his needs,
while another does not have enough even to supply his daily wants?
--That one man should relax in the enjoyment of his wealth,
while another wastes away in poverty?
-That one man should be full to bursting-point with expensive and sumptuous banquets far in excess of nature’s habitual requirements, while another has not even enough cheap food to satisfy him?
-That one should possess a vast number of splendid houses adorned with costly marble statues in keeping with the instincts of his vanity and pride,
while another has not even a tiny hovel to call his own and to protect him from the cold or the heat?
-That one man should maintain countless possessions and enormous expanses of land,
while another cannot enjoy the possession of even a small portion of turf on which to sit down?
-That one man should be rich in gold, silver, precious stones and all kinds of material possessions, while another is harassed by hunger, thirst, nakedness, and all kinds of poverty?
Inequality, be it in schools, in opportunity,
and in access to the basics of food, water, and shelter,
leads to destruction....evil. denial of goodness…
Dramatic inequalities in our own country are what have lead journalist Tavis Smiley and Professor Cornell West to speak out.
They point out that 1% of our country of some 300 million people own 42 percent of the wealth.
And alarmingly they say that today—in the wealthiest nation in the world—
one in about 2 of us, are living in or near poverty.
Many of us are one accident, one illness, one tragic event away from poverty. (it would be interesting to see how they define poverty – which I’m sure they articulate in their book: The Rich and the Rest of Us).
Pelagius taught that there are three types of people:
-Those who have enough,
-those who have not enough,
- and those who have more than enough.
“Let no man have more than he really needs.” He said,
“and everyone will have as much as they need,
since the few who are rich are the reason for the many who are poor.’
Pelagius taught a type of redistribution of the gifts of nature:
“all should possess impartiality and with equal rights.’
“As Christians we are to live by ‘Christ’s example and teachings:
Do unto others as we would have them do unto us..
And the biggest challenge I see, in light of the global reality,
is not only to bring everyone up out of poverty—
which is an understanding that feeds neo-liberal thinking of the global market-place and further leads to the destruction of the earth,
but to bring those of us who have acquired more than we need
down a bit…
to live simply so that others may simply live, as the saying goes. Hmmm…
I think Claudia Aguilar will be preaching on that in a few weeks; let’s see what she has to say J .
Pelagius lifts up the powerful gospel text of Matthew 25 in which judgment comes to those who have fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, and clothed the naked, and those who have not.
In lifting up this text Pelagius defined goodness not as refraining from doing evil, but of actively doing good:
“Indeed, you are instructed not only to not strip one who is clothed of his garments,
but also to cover one who has not been stripped of his garments with your own;
nor only not to take bread away from one who has it
but willingly to bestow your own on one who had none;
nor only not to drive a poor man out of his lodging
but also to receive into your own one who has been driven out of his and has none as a result.”
Or to put it in a more modern American way:
“If we think we have ours and don’t owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind,
then we are part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans” [– Marian Wright Edelman as quoted in The Rich and the Rest of Us, Smiley and West 2012].
Newell points out:
“Those who consider that the Celtic tradition is merely a romanticized nature-mysticism need to hear the hard-hitting words of Celtic teachers again and again over the centuries.
TO claim both nature and grace are gifts of God given for all
is to offer a spirituality that engages deeply with the life of the world and that calls emphatically for a just distribution of the earth’s resources.” (Newell 1999, 45)
Let us walk barefoot.
Let us rediscover the gifts of God…
nature and grace.
God’s free gifts for everyone.
May we as a Christian community consider work which would honor and protect these gifts, with deep care
May our cry of faith echo that of Martin Luther King, Jr. who said:
“I choose to identify with the underprivileged,
I choose to identify with the poor,
I choose to give my life for the hungry,
I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity.” as quoted in The Rich and the Rest of Us, Smiley and West 2012).
May Color and Goodness burst forth from the earth and from our daily living.
Amen
E