The Beginning of Creation and the End of the Earth

One evening, when Firefly was almost four, we were decorating the Christmas tree. After all of the colorful ornaments and white lights were in place, there was only one thing left to do, the highlight of our ritual, crown the tree with our most treasured ornament, a lovely angel in a gold and white flowing gown. Firefly watched me place the angel on top. With the house lights off and the tree lights on, I asked eagerly, 

     How does it look Firefly?

     Firefly said, Hideous! It looks hideous!

     There was a short pause, then she said, 

     What does hideous mean again?

Yes, it was funny to hear a little girl using a big word that she didn’t understand. But there was something else, the paradox of hideous – a word we use to describe something we see or hear that is horrible, something morally disgusting, something that causes a great deal of suffering - juxtaposed to a beautifully trimmed Christmas tree that we churchgoing folk still use to celebrate of the birth of Christ.

But maybe these two extremes aren’t incongruent. After all, the end-times Jesus describes in today’s gospel are hideous. Wars and insurrections, and earthquakes and famines are horrible. Jesus tells us that these things must happen before the coming of God’s reign.

Let’s face it, there’s no getting around these apocalyptic
passages. But that doesn’t stop all the progressive preachers I know from trying. And who could blame them? A Sunday morning talk about creating new heavens and earth is more, well … pleasant. However, I suspect that another motive for avoiding these apocalyptic passages is to draw a line between our beliefs and ultra-right Christians and politicians. Because we don’t want to be associated with those who believe in a God that punishes humanity with wars, typhoons and plagues and who don’t believe that global warming has anything to do with human behavior.

In the end-time prophecies of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus outlined the global calamities that would occur with increasing frequency.

Stand up and raise your heads, for the signs that Jesus portends are here:

False profits with doomsday predictions - Check

Nations rising against nations - Check

Natural disasters of epic proportions - Check

Disease - Check

Hunger and drought – Check, check.

The twist in this drama is the fact that we humans, not God, are responsible for every one of these signs.

God made the earth,

and out of greed we suck it dry.

God gave us a mind to think and hands to create, and we make weapons and war.

God gave us eyes, and we close them to the destruction we do to nature.

God gave us a heart, and we turn it to stone so we don’t have to care.

Shouldn’t our Christianity help prevent these things?

In his 1967 article, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," UCLA professor Lynn White blamed Christianity for the global environmental crisis:

Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia's religions, not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends.

Written almost 50 years ago, Wright’s assertion is both tragic and true. God created the heavens and earth, and with the lethal combination of scriptural misinterpretation and unbridled anthropocentrism we are responsible for the world’s desecration. There are other powers at play for sure; we can’t blame it all on Christianity.

We seek comfort in this bleak reality by envisioning other times. While St. Luke forewarns, “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world," we long for a golden-age that is greener, safer, and more peaceful.  The generations before us looked back to Eden for paradise the same way we look to the future for heaven. Apocalyptic theology doesn’t call us to another place or another time. Apocalyptic theology is our anchor in reality. And when we’re standing in the face the chaos and suffering, Jesus wants us to testify.

This command to speak out may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s true – when we experience betrayal and persecution, when the temple is falling down around us, Jesus charges us to use these times as opportunities to testify. And not only that, we are instructed not to prepare in advance because words and wisdom will be given us. This requires courage in the face of fear, and the strength to speak even as we suffer.

Whether we are a witness to suffering or have experience it ourselves, suffering changes us; those who endure gain their very soul.

The good news for us is that the very scripture we’ve contorted to justify exploiting the planet and making war, is the same scripture that will restore the planet, and redeem humanity. But our linear understanding of time is impeding this transformation.

Time, a very human construct, has prevented our living into God’s realm. I’d like to ask you to let go of the definitions of past, present and future and imagine if you will, God holding it all - yesterday, today and tomorrow - in the palm of his hand.

This is the mystery of faith we proclaim during our Eucharist: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Even though it sounds pessimistic to say we are living in 
ecological end-times, we remain in God’s time. 

But the ecological tipping point rests firmly on the shoulders of humanity.

Of course we want to do our part but it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems and the powerful forces driving them.  Slowly, and with great endurance, committed environmental activists in community organizations and businesses are demonstrating how the right change can turn eco systems away from ruin and restore environmental sustainability.

Some of these models are within our reach: Community gardens, rainwater harvesting, non-toxic insect control management, backyard beehives.

Our temple is falling down around us. These are the times Jesus tells us to testify.

We think that restoring the planet is a long, slow process, but it is a twinkling in God’s eye. God’s time is time-less; 
all times are end-times.

Jesus has been born, and we are awaiting his birth.  The beginning of creation, and the end of the earth are both here. Now. For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.

I’d like to leave you with these words from Wendell Berry – a short poem called 
The Peace of Wild Things. 

         When despair for the world grows in me
          and I wake in the night at the least sound
          in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
          I go and lie down where the wood drake
          rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
          I come into the peace of wild things
          who do not tax their lives with forethought
          of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
          And I feel above me the day-blind stars
          waiting with their light. For a time
          I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Proper 28, YC  November 17, 2013