Look to the Earth, and it Shall Teach You

Healing God’s Creation

By Pr. Nancy G. Wright, Ascension, South Burlington, Vt.

Synod Liaison for Environmental Affairs

Speak to the earth and let it teach you (Job 12:8)

I grew up in Colorado, and the earth did teach me. The Rocky Mountains, visible from our house in Denver, especially when the sun set on them – I knew God was there! During communion, as the minister read Psalm 139 – “where can I go from thy spirit?” – I saw the mountains, outside the church, beautiful, compelling – even there God would find me.

Yet, pollution from automobiles grew in the late sixties, when I was a teenager, obscuring the peaks; I knew in my bones that something was wrong.

A full 20 years later, after ordination and work in New York City in several ecumenical ministries, environmental issues nagged at me. I stayed for a week at Genesis Farm in the New Jersey hills. Begun and run by an order of Roman Catholic nuns who grew vegetables and sold them through their own CSA –

a cooperative venture where consumers buy directly from a local farmer, the Genesis Farm community is dedicated to living Christianity in the context of Creation. The farm was a perfect place to walk in the fields and to say to God, “I’m so disturbed about the abuse of nature.” And I heard God reply, “Fine, but you need credibility.”

In this journey through a Master of Arts degree in environmental conservation and a decade’s ministry with two ecumenical agencies working in environmental justice, I have met many of the theologians, clergy and concerned lay people in this growing “movement.”

Here is what I have learned.

The need –

To rediscover Jesus as a nature mystic. Jesus worshiped outside on the hills at night. He pointed to the lily as an icon of how we should live (without anxiety).

To contemplate and preach on the cosmic Christ (Hebrews 1:1-3, Colossians 1:15-20, John 1:1-5). What does it mean that Christ is in all things? How would we behave and order our economic and worship lives were we to respect and love Christ in all things?

To critique Christianity to some extent for our problem. (See Lynne White’s famous essay On the Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis and the Rev. H. Paul Santmire’s The Travail of Nature.)

To recognize that Lutherans have much to contribute. I refer to the ELCA social statement, Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice, adopted in 1993 and Resolution 07-10 on Global Climate Change passed at the 2007 Assembly of the New England Synod. Further, Martin Luther held that God’s presence is in all things. (“[God] is a supernatural, inscrutable being who exists at the same time in every little seed, whole and entire, and yet also in all and above all and outside all created things.”) Some important theologians studying environmental abuse and Christian response have been Lutheran, and they include Dr. Philip Hefner, Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Dr. Larry Rasmussen, Dr. H. Paul Santmire, rostered in our own synod, and the late Dr. Joseph Sittler. (See bios below.)

To understand that the environmental abuse, climate change, species extinction and consequent suffering for humans and creatures create the largest challenge humanity has ever faced. A complex problem of such magnitude requires a moral response.

To appreciate that human society and behavior works against care for creation. Nature is not valued economically, so we can destroy nature and our GNP (Gross National Product) rises (the Exxon Valdez oil spill is an example). (See John Cobb and Herman Daly, For the Common Good).

To appreciate the “tragedy of the commons” means that no one is held responsible for environmental abuse. Water is polluted by everyone, but baptism speaks powerfully to the need for clean water. It is sinful to desecrate the means through which God conveys sacramental grace of baptism.

To note that that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians around the world, has called the abuse of nature a sin. We should be alert to manifestations of environmental sin, e.g., to whom does the night belong, God or Michelob beer?

To know that our responsibility is to future generations. The church with a 2,000 year old history is venerable and strong enough to say that we care about the seventh generation of our children’s children, as did the Native Americans, and are responsible to pass on the beauties and complexities of nature to them.

To affirm that God is creator and sustainer of all. If we cannot see the earth, but mostly ourselves reflected in it, as streams are covered with debris, mountains indistinct because of pollution, fish in rivers inedible because of mercury, drinking water contaminated, and species becoming extinct our lives diminish and perspective and belief in God shrinks. For millennium, people have known God to speak through the power and passion and beauty of nature. Many find God there and not in churches.

To prophetically and urgently counterbalance consumerism (it would take four earths to sustain the lifestyles of all six billion humans if they all consumed material goods as does the First World). God is known in bread and wine and desires that all are fed, meaning not only an end to hunger and poverty but abundant life for all creatures.

Biographies

Dr. Philip Hefner is professor of systematic theology, editor of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, and past president of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science (a program unit of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago). He has authored 125 scholarly articles and seven books.

Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, assistant professor, Seattle University, authored Healing a Broken World: Globalization and God (Fortress, 2002). She is involved in ecumenical church work on economic justice issues. She also wrote Public Church: For the Life of the Word (2004, a part of the Lutheran Voices series produced by Augsburg Fortress, the publishing ministry of the ELCA.

Dr. Larry Rasmussen, is retired Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and author of 10 books, including Earth Community, Earth Ethics (Orbis, 1996). He served as co-moderator of the Commission on Justice, Peace, and Creation of the World Council of Churches.

Dr. H. Paul Santmire of Watertown, Mass., [former pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Hartford, Conn., who also served as assistant pastor at University Lutheran Church, Cambridge, Mass., and a college chaplain in Wellesley, Mass.] historian and pastoral scholar, is a frequent speaker and lecturer in the area of ecological theology and environmental ethics. His book The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christianity (1985) was seminal in detailing the problems and promise of Christian theology to environmental ethics. His Web site (www.hpaulsantmire.net) provides a wealth of resources.

Dr. Joseph Sittler (1904-1987) taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School and wrote several important books, reissued as Gravity and Grace (Augsburg, 2004), and the Care of the Earth (Augsburg, 2004). His was an early and prophetic voice in this movement. See www.josephsittler.org. for the Joseph Sittler Archives.