The Mayberry Preacher

MORE THAN JUST BELIEVING: REDISCOVERING "GOING GREEN"

(Note to readers: well, I'm not preaching again this week!  Our church is having its first-ever Homecoming as part of our 150th anniversary celebration, and we are honored to have the Rev. Steve McCutchan preaching as I assist in worship.

So, to fill the gap this week, I've decided to repost a sermon I preached earlier this year as part of my Lenten Sermon Series.  I was led to repost this particular one in light of the recent release of "The Green Bible," an environmentally-aware publication of the NRSV translation.  It's pretty nifty, and I'd encourage you to read more about it in a post I made on my other blog.

It is kind of sad that those who were given the command "to till and keep the earth" have fallen so far behind in the environmental quest for our earth.  This sermon was an attempt to call us back to that very endeavor.)

 
 
Genesis 1: 26-31; Psalm 24: 1-2, 7-10
Steve Lindsley
March 2, 2008

There is a story that goes like this: a group of scientists, world-renowned experts in their various fields, were reviewing all the scientific accomplishments of the last millennium – diseases that had been cured, food that had been artificially manufactured, even life created in a test tube.  And they came to a unanimous conclusion – the human race did not need God anymore.  Things had gotten to the point, they surmised, where they could sustain the many species and the world without the Divine’s help. So they thought it would be the courteous thing to inform God of their decision, so that God would feel free to find another universe to oversee.

They came before God and shared their thoughts.  God, being a realist, admitted to the amazing strides the human race had made over the years.  So God was willing to leave humanity on its own if this group of experts could pass one small test.  I want you to create life, God asked them, just like I did in the beginning, with a handful of dirt.  The scientists took this challenge to heart.  They convened over the next few weeks, working day and night.  And finally – eureka!  They determined that, together, they possessed the scientific knowledge to meet God’s challenge.
So they went back to God and told God they had figured it out.  Show me, God asked.  One of the scientists ran outside and came back in with a vial full of dirt.  But before they got any further, God stopped them and said, Oh, I’m sorry, you must have misunderstood.  I meant for you to get your own dirt!

Now getting their “own dirt,” of course, is not something those scientists could’ve done.  Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that in a world where we can order fast food fast, where a few clicks on Amazon.com can put a book in our mailbox in a matter of days, where an old t-shirt can be discarded and replaced with a new one – in a world with so much of so much, one of the very few things we cannot get more of is dirt.  What we’ve got is all we’re ever going to have.

You know, it’s the same thing with this earth of ours.  As you know, our sermon series this Lenten season is focusing on More Than Just Believing. It’s about the idea that thoughts lead to actions, convictions lead to change, believing leads to following.  Last week we talked about how our faith calls us not only to think nice things about “the least of these,” but to stand alongside and align ourselves with them.  Today it’s not people we’re talking about, but something else that certainly needs our attention.  Consider the following:

• One-fifth of our planet’s tropical rainforests – crucial to the overall world climate – have been cleared since 1960.  Currently they’re disappearing at 1% each year.
• We are currently operating at 100 to 1000 times the normal extinction rate, which means that today, one in four mammal species, one in ten bird species, one in four amphibian species, and half of all primate species are threatened with extinction.
• In our lakes, rivers and oceans, fisheries are being depleted at twice their replacement rate.
• And speaking of water, by 2020 one in three people will suffer from fresh water shortages.  This has already been experienced in third-world countries, and is being felt now in industrialized nations, even in our own state of North Carolina, where some counties and municipalities are still under water restrictions.

I imagine many of you have heard these statistics or others like them before.  Now, here’s the interesting part: these were not compiled by some scientist or some stereotypical environmental activist.  These statistics were assembled by internationally acclaimed Christian writer and theologian Brian McLaren in his most recent book, aptly titled Everything Must Change. Brian is no push-over: he is a Biblical scholar who is part of a new movement – or more appropriately a new-old movement – to reclaim, among other things, the environmental component of the Christian faith.   He is making the important case that “going green,” as the current lingo goes, is not simply a nice thing for people of faith to do, but is in fact a Biblical mandate and duty for every follower of Christ.

Perhaps it may surprise us to look at this particular issue through the lens of faith – we’re not really used to that.  It is almost as if, over the years, we Christians have managed to remove ourselves from this conversation.  And that’s a shame – because this conversation is not only one we should be part of, but in fact it is one that we started, a very long time ago.

Remember back to the beginning of it all, the book of Genesis, and the beautiful account of how our world, and everything in it, came to be.  The heavens and the earth, day and night, created on the first day.  The sky above and waters below on the second and third.  The sun and moon and stars on the fourth; the fish in the seas and birds in the air on the fifth.  Animals roaming the earth on the sixth.  All the world was an intentional act of God; an act that had meaning and purpose and (something which will make us Presbyterians happy) order.

Also on the sixth day, God created humankind, male and female.  And there is something wonderfully unique about this particular creature in God’s order – it was given the following directive:

Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living thing that moves upon the earth.

Dominion.  It’s a powerful sort of word, isn’t it?  It comes from the Latin word dominus which literally means “lord” or “master.”  Webster’s defines “dominion” as “having supreme authority and absolute power.”  That’s strong stuff!  We think of someone having “dominion” over another and imagine total and complete ownership – where the domineering one completely subjugates the other, and can do with it as it pleases.

Which strikes me, because that’s exactly how it seems we’ve viewed our role in the created order over the years.  The human race has taken this “dominion” thing to an unfortunate extreme – thus the kinds of statistics and examples McLaren and many others continue to bring to our attention.  There is a carelessness and ignorance here, both of which are quite tragic.   Common sense dictates that we are setting up our world, and future generations, for disaster if we persist in habits that lead to the world’s detriment.  It’s just not very smart.

But you know what concerns me as a person of faith, more than this “not being very smart?”  It’s also horrible theology!  As Christians, we are making some assumptions about the world and our role in it that are way out of line with what the Bible tells us.  I’m reminded of the televangelist I once saw on TV who told his millions of viewers that, because God had given us “dominion” over all creation, we could literally do with it whatever we want.  It is ours – we own it!  There are even some who view the current environmental crises as somehow fulfilling Biblical prophecy about the “End Times;” so that the decline of the earth is to be welcomed with open arms.  What this does, of course, is rearrange the whole order of things.  Instead of God being at the center of the universe, we are.  Instead of God’s needs being the ones that matter the most, it’s our needs – our whims and desires, to be more accurate.  It is flawed theology, it is unbiblical, it is dangerous and – let’s just say it – it’s wrong.

There is an ancient story about two men in a rowboat heading toward land. Suddenly, with land still far away, one of the men begins to dig a hole in the bottom of the boat underneath his feet.  The other man asks him what in the world he’s doing.  To which the first replies, This is none of your business. I am digging the hole on my side of the boat!  The point of the story, of course, is that the earth is like a boat, our means of transport in this gift of life; and what one person does with this “boat” affects all who are on it with them.

You know, I wonder what would’ve happened if the televangelist mentioned earlier had taken a closer look at this Genesis passage, and this word “dominion.”  It’s kind of interesting, actually.  The Hebrew word used here, rada, has a connotation that differs dramatically from what the English translation suggests.   It is not at all about exploitation and domination; it’s about bearing a responsibility of care-giving and nurturing. Creation-care, if you will.  Think about that.  To “have dominion” over the world does not mean we can do with it what we want.  To have dominion over the world doesn’t mean it’s ours at all.  As the Psalmist says quite emphatically, The Earth is the LORD’s.  We are commissioned with the care and nurture of all creation; protecting rather than exploiting, building up instead of tearing down, being wise and thoughtful instead of instinctive and selfish.

Now that kind of changes things, doesn’t it?  It makes us wonder: what would the earth look like if Christians everywhere took this little rada word to heart?  What would it look like if we really did see our role, our responsibility, our duty as people of faith, to take care of creation and the creatures within it?  What might that look like?  Well, let me at least tell you what it’s going to look like here at First Presbyterian Church.  Just last month, our session unanimously adopted an initiative titled “FPC Goes Green;” created through the hard work of church members Dave Petri, Lorie Lindsley and Joe Lampl.  You have a copy of this on the back of your announcements page, and I’d like to invite you to follow me as I read it:

“The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” – Psalm 24:1
The Psalmist reminds us that creation is a gift from God.
And yet humanity has for the most part failed to acknowledge this,
assuming that the world is ours to do with as we please.
So we have engaged in practices that harm the environment,
contribute to global warming, and serve our own interests.
.As people of faith, the Christian community should stand opposed to this mindset
and do what it can to re-educate the faith community
that “going green” is not simply  a nice thing to do,
but is in fact a theological and Biblical mandate.
Therefore, as part of the 150th celebration of First Presbyterian Church of Mount Airy,
the session endorses the “FPC Goes Green” initiative.

So what exactly is this initiative?  How is our church going to “go green?”  I’m glad you asked!

First, we are in the process of switching our incandescent lighting to more energy-efficient CFL bulbs.  We’ve already done this with the standard 60-watt bulbs at various places around the church, as well as the spotlights in the Fellowship Hall and here in the sanctuary.  In addition to being much better for the environment by not using nearly as much electricity (thus burning less coal at the energy plant), our calculations suggest that the church will save as much as $600 a year on lighting expenses alone.

Second, beginning with this Sunday’s bulletin and this month’s Grapevine, we are switching to recycled paper in the church office.  Our mailings and other publications will follow suit.  For the most part, you’ll know we’re using recycled paper when you see the logo “Printed on Recycled Paper,” like the one on the back of today’s bulletin.

Third, we are beginning today an in-church recycling program of paper, plastics, magazines, aluminum cans and glass.  You’ll notice special marked blue containers at various points around the church.  All church members will be asked to use these bins for recyclables generated here at the church – bulletins you aren’t taking home with you, soda cans after a fellowship meal (and after you rinse them out, of course), just to name a few examples.  The staff will also use these bins during the week for paper office products, junk mail and catalogs.

To help with the recyclables, we are looking for volunteers to serve on what is being called the “Green Team.”  Twice a month, someone from this group will take the church’s recyclables to the recycling center here in Mount Airy.  We hope to get at least twelve people on the team so each person would only have to do this twice a year.  If you are interested in serving on the “Green Team,” please plan on signing up on the sign-up sheet down the hall after worship.

And finally, we are encouraging all church members to “go green” in their own homes.  You’ll find a handout in the bulletin this morning that gives you some very simple, practical steps on how to do this.  Take this home with you today and, if you would, make time in the coming week to read it with your family.  As you’ll see, it doesn’t involve anything terribly complicated or even expensive.  All it really takes is the willingness to acquire a new set of habits and routines in your home.

Friends, this is how our church, and hopefully its members as well, will “go green” in this year of celebration!  And you know what the really great thing about all of this is?  We’re not just “believing” that it’s good to take care of God’s earth.  We’re not just thinking that it’s a nice thing to do. We’re actually doing something about it as a people of faith!  We’re following Jesus; following his lead as he reminds us that having dominion over the earth means you and I have been given an incredible responsibility – and an incredible opportunity – to be the caretakers of this world that we were always intended to be.  So let’s all “go green:” not even though we’re Christians, but because we’re Christians.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

FOURTH AND LONG - PASS OR PUNT??

Genesis 32:22-31
Steve Lindsley
September 7, 2008

Well my friends, praise be to God it is that time of year!  You turn on your TV  anytime Saturday or Sunday afternoons (as you're, you know, honoring the sabbath by resting on your living room couch) and you're bound to see the glorious scene played out before you: two teams suited up in helmets, shoulder pads, fancy unies; all huddled around a piece of pigskin.  It's football season, folks, and that is a good thing.

I have always been a fervent football fan – high school, college, professional, you name it.  There's something captivating about twelve guys on the field each with their own assignments, very specific plans on what to do for each play; and once the ball is set in motion somehow all of that comes together.  Sometimes the play doesn't go as designed and things fall apart.  Other times, though, the play unfolds perfectly – and when it does, it's a full-fledged symphony carried out on grass and dirt.

Perhaps there is no better example of a perfectly-executed play on the grid iron than one that took place in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.  The game was between the University of Oklahoma and Boise State.  This was a true matchup of David and Goliath – Oklahoma, one of the nation's football powerhouses, and Boise State a relatively unheard-of team out of Idaho.  As the game started, though, there was this strange feeling that Oklahoma seemed to be playing it safe – playing not to lose, essentially. On the other hand, Boise State was leaving it all out on the field, giving it their all, playing to win.

There are two minutes left in the fourth quarter and the game, to everyone's surprise, is close – Boise State is only down by seven.  They had the ball around the middle of the field, but it's all coming to a head: fourth down and 18 yards to get another first down. Conventional wisdom holds that the underdog Broncos should punt the ball and let their defense hold them and try to get the ball back.  But apparently that isn't in the cards this evening, or to be more exact, in the coaches' playbook.  They are going to pass.

The ball is hiked, and quarterback Jared Zabransky drops back a few steps in the pocket, frantically looking downfield for an open receiver as the pass rush quickly clamors around him.  Suddenly he fires a laser to a receiver in the middle of the field, around the 35 yard line.  The good news is that he catches the ball.  The bad news is that he is still three or four yards short of the first down, with defensive players right on top of him.

The receiver is not going to get the first down – but he doesn't need to.  That's because as soon as he catches the ball, and right before the defenders pounce, he suddenly pivots to his right and pitches the ball to his left – right into the outstretched arms of a Bronco teammate running down the opposite side of the field.  Without missing a stride he catches the ball and runs into the endzone.  It was a planned play, and they ran it to perfection.  But the magic isn't over then.  Rather than kick the extra point to tie the game, Boise State goes for the win – executing another trick play to make the two point conversion.  Final score: Boise State – 43; Oklahoma – 42.  And to add icing onto the cake, as if this isn't enough of a storybook ending, the guy who made the winning score runs over to his cheerleader girlfriend and – with an audience of millions watching – takes a knee and asks for her hand in marriage!  She, of course, says yes.

You just can't write stuff like this – and that's why I love football.  It would have been so easy for Boise State to play it safe – to punt the ball instead of trying for a ridiculous first down, or at the very least kicking the extra point and taking the game into overtime.  No one would've faulted them for that – they were, after all, Boise State, and weren't even supposed to be in this bowl game to begin with.  At least that's what conventional thinking said. It would have been a “moral victory” just to hold their own against a team like Oklahoma.

But Boise State was anything but conventional on that early January evening, and they refused to play it safe.  They came into that game, truly believing they could do something as crazy as winning.  They took chances on plays and schemes that would either go as planned or blow up in their faces.  They played to win.

You know, people can often resemble football teams, I've found.  Because some people live life out of fear of making a wrong move, or making a mistake.  They err on the side of caution rather than on the side of trying something new.  They play it safe.  Then there are those who see life as an endless string of possibilities, all of which need to be experienced.  No stone is left unturned – and when it comes to the game of life, these people play to win.

Now I am not much of a pop psychologist, but I have to think that Jacob kind of fell into the latter category, don't you?  This guy had a knack for living on the edge!  I mean, when the guy wrangles the family birthright and blessing from his older brother Esau by capitalizing on the moment and outright deception, you know you're not dealing with someone who “plays it safe.”  You're dealing with someone who plays to win.

In our reading we find an older Jacob on his own, resting peacefully one night by the river Jabbok.  Suddenly, out of the blue, this stranger appears and begins wrestling with him.  Kind of a random sort of thing, but there it is.  We don't know who this person is or what brought on the attack.  The thing we do know is that the struggle goes on for hours – all night until the dawn is coming.  Jacob may have been caught off-guard, and he may be wrestling with some divine being, but he was never about losing a fight.  He was in it to win.

He held on to his attacker, even after he has his hip knocked out of joint, and demanded from him a blessing.  And that's when the stranger tells him that his name is no longer Jacob, but Israel, because, as he put it, “you have striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.”  That is what the word “Israel” means.  Name changes are common in the Bible and usually mark some major change in a person's life.  In Jacob's case it marked the time he “refused to lose” and more than held his own against, apparently, God himself.

You know, I've often wondered what this story is about exactly.  I mean, who in the world was this strange man?  Was he an angel, or God himself in the flesh?  Who was he?  We don't really know.  More questions come to mind – like what are these two fighting over?  The writer of Genesis is kind of weak on transition here, as we segue in the same verse from Jacob all alone to suddenly wrestling with this stranger.  Was his attacker trying to mug him?  Did Jacob unknowingly wander into someone else’s territory?  Once again, we don't really know.

So let’s deal with what we do know.  We know the two had a pretty good knock-down for most of the night.  We know Jacob’s opponent is smart enough to know how to cripple him in the hip.  We know that Jacob is – pun intended here – a sore loser who is not going to give up easily.  And we know this stranger has some kind of authority to both bless Jacob and give him his new name.  In a nutshell, that’s what we know.

Now there may be a lot about this scene that we don't understand, but I'm wondering if we already understand enough.  Because what it boils down to is this: when troubles find Jacob by the river Jabbok, when he is faced with the most formidable of foes; when it is fourth down and 18 and he's down by seven, he plays to win.  He stays with the struggle until he receives God’s blessing and gets his new name.  He doesn't punt – he goes for the pass.

And I'm not employing all this fun football imagery here to highlight stuff like male bravado and putting up the good fight and “Remember the Titans” sports glory.  Because ultimately football is nothing more than a game – a great game, if you ask me, but just a game.  Life, though – life is something else.  And rarely is there any real “glory” in the struggles that enter into your life and mine.  Rarely does the scene end with two trick plays, eight points and a marriage proposal.  We kind of feel like Jacob, don't we?  I mean, it's not like we went looking for trouble.  It's just that one day there we were, sitting  peacefully by the river lying down for a good night’s rest; and the next thing we know we’re being attacked by some stranger who just won’t let us go.  And we cry out to God, we yell at God, we may even curse God from time to time; and we echo the same cries the Psalmist did thousands of years ago: Why?  How long?  Have you forgotten me?  How long, God? Why??

I remember years ago, attending some conference with my youth group; and the speaker said something that really troubled me.  I can't remember the exact words, but it was along the lines of this: Commit your life to Christ, he said, and God will take all your troubles away.  God will make your life easier, because all things are easy when Jesus rules your heart.

And I remember thinking, even in my young state, how this sounded like way too much of a sales pitch, because the fact of the matter is that it just wasn't true.  It couldn't be true because sitting right next to me at that retreat was Jonathan, a good buddy of mine who had made a profession of faith and joined the church just like I had earlier in the year.  Two weeks before this retreat, Jonathan was attacked by the proverbial stranger in the night when his parents sat him and his younger brother down in the family living room to tell them that they were getting a divorce.  Jonathan's life certainly hadn't gotten any easier just because of his faith.  None of our lives had.

In fact, I think the case could be made that the stronger you are in your faith, and the longer you live as a person of faith, the harder living can get.  It gets harder because it is not easy to contend in the world we live.  We are Jacob trying to make it through the night.  We are Boise State staring across the line of scrimmage at Oklahoma.  We are people who profess our belief in a man who held no status in society, who made a habit of saying crazy things like “love your enemies” and “the first shall be last;” who was put to death in a way that was reserved for the most despicable of criminals.  It is no wonder that life as a person of faith is rarely an easy one.

Life is not always easy for those who choose to follow Jesus because of one reason and one reason only: we do not play the game the same way that the world does.  You and I, as people of faith living in the year 2008, follow in the footsteps of centuries and centuries of other people just like us who made a choice to play the game differently.  Not changing the rules; not breaking them.  We just stubbornly insist on playing it differently.  There's a man on the street corner, dressed in rags and toting a worn bag over his worn shoulders – and we hear Jesus say, inasmuch as you have done it for these, you have done it to me.  There are landfills of our waste that seem to pile up by the second, and the average person seems okay with that – and yet we do weird things like reducing and reusing and recycling.  There are people who put their full trust in institutions or governments or people of power because they believe they can provide them with security in an insecure world – meanwhile we spend our time and energy serving and working for another kingdom: the kingdom of God on earth.  There's a sense that the world is hopelessly segmented; that  there must be this group or that, that some must be in and others out; this race and that race; this class and that class; red states and blue states.  But you and I rise out of bed every morning and commit ourselves to an alternative view, one laid before us by the apostle Paul: there is neither Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free, for all are one in Jesus Christ.

We are just stubborn about playing the game differently.  Not changing the rules; not breaking them.  Just playing it differently.  Jacob wrestled with “whoever-it-was” until dawn's light.  Boise State racked up an unexpected win.  And you and me?  It's not that our faith makes life any easier.  It just makes reaching the end zone all the more sweeter. And when we get there, and the celebration begins, we give thanks to God for passing on the punt, and going for the pass.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.