September 8, 2024

Take Your Share

The season of creation originated in Australia and moved into north America and Europe Hebrew scholar Norman Habel originated the season of creation and tested it out in in the Uniting Churches in Melbourne and was tested out in 50 churches from 2001 through 2005.  Since then, it has become a growing practice in churches all over the world.

Habel writes, “Accordingly, we are seeking to read the relevant Bible texts also from the perspective of the Earth and of its members of the Earth community. We have become aware of that in the past most interpretations of texts about creation—Earth or our kin on the planet—have been read from an anthropocentric perspective, focusing on the interests of humans The task before us is to begin reading also from the perspective of creation”[1]

In other words, it isn’t always about us! It is about everything living breathing animals, soil, air, water and how we are part of it all!

Pope Francis wrote “listen to the voices of creation… We need to learn to listen to the voices of nature and learn the languages of the more than human life and the Earth…If we learn how to listen, we can hear in the voice of creation a kind of dissonance. On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this our common home.”[2]

So many of us are not listening.  We are not hearing creation cry out! We do not see the scars of destruction we are leaving behind. In a radio interview, Evelyn Underhill, an author of early studies of mysticism, states.

“But so many Christians are like deaf people at a concert. They study the program carefully, believe every statement made in it, speak respectfully of the quality of the music, but only really hear a phrase now and again. So, they have no notion at all of the mighty symphony which fills the universe, to which our lives are destined to make their tiny contribution, and which is the self-expression of the Eternal God”[3]

It is a poor choice for a metaphor, and I can explain that for a few hours, but do you hear what she is saying. We often can be amid awe and wonder but only glimpse a small part of the true splendor of the universe and this planet. How many times have I headed out to a place and just drove through the beauty and grandeur that is creation and ignored it because I am going from point a to b? How many times have we stopped to pause just where we are and take in God’s splendor and beauty? We really cannot change our behavior until we truly appreciate what we are making changes for.

Thomas Keating Thomas Keating, a Trappist priest and one of the principal developers of centering prayer reflects on Beauty. “without some beauty in one’s life as a regular experience or practice, most people will find it hard to maintain the spiritual level of peace or rest amid their very active lives.

Life in the west, at least, is more active, more frenetic, noisier, and more intrusive from information, most of which is negative. Thus our poor little psyches are battered day and night with information, news, noise, at an accelerating pace.

I’m reminded of a peace activist during the time of Vietnam war. He was always getting himself in jail from trespassing on federal property. And so he would spend a good deal of the year in jail, which is perhaps one of the worst environments on earth, because it’s always noisy and there is no beauty easily at hand. It’s an intense experience of human misery for most inmates.

He used to say that he needed to come to Snowmass, where the mountains are significant, beautiful, and the colors are exquisite in so many directions. He said that he couldn’t continue this demanding ministry of witnessing to peace and getting arrested [without coming) to the monastery to live monastic life with us, because he said, “I can’t keep this up without some experience or proportion of beauty in my life. Just looking at the mountains is a relief for me.” Being in an intentional community of love, service, simple work, fellowship – all of these things were refreshing for him and gave him not only the courage but the psychological strength and resources to go back to bang on the doors of federal or industrial military complexes of one sort or another. This really inspired me to realize that a place for beauty every day in our life is part of the spiritual journey. Because how can you know God – who is beauty itself – without some experience of it?”[4]

We seldom appreciate fully our bonds and interconnections to all of creation around us.  We do not slow down to become mindful of what is available and immediate to our senses and feel gratitude for the gift of the Earth, a gift of the Creator that provides the necessities for life: air, water, soil, sun and the life around us. Few slow down to realize our interconnectedness unless we practice some contemplative practice intentionally engaging our immediate environment. Nature has a sacramental presence of the Spirit and of the incarnated Christ.  Thomas Berry often quotes, “The universe is not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects.” We swim in the presence of life entangled with the Spirit.

During these next few weeks we are going to be expanding upon the basic theme of House rules for Ecological Transformation as expressed in the Earth Justic lectionary which is in production stage as I speak.

Reverend Doctor Robert Shore-Goss writes; “There are a number of programs on the Home Garden Television network that inspire “DIY” (Do It Yourself) transformation of homes.  The Season of Creation is DIY season for personal and social transformation. Many Christian denominations have set up guidelines to become a creation-centered church and begin the transformation. The Season of Creation, in one sense, functions as the capstone of the liturgical year in that it focuses, in an intense period of time, on developing your skills for house renovation and to restoration our house. The house (oikos) metaphor has been used to include the planet Earth.  It includes the administration (polity), economy, sustainability, and preservation of the house for habitation and for future generations. God is understood as the owner of the house, but God lives in that house and remains active in the household.”[5]

Today’s story in exodus contains an interesting command by God. Everyone is to gather as much as they need. And each who followed God’s command had just as much as they needed not too much not too little. But God also commanded that they consume what they take.  Those who tried to save it for the next day had a mess.  How many times as children did, we hear do not take more than you can eat.

Just food alone so much is wasted. “40% of all food is thrown away or plowed over. In California, 100 billion pounds. In California alone, over 5 billion pounds of prepared food is thrown away every year.”[6] In exodus God is teaching us to be more attentive to our ties to creation, to the world around us. We should be grateful for the abundance creation offers and use it wisely.

So, I mentioned food waste, did you know there is an app for that! Like many things in this world there are people trying to make a difference. Waste no Food is the name of the app. “Service organizations want access to excess food, but there are barriers — locating the excess food, establishing their credentials, and efficiently deploying resources to transport food. Waste No Food breaks down these barriers.”[7]

I know the app has partnered with Tampa bay but if you know any restaurant owners you may wish to let them know they just send out a notice they have food then volunteers pick it up and get it to the appropriate charities.

I also read from psalm 24 today;

1 The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,

the world, and those who live in it,

2 for he has founded it on the seas

and established it on the rivers.

This “affirmation establishes a theological basis for care of the earth. It does not belong to human beings to extract whatever pleases us. It is under God’s jurisdiction, not ours, thus suggesting that we should respect whatever belongs to the Divine. The earth and all that is within it were established by God and should be treated with utmost care since it comes from the Creator. We are part of the earth – granted — but in this psalm we are not given power or dominion over creation. Rather, we are part of what God has created.”[8]

This psalm is about entering into God’s temple. Now we know the Church is not a building and we will say it many times. We need to live like a church without walls. Our Sanctuary is the community and the world around us. Though Psalm 24 focuses on the sanctuary of the temple, Norman Habel argues that we can perceive the sanctuary in broader terms: “A fundamental way to allow God to reorient us in worship, then, is to see Earth, rather than the walls of our own church building, as our sanctuary. In this respect, as we worship, Earth is for us a sacred space, a place where God is active and where God encounters us. Scriptures reveal God’s presence permeating all creation and making it sacred.”[9]

In exodus we encounter a bountiful God. Exodus 9:7-8 “7 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to provide you with every blessing[a] in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”

God truly has blessed us with an abundance through the earth and all of its bounty.  But here God states that we are blessed abundantly that we might share abundantly. Not waste abundantly.

“Our capitalist culture promotes a socio-economic ideology which makes it an individual goal for increased accumulation and consumption.  Humans need more than neighbors, and there is never enough.  Earth’s economy is not unlimited, and by living within limits, there are enough resources to share to meet everyone’s need but not human infinite greed/ E. F. Shumacher argues for a “small is beautiful” mode of economic living.[10]   Likewise, Sallie McFague claims, “The good life is not having ‘more and more’ but ‘enough.’ Enough of what? Not money as such but what money can give people: adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, creative and spiritual opportunities, fellowship and leisure time and space.”[11]   Take what you only needs expresses a spiritual orientation and participation in the Earth’s economy of abundance that instructs us to do with the minimum and not the maximum levels of consumption before the whole planet dies from ecocidal, extractive economies that ignores the resource limitless of the Earth.[12]

We as the UCC proclaim an Open Table all are welcome and all share equally in the bread of life. We do not come to the table and take a whole loaf of bread. That would be ridiculous.  If we think of the world as our sanctuary, then the earth itself is Gods table and though that table is abundant we should treat with the respect and frugality that we treat the eucharist.

Ethnobotanist and indigenous author Robin Hall Kimmerer claims that there are consequences to comprehending Earth as gift: “But when everything became a gift, I felt self-restraint. I didn’t want to take too much.”[13]   A sense of gratitude of the natural world produces self-restraint. Similarly, Wendell Berry notes, “It is more than likely that we will have to live with limits… or not at all.”[14]

The Creator Spirit supplies the seed to the Sower and bread for food will multiply abundance for all life by restraint and only taking a fair share.  This frugality arises only as intentional spiritual practice of loving God and loving God’s creation. In love, we often make self-sacrifices for our loved ones. If we love God and God’s earth, we will make sacrifices of love for others.   We might realize the truth of Jesus’ feeding stories, when each person shared what they brought for a meal, there was an abundance of leftovers. Amen!

[1] Norman Habel, The Season Creation: A Preaching Commentary, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2011, 11

[2]  Read Pope Franics’ message:  https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2022/documents/20220716-messaggio-giornata-curacreato.html

[3] Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life, Morehouse Books,184

[4] Edited from theThomas Keating original recording September 27-28, 2007 in Houstan Texas shared In Contemplative outreach magazine vol 41. Number 2. July 2024

[5] The Earth Justice lectionary Rev. Dr. Robert E. Shore-Goss and Rev. Dr. Sarah Melcher

[6] https://wastenofood.org/

[7] Ditto

 

[8] Earth Justice lectionary, Shore-Goss/Melcher

[9] Dale B. Martin, The New Testament History and Literature, New Haven, Yale University  Press, 2012.  226.

[10]   E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

[11]   McFague, Abundant Life, 111.

[12]   Earth Justice lectionary, Shore-Goss/Melcher

[13] Robin Hall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 29

[14] Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of American Culture and Culture, San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1977, 94.