John A. Baldwin
The Second Sunday after Easter
May 1, 2011
I came into the office this past week to find our parish administrator in some distress. The mother eagle in the Norfolk Botanical Garden had been hit by a jet and killed. Donna had been following the birth of the baby eaglets and their mother's nurturing of them for several weeks, thanks to a video link to the internet. What had once been the purview of only avid birdwatchers with binoculars had been brought into the living rooms of Tidewater Virginia, and fascination and compassion had ensued. Not only Donna, but many others who'd been engaged with this extraordinary glimpse of nature, found that they cared about a bird, and the drama of her raising her young.
Imagine that, feeling grief about the death of a raptor (a bird of prey) ! But eagles too have little babies whom they nurture and protect. They, like us, are marvels of creation....different from us, but in their own way perfect specimens of nature's creative force at work. When we feel and experience that connection, we begin to care across-species, and I believe we move closer to the heart of God. Last Tuesday night, at our monthly meeting of BUBBLES (theological discussion over a glass of beer at Salvatore's) we considered the question "Do Dogs Go to Heaven?" Sentimentally, of course, everyone affirmed that Spot, Fido and Rover, would definitely go on into life hereafter. After all, dogs display unconditional love in ways that humans often envy. Why wouldn't God draw them closer to his nearer presence? The discussion at our table moved on into reflection upon whether animals have souls, as we believe humans do, and just what is the reality of heaven? Speculative theology, utilizing the imagination to reflect on matters of faith and religion, always enlivens and fascinates me.
What passages in the Bible say about many things is open to speculative theology because scripture utilizes rich imagery, story, human insight, and historical experience to address issues of ultimate importance. It speaks in new and different ways to every generation, and to every sort and condition of human beings. We look at scripture from different vantage points, and in every reading of it we see and hear it through the filters of our personal experience. Consider for example, what is perhaps the most quoted passage in scripture (John 3:16). "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will have eternal life." We get so focused on the latter part of this quote, that we glide right over the first 5 words. "God so loved "the world" ......It's not God so loved "humanity", but God so loved "the world"....all of it. Humans come dangerously close to sheer pride and arrogance when we forget to recognize that God created all things, and in the first chapter of Genesis, God blessed all of it as "good"....dogs, cats, and eaglets; earth, winds and waters; mountains, rivers and seas, and maybe even mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers (though some have asserted, tongue in cheek, that those had to be the works of the devil!)
The two stories of creation in Genesis One (the creation of the world in 7 days) and Genesis Two (the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden), have important things to say to us this morning as we celebrate the 41st annual Earth Day (albeit a few days late, since this year it fell on Good Friday). Genesis One speaks to our role as participants, allies and co-creators with God in the ongoing work of creation. But it also has those interesting and challenging words within it: "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it". We have been inclined to use the word "subdue" in the modern era primarily as license to conquer, control, own, deplete and use up. But it has a softer side as well, namely to bring into cultivation, reduce the intensity of, tone down. In other words, "to bring into balance." And that is precisely what we see in the beginning of Genesis Two, the Garden of Eden - humans living in harmony with flora and fauna. Trouble sets in, however, as Adam and Eve (who represent all of humanity) decide to seek divinity, to squeeze God out of the picture in the ongoing drama of creation, and go it alone. Adam and Eve fall from grace, not because they are inherently wicked, but because they succumb to pride and hubris. They disrupt the balance within the garden.
Earth Day has evolved over the past 40 years from dire predictions of doom in 1970 to involving citizens from all walks of life into pursuing the goal of a Billion Acts of Green. Back in 1970, dramatic events such as the Cuyahoga River bursting into flame in 1969, the blowout of an oil well off Santa Barbara, and the "death" of Lake Erie due to pollution all fed Americans' concerns. Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. "We have about five more years at the outside to do something," ecologist Kenneth Watt declared to a Swarthmore College audience. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner.
Imminent global famine caused by the explosion of the "population bomb" was the big issue on Earth Day 1970. "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make," Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in an interview. "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years." Pollution was another big issue on Earth Day 1970. Smog choked many American cities and sludge coated the banks of many rivers. People were also worried that we were poisoning the biosphere and ourselves with dangerous pesticides. The Great Lakes were in bad shape and Lake Erie was officially "dead," its fish killed because oxygen supplies had been depleted by rotting algae blooms fed by organic pollutants from factories and municipal sewage. Beyond anxiety over population, pollution, and pesticides, even more long-term concerns were on display at the first Earth Day, including the depletion of nonrenewable resources, disappearing biodiversity, and global climate change due to human activity--all of which have come to figure prominently in our current environmental debates.
Fortunately, the apocalyptic gloom and doom of Earth Day 1970, while waking a lot of people up, didn't prove as prophetic as we might have feared at the time. While, it's absolutely true that far too many people remain poor and hungry in the world--800 million people are still malnourished--we have not seen mass starvation around the world in the past four decades. Where there have been famines, such as in Somalia and Ethiopia, they have been primarily the result of war and political instability. Far from turning brown, the Green Revolution has made a huge difference in food production outpacing population growth. According to the World Bank's World Development Report 2000, food production increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 1997. What about the fears expressed about the world's population? In 2000 there were 6 billion - 30% fewer than predicted on Earth Day 1970, because total fertility dropped nearly everywhere on the planet from around 6 children per woman in the 1960s to around 2.8 in 2000. In the U.S., air quality has improved significantly over the past 40 years, and similar trends can be found when it comes to water pollution. Lake Erie once "dead" again supports a $600 million fishing industry.
Earth Day 2011 is much less apocalyptic in nature, much less filled with gloom and doom, yet none the less deeply serious in encouraging each of us to become involved in restoring the balance in nature. In an effort dubbed "A Billion Acts of Green," organizers are encouraging people to pledge online at actearthday.com. to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health — from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to reducing the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. "Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change," said a spokesman for the group coordinating efforts. There were hundreds of rallies, workshops and other events around the United States and hundreds more overseas where it is now celebrated in 192 countries. In the years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 the environmentalist movement has made great strides with passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking laws. Sadly, the bipartisanship that marked the birth of Earth Day — it was sponsored in Congress by Wisconsin Democrat Gaylord Nelson and California Republican Pete McCloskey — is too often missing in discussions about environmental policy today.
My own theological perspective is marked more by optimism than pessimism. I am a firm believer that God is actively involved in all that is going on in the cosmos, and that God earnestly desires for us to be in partnership with Him in the ongoing work of Creation. I believe that the Earth Day movement is moving in a positive direction in evolving from apocalyptic gloom and doom to encouraging each one of us to do our small part in personal initiatives. We have been very fortunate at Emmanuel to have a small but very dedicated Green Team looking faithfully at how we here in Virginia Beach can make a contribution. I invite you to join them in this effort as faithful members of Christ's family, the Church.
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In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
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