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Tenth Sunday After Trinity
Date: 28th July 2008
Preacher: The Rt Revd Geoff Davies
My thanks to the Dean and Chapter for this opportunity of being with you at this time when the Lambeth Conference is having its Environment week-end. I hope and pray my fellow Bishops are taking this seriously. It is serious. I am going to surprise you and come from a different perspective.
Traditionally our Christian theology has been anthropocentric – that is, being human centred, giving the impression that God is concerned only about us humans and our salvation. We need to discover that God is Ecocentric. In other words, God is concerned about all of creation and we must realize that we are part of creation. Consider just a few passages from the Bible – “God so loved the World” that well known passage from John. It says “the world”, not just us humans. At the end of the creation story in Genesis we read “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” All of it was very good, not just you and me. And of course remember the opening words of the Bible In the beginning, God created..
The Anglican Communion has five marks of mission.
1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God
2. To teach, baptize and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society
In 1989 the Anglican Communion added its fifth mark of mission
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
In saying this is important, I would not want to diminish the importance of the first four. I am sure you can see their relevance. But the time has come for the church to pay attention to the fifth and to ensure that it is part of the church’s agenda.
And I am not asking that you take on yet another justice issue. I am asking that you recognize that safeguarding the integrity of creation is in fact core gospel business.
God wants us to enjoy this amazing world he has brought into being. God wants us to be well fed and housed and educated. He wants us to fulfil our full potential and he wants us to pass this world on to our children, in a better state than we received.
Now I don’t want to depress you, but God’s creation, our home, is in a very sorry state. The position is serious, far more serious than other issues that the media focus on.
I will briefly mention some of the areas of concern:
Waste – we are producing impossible levels of waste, so impossible that we are running out of places to dump it, usually from totally unnecessary packaging. Why should a few slices of cold meat be placed in a polystyrene tray, wrapped in cling-wrap and then placed in yet another plastic bag, all of which are non-biodegradable, made from oil and – of course - poisonous?
Pollution: How can we be so irresponsible as to pollute the air we breathe or pour toxic waste into the water we need to survive?
Natural resources: We once thought the resources of the sea were limitless, or the tropical forests endless. We now realize that we have seriously threatened our fish resources for the future, and that tropical deforestation is seriously affecting the stability of the earth’s atmosphere.
We could go on with a catalogue of woes. We will never meet the MD Goals without caring for the environment: Looming water shortages, advancing deserts, spreading urbanization obliterating agricultural land, all threatening our well-being and biodiversity, which is critical to our future well-being
Extinction: I think biodiversity loss is the most serious. There have been five major extinctions on the planet. We are now in the midst of the sixth great extinction – the difference is that we are causing it. We are terminating the evolutionary development of the last 65 million years.
Why do we do it? The Bible calls for economic justice. It seems to me that by cutting corners and not being environmentally responsible, we can reduce overheads and increase profits. Is that not the bottom line – a disregard for economic principles and justice, which allows and even encourages rampant greed as we worship the god profit, rather than the living God?
But what is now really making us sit up and pay attention to God’s world is the realization that we humans are Changing the Climate, so that weather patterns are becoming unpredictable and droughts and storms become more extreme and frequent.
This is all happening because of the greenhouse gases we are emitting into the atmosphere, largely from the burning of fossil fuels – coal and oil.
Before the industrial revolution the CO2 atmospheric concentration was 280 parts per million. The scientists now warn us that we must keep levels below 350ppm. It has already exceeded that, probably at 380ppm. For the sceptics, CO2 levels are now higher than they have been for the last 400 000 years. Average temperatures have already risen 0.7o and are set to rise 2o. Temperature rise above that will be even more catastrophic. Just imagine the ice caps melting, the Gulf Stream switching off, the oceans rising two to seven metres. The trouble is that most nations don’t want to cut back on their economic development, their comforts and of course their cars and aeroplanes.
The atmosphere is an amazing mix of gases which has miraculously enabled life to develop on our planet. Just consider how amazing it is. We upset or destroy the atmosphere to our peril.
The good news is that we can all – each one of us – do something about it.
It depends on our attitude and our lifestyle. It may require cutting back on some of the luxuries we have become accustomed to, like air-conditioning, but not necessarily. There is nothing to stop us harnessing sun, wind and tidal energy. It is just a matter of political will and economic rationalization. If we want air conditioning in the dreadful, hermetically sealed office blocks we have erected, then let each building generate its own energy, covering its roof with photo-voltaic cells.
The question is whether we care enough for the future of our children to take steps now. I want to give you an illustration of something we can all do to help protect God’s world:
Cape of Good Hope. Two years ago we had a terrific gale in Cape Town with huge waves. We took a friend to Cape Point. From there we walked down to the Bay of Good Hope. The whole bay was a sea of white as the huge waves came roaring in. Then we saw that the beach was covered with litter. With a plastic bag and three pairs of bare hands we climbed back up the steps with as much rubbish as we could carry. I brought it to England to show you. The only problem is that my sister threw it out! So my wife, Kate, in just two walks along footpaths and the road filled a bag. This is what people in England throw out of their cars or leave behind on their walks.
(Bishop empties black plastic bag of rubbish from the pulpit.)
Now before you rush off to report me to the Dean or write to the Archbishop about this frightful South African bishop who emptied a bag of rubbish in this incredible historic building, I want you to consider that God’s creation is far more magnificent and intricate than anything we humans can build. We are filled with awe by this Cathedral, yet it is nothing compared to the beauty and wonder and – I would even say – miracle and intricacy of God’s creation. The fact that we have life on this planet is just miraculous . Yet every day we release toxins into the atmosphere, pour poisons onto the land and pump pollution into our waters and seas. We dump our rubbish and pollute God’s world, with scant regard for the future.
I have long considered littering a contemporary form of blasphemy. As we throw our fast food packaging or our beer can out of our car window, we are saying “So much for your world, God.” Let’s be clear. Littering is a sin. Even worse is to cause the extinction of a species, be it plant or animal, which God has brought into being. Extinction is forever. We can never bring it back again. This is far more serious – and sinful - than many acts we call sinful, which catch the newspaper headlines.
But there are many seemingly insignificant ways we can help. It is all a matter of changing our outlook.
• Stop using plastic bags and lets all take a bag with us to collect rubbish when we go for a walk.
• Become energy conscious, installing energy saving bulbs, turning off lights when not in use, turning off the central heating in the summer, especially in shops and offices. I can’t believe how hot some of your buildings are kept, even in mid-summer. Open your windows!
• Separate rubbish and recycle paper, plastic, tins and glass.
These are small steps we can all take, which will make a difference. But far more needs to happen. The scientists – and economists - are saying we need to have started seriously reducing our CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions by – wait for it – 2012, the time of the Olympics in the UK!
We have to have a radical change in our economic system so that our economics take into account the poor and the natural environment. For that we need principles. It is not good enough to say “Oh, we can make a profit out of this.” We have to establish just and equitable ecological economics if we want peace. God provides for our needs, not our greed. It is iniquitous that 20% of the world’s population controls 85% of its wealth, while others, as I know from Cape Town, are without clean water and sanitation.
It can be done. Britain abolished the slave trade. South Africa abolished apartheid before a holocaust or conflagration. Will the rich and the powerful of the world seek justice for all – people and environment - before we have total environmental collapse or become a fortress planet?
And we have to recognize that the position is so serious that we all – all nations, races, faiths – must band together to work on finding solutions, such as bringing electricity from the Sahara. This means relying on those outside your national boundaries and that of course means establishing peace. The key to future survival is cooperation, not competition, so we must establish equitable access to and care of natural resources. Gone are the days when we can bomb our way into securing natural resources.
I believe that the faith communities of the world have a crucial role to play in giving a lead and showing the way. We - we Christians and I pray we Anglicans - must be the mustard seed that grows into a great tree of sustainable, harmonious living, so that all people and all creatures – all of creation – may perch in its branches in peace, as we heard in the gospel. Then we will be obedient to Jesus’ call to seek the kingdom of heaven.
But we can’t do this in our own power. We heard in last Sunday’s reading that “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8:22). In the face of the huge challenges facing us, we must acknowledge our weakness, and then – as we heard in Romans today – the Spirit helps us.
This is the Environment week-end at the Lambeth Conference
I pray that my fellow bishops at Lambeth, and people of all faiths and none, will join together to confront the overwhelming environmental threats facing us.
I pray our Bishops will issue a clarion call:
• ‘We have a vision of all humanity working together to overcome the environmental threats facing us.
• ‘We have a vision recognising that we are all part of creation, so that we live together within its ecological bounds and reverence all life, stemming the tide of extinction.
• ‘We have a vision when we use the abundant God-given resources of sun and wind and tide to generate our energy needs, instead of burning oil and coal, the energy capital of millions of years ago, with scant regard to the welfare of our children and indeed life on this planet. So we join in the call for a maximum of 350ppm CO2 and call on the nations of the world to implement this.’
That the Bishops will be able to say:
• ‘We have a vision of a time when all people live in a system of economic justice overcoming the present iniquities of 20% controlling 85% of the wealth while the poorest 20% share 1% of the world’s wealth.
• ‘We have a vision of the time when the rich nations will stop spending billions on armaments, discovering that our security is found in establishing justice, not in reliance on weapons of war and mass destruction.
I hope the media will give attention to what Lambeth says about the environment – this is of so much greater consequence than the sexual orientation of individuals. I know my fellow Bishops recognise the importance of issues of poverty and environment. I pray the media will emphasize these important issues.
And I pray that what has happened in the Minster today will be another small step in helping us all to learn to live in harmony with God, one another and God’s creation. May you be part of this great work for God. Amen.
Bishop Geoff Davies
Southern African Faith Communities' Environment Institute