Nancy E. Petty

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

April 22, 2007 – Third Sunday of Easter – Earth Day Sunday

Text: Acts 9:1-20

Does our faith have a saving word for earth’s suffering?

“Who am I in a school of a thousand students?” inquired the youth.

“Who are you in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars?” responded the sage.

“Who am I in a world of six thousand million people? inquired the youth.

“Who are you in a cosmos of a hundred billion galaxies?” responded the sage.

“Who am I whose ancestors sailed away from their homeland?” asked the youth.

“Who are you whose ancestors crawled out of the sea?” replied the sage.

“Who am I whose ancestors learned to till the soil?” asked the youth.

“Who are you whose ancestors learned to breathe the air?” replied the sage.

“Who am I in a body made of mortal flesh?” implored the youth.

“Who are you as flesh made of immortal stardust?” offered the sage.

“Who am I with a mind aching for answers? lamented the youth.

“Who are you created in the image of the Universe?” offered the sage.

Who are we in relation to the universe? You may think that this question is reserved for those who spend their lives debating the question of evolution versus creation—for scientists, Philosophers, star-gazers, poets, and writers. But you would be wrong. On this Sunday when we, as a worshipping community, observe Earth Day it is a question for all people of faith. Furthermore, with all the evidence in that our earth is suffering from our misuse and overuse, it is precisely this context—the worship of God—where we also need to ask, “Does our faith have a saving word for earth’s suffering?”

To many observers, Earth Day marked the formal beginning of the environmental movement in the United States. Since that time, impressive gains have been made in air and water pollution control, renewable energy production, conservation, environmentally friendly building, species protection, and forest management. But despite this progress, many environmental problems still remain and many others have grown worse. In 1970, for instance, the world population hovered around 3 billion. Today it has exceeded the 6 billion mark and is growing by approximately 82 million people a year. Hunger and starvation have become a way of life in many nations. Each year, an estimated 12 million people, mostly in less developed nations, die of starvation and disease worsened by hunger and malnutrition. Species extinction continues as well. Today an estimated 40 to 100 species become extinct every day. In the United States and abroad, soil erosion and rangeland deterioration continue.

Added to the list of growing problems are a whole host of new ones that have cropped up. Climate change, groundwater pollution, topsoil depletion, drought and water shortages, ozone depletion, and growing mountains of urban trash top the list. Yes, there is no doubt that our earth is suffering from how we humans are living—consuming rather than conserving; possessing rather than sharing and I’m as guilty of that as any. Most of you know more about these issues than I. I am a relatively new student to matters of environmental concern and ecological justice. But what I am not new at is standing in church and singing hymns of praise about God’s beautiful world; and reading the Psalms that speak of God’s amazing creation; and affirming how God created the land and seas, the trees and animals, the sun and the moon and pronounced it all good. I am not a new student when it comes to knowing that God’s final creation word to us humans was and is, care for what I have created. And yet, I along with the church have remained silent in both word and action knowing that we are not caring for the earth the way God intended for us to. So, I come to you this morning asking myself as much as I am asking you, “Does our faith have a saving word for our suffering earth?”

No one is probably more surprised or perplexed than I that of all the stories of the bible to turn to for an answer to that question it is Paul’s conversion experience that I have chosen. I want to suggest to us this morning that it is precisely his experience on that Damascus road that holds promise for us as we look to our faith for a hopeful and saving word to our earth’s suffering.

No other conversion story is more renowned than Saul’s great reversal from persecutor of Christians to the prophet-like-Jesus. Before his conversion, Saul’s mission was to “bind” believers and return them to Jerusalem for religious inquisition. In Acts, we pick up his mission as he is on his way to persecute members of the Syrian church. The day begins as usual with Saul “approaching Damascus” as a take-charge zealot who is “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Jesus.” By day’s end, however, he is “led by hand into Damascus”, blind and utterly dependent upon others for food and drink. What occurs in the meantime is the stuff of legend: the sudden appearance of a “light from heaven” that is “brighter than the noon-day sun” flashing around him causing him to fall to the ground, the voice of God, being struck blind, and later something like scales falling from his eyes. The event was so dramatic that even the witnesses of this drama were in shock because they, too, heard the voice but saw no one. In those moments, Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the prophet-like-Jesus. It is impossible either to deny or to overestimate the transforming effect Jesus’ visitation had on Saul and on his understanding of God’s relationship to the faithful. And for many of us who have grown up hearing this dramatic conversion story retold, it is also impossible to deny or to overestimate its effect on us and our understanding of conversion and God’s transforming power. For generations readers have formed their impressions of conversion on the basis of this story and have read their own experiences of conversion into this text. Even though we know that all conversion experiences don’t happen in such dramatic fashion, Paul’s experience still serves as an example to our need for transformation, especially when it comes to caring for our earth.

So with Paul’s story as our backdrop, I want to suggest to us that unless we experience a true conversion, be it dramatic or gradual, our earth will go on suffering from our arrogance, our ignorance and our greed. However, if we—the church, the faithful—will open our hearts and minds to God’s transforming power we, too, can become, as Paul; hope for earth’s suffering. If we are going to care for our earth and all living beings as God intended then our world needs desperately for us to open up ourselves to have a true conversion experience. Does our faith have a saving word for earth’s suffering? Yes, and that word is conversion—a powerful word that represents our ability to change how we are living. The saving word from our faith is that God’s word and God’s love can still transform our lives and our living in the most amazing and redeeming ways. But we must be open to change. If we want to care for creation the way God intended for us to we must be willing to transform how we are living on this earth. And although Paul’s conversion experience doesn’t begin with a confession, I believe that ours must. We must confess that in our ignorance we have acted in harmful ways to God’s creation. We must confess that in our arrogance we have put ourselves in a place of dominance rather than compassion with God’s non-human creatures. We must confess that in our greed we have taken more and given less to the earth. We must confess our misdeeds toward all of creation. But let me be clear: true confession doesn’t come out of shame, or despair, or guilt. True confession comes out of love, compassion and justice. True confession comes from a heart that longs to live in truth and with integrity. If we confess our ignorance and arrogance and greed for how we have treated the earth because of our guilt and shame and despair then any transformation we might experience will be short-lived. But if we confess our ignorance, arrogance and greed because we long to love the earth with compassion and justice then true conversion will happen in our lives and we will begin to heal ourselves and our earth. Confession that is rooted in love frees us to become fully transformed.

But confession is only part of conversion. Another aspect of conversion is to become the voice of the endangered. After his conversion, Paul didn’t return home and live his new life silently. No, Paul offered his own voice and life to those whom he had previously persecuted. And we know that eventually Paul would become the persecuted. It is the risk we take when speaking on behalf of the powerless, the underprivileged, and the vulnerable. Some of you know this truth painfully well. You speak out on behalf of animal rights and you are seen as a fanatic. You speak out against local power plants building larger facilities that will release more pollutants into the environment and you are viewed as being against progress. You organize to stop the big developers from destroying more trees so there can be one more Wal-Mart and you are seen as anti-American. Conversion, changing how we live our lives, is risky business especially when it goes against the powers of society’s institutions and norms.

How we experience conversion differs for all of us. Conversion is neither preformed nor universal: God finds people in a variety of ways. For a few it will feel like a Damascus road experience. For others of us, our conversion experiences will be more gradual and will happen in stages. But for all of us, conversion ultimately leads to a calling—not to a specific vocation but to a way of living and being in the world. And so I say to you again…the saving word our faith offers to earth’s suffering is conversion—that powerful word in our faith language that represents our ability to change how we are living and how we understand who we are in this universe.

Healing our relationship with the Earth will require us to use resources more wisely—using only what we need and using all resources much more efficiently than we do today. It will mean a massive expansion of our recycling efforts, not just delivering recyclables to markets, but encouraging manufacturers to use secondary materials for production and encouraging everyone to buy products made from recycled materials. It will likely mean dramatically increasing energy efficiency and a rapid shift to clean, economical renewable energy supplies, such as solar and wind energy. It will mean replanting forests, grasslands, and wetlands to ensure an adequate supply of resources for future generations as well as for the many species that share this planet with us. Healing our relationship with the Earth will require a change in attitude. No longer can we afford to regard the Earth as an infinite source of materials for exclusive human use. No longer can we afford an attitude of domination of nature but rather we must nurture an attitude that seeks cooperation with nature. And finally, we must rethink our position in the ecosystem. Humans are not separate from nature but a part of it. What we do to the environment we do to ourselves.

We’re not just one student in a school of a thousand. We are one in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars. We’re not just one person in a world of six billion people. We are one human family in a cosmos of a hundred billion galaxies. Our ancestors are not only those who walk on land and till the soil. Our ancestors also swim in the sea, and soar in the sky and live in the earth. We’re not just a body made of mortal flesh. We are soul and spirit created in the image of the God who is the Universe in which we live. Our children tell us the truth…when we take care of the earth, we take care of God.

Does our faith have a saving word for earth’s suffering? Yes, if we are willing to travel the Damascus road.