God, the Environmentalist Supreme
Rob Gieselmann, Trinity Sunday 2017
A
1. Nicene Creed
I’m not a big fan of the Nicene Creed. Choreographically, during the service, it feels clunky and out of place. And - I may be wrong, here - but I’m guessing that all our minds have drifted at one time or another during the Creed. Obviously, the Creed is intended to say something significant – as a theological statement of the Trinity – that concept of God as equally one and three persons.
Further, the very first word of the Creed, the Latin word, Credo, “I believe” - means far more than mental acquiescence – like you agree with the concept of God. Its holistic meaning is: I give myself to … God the Father Almighty – So you see - the intent of the Creed is rock solid. As is its location in the liturgy itself. It follows the proclamation of the Gospel – first thing – as your response to hearing of the Word of God – You hear God speak, and answer by giving yourself to God. You could say, I return to God, the Father almighty. But instead of words of donation – We say, I believe – and, I believe, gets confused with mental agreement.
Which leads to the realproblem: Words fail to capture God – Words can never adequately describe God. God is infinite, and words are finite. And any description of God is destined to fail. Regardless of the edict of the Council at Nicea.
2. Alternative
What if we said, instead, something like this:
I return to God, this day, the one who made me of earth.
I return to God, this day,
the one who loved me when unlovely.
I return to God, this day,
the one who fills my soul with hope.
Because – God is not static – God is relational. Think about it. When you tell a someone, I have a husband. That word, husband, does not describe the six foot man standing next to you with graying hair and a bit of a paunch. Instead, when you use the word, husband, you are saying: I have a relationship with another person that no one else on earth has. Husband. Relational. What if that is what you meant when you utter the Creed?
3. Annie Lamott put it this way:
"I didn’t need to understandthe hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life overto whoever came up with redwood trees."
B
1. Have you ever walked among the Redwoods?
These coastal giants are taller than any other plant or animal on earth. They reach high as if to God, stretching from a dark earth, rendered dank because of the redwoods themselves. The density of the forest creates its own rain – when the damp Pacific air moves across the redwoods, it condenses and falls to water the trees.
2. The coastal redwoods, you may have heard, are in danger.
They exist along a narrow swath of land from the Monterrey coast to Oregon. As the southern tip of their habitatwarms, the rain will no longer fall and the trees will die. They are showing signs of stress already. When it comes to climate change– I find that I don’t care so much about the swath of condominiums along Florida’s southeastern shore– that they might fall into a rising Atlantic Ocean – I figure someone will come along and build new ones, I’m sure of it.
Rather, I care about climate change because of the Redwoods. I care that they will disappear, along with those birds and animals that are unique to their habitat. I also care about the synchronistic fireflies my daughter Tilly and I saw last Sunday night in the Smokies – that they, also, might disappear.
D. I care about these things because I am – an environmentalist.
Now – I’m not an environmentalist because I’m afraid of climate change, or global warming, as some people call it – I’m a soldier of hope. Rather, I am an environmentalist because God is an environmentalist. And somewhere along the journey, I gave myself to God. Just like I do each week at the creed: I return to God, the One who made me.The Creator of Heaven and Earth.
E. Indeed – the Earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains.
Perhaps you noticed one particular word repeated this morning in the recitation of the poem of creation:
God saw the light, that it was good.
God saw the earth divided from the seas, that it was good.
God saw the seeds and vegetation, that they were good.
God saw the sun and the moon, that they were good.
God saw great sea monsters, and birds, and fish, that
they were good.
God saw the wild animals, that they, too, were good.
and…God saw you and me, and proudly declared, you are good.
As one philosopher wrote centuries ago, God would not have created the world if among all possible creations this one had not been the best.
Yes, I am an environmentalist. Because God is an environmentalist. I believe in God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.
4. Last Sunday night, Tilly’s birthday, we found ourselves at the trailhead to Rainbow Falls with a dozen other people. The sun had set, dusk had fallen, the sky had turned to its slate grey, and one by one fireflies came out from their hiding.
The blue ghosts, first – they are those fireflies, we learned, that fly closest to the earth. They don’t blink, but maintain a soft blue glow as they try to attract mates. Then – and all too slowly– the blinkers came out. We wondered, had the fire diminished their numbers? Were there so few because of the bright light of the moon, or the change of the air pressure of the front moving through? Excessive pollution?
Who knows, but we found some – several patches blinking synchronistically … We were mesmerized – but it wasn’t just the fireflies that captured my soul – It wasn’t the shrill of the distant fox, the companionable warmth of others around me – It was rather that I could close my eyes and stand very, very still, and recall every night in my life I’d spent outside – as though this night contained them all.
For in each one of those nights – high in the trees, I could hear – the whisper of God, the ruach, Wind of God that hovered first at creation – I had forgotten. I always seem to forget – what that voice sounds like – until I find myself back there, out there, in that dark, where the night is not night, but as bright as the day. And I find, like God found of all creation, that it is Good.
So yes, I am an environmentalist. Because God is an environmentalist. So, this morning, as I once again recite the Creed, you can know that – I stand and return to God, the One who created me of the earth.