In recent years, many churches around the world have begun to celebrate what they call the Season of Creation. Much like Earth Day, the Season of Creation is meant to remind us of the amazing work of our Creator and the beauty and fragility of our land, water, and skies. This idea began almost 25 years ago in Australia when some in church leaders decided that it would be a wonderful thing to celebrate a special Season of Creation during the Sundays leading up to the Feast of Saint Francis on October 4th. They proposed this time as an opportunity for people of faith to be reminded of our place in the great unfolding of God’s Creation and to remember our responsibility as citizens in this one world. Around the world, churches are becoming acutely aware of the environmental crisis that is unfolding everywhere and especially in many vulnerable communities. Our precious planet is at risk. Let us pray, O God, we pause today to give thanks for the beauty of all that you have created. Help us to be open to new and collective ways we must act to ensure that we protect what you have given to us as a wonderful and amazing gift. Inspire within us the belief that we can make a difference before it is too late. We ask this in the name of your Son. Amen.
When our son was very young, he loved the story of Noah’s Ark and enjoyed playing with this wonderful Fisher Price toy set of the Ark and all the animals. He would line them up two by two in a row to board the ark, and he was always so proud when he could find all the matches for the animals. The toy Ark had a big empty hull into which all of the animals, along with Noah and his wife, could go. The toy even had a little flag of a rainbow to mirror the Bible story. Many children love this story because it captures something within their imaginations and, of course, it includes many animals. As we listen to it today, perhaps we might see it as a modern day allegory for us. The floods are coming; how are we to protect ourselves and all the creatures who reside with us on this earth? The floods have already come to far too many and even to our own little corner of Maine and to the communities up and down the coast. In recent days, we heard reports that at least 1,000 people had been killed and millions more displaced, by floods across Central and Western Africa. Parts of Nigeria, Mali, and Niger have been particularly hard hit by some of the heaviest rains in decades. And in Central Europe in recent days, at least 19 people have died from the floods there, including in Romania, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic, according to officials. I wonder if we are waiting for someone else to build the Ark?
This is a critical and very delicate time for the human community as we face the climate crisis threatening Earth and its future. UN Secretary General António Guterres and Pope Francis have both added their voices to the overwhelming global consensus of scientists in warning that there is less than a decade left for the nations of the world to take the steps needed to reduce carbon emissions and keep the average temperature of the planet from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. If those steps are not taken with a sense of urgency and global solidarity, irreversible turning points will bring great devastation with lasting destructive impacts. With every degree of rise in the earth’s temperature, about 7% more moisture is added to the atmosphere and thus, even now, as we continue to hear of rising temperatures, we are seeing the seas rise and flooding happening in too many communities across our land, in Europe, and other nations who are at great risk.
It is widely acknowledged that the nations of the world are failing to take adequate steps to meet the true urgency of the planetary crisis. As people of faith, as people who have learned and can learn more about risks to our environment, we must help to build the sense of urgency and commitment to serious change that are essential for the future wellbeing of our common home. And yet, I know that even as I speak about it here today, it can cause us to feel discouraged, depressed, or frustrated at our own and other’s unwillingness or inability to figure out how to change this trajectory. Can the scriptures help us, as people of faith, to face and embrace the urgency of the situation threatening Earth and all creatures with hope and a commitment to make the changes that are desperately required?
James Gustave Speth, an accomplished environmental lawyer and advocate, known for his important work at the United Nations and in co-founding and leading the Natural Resources Defense Council in the United States, said in an interview on the BBC in 2013: “I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” In his letter on the Environment Laudato Se, Pope Francis offers a similar observation: ‘The external deserts in the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast.”
What kind of spiritual and cultural transformation can help us respond effectively to our contemporary climate crises? One response is called Ecological Spirituality. Eco-Spirituality aims to recover a spiritual vision of Creation, including more contact with Nature in a spirit of wonder, praise, joy, gratitude. As we spend more time in nature, we may be moved to act with courage and inspiration. Can we trust that God is with us in these times, working to save us and our planet? How are we being invited, as individuals and as communities, to share in this saving work? What is God inviting us to do? There is a basic principle of spirituality implicit here. When we experience God as loving us and surrounding us with the gifts of Creation, stirring wonder, gratitude, and joy in our hearts, those are the times that we will find the peace and security to face and acknowledge what we need to do better. How might we embrace a deeper ecological spirituality? How might we incorporate
that spirit more in our and communal personal prayer?
How might our love and respect for creation help us to change how we live, and how might this give us the courage to call upon those who are in positions of power whether in government or corporations to act now, not in the future, but now, in this time.
Rabbi Lance Sussman writes, “Every time there is a great storm, it is only natural to think about the Biblical story of Noah. In the Book of Genesis, humanity’s evil ways provoke a cataclysimic divine reaction and the whole world is flooded. Noah is called upon to save the animals and humanity. Only the fish remained unscathed before the Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat in what is now southeastern Turkey. This story ends with the appearance of a great rainbow and a promise that God will never again cause such catastrophic flooding.
However, in our own time, despite the regular appearances of rainbows, there is much less certainty about the future and consequences of global flooding. Scientists are increasingly alarmed at the rate at which the polar ice caps are now melting – approximately 6x faster than in the 1990s. Overall, the greatest melting is in the Artic Circle (and Greenland) although there is also evidence in the southern hemisphere, which contains 70% of the world’s fresh water. The overall effect is that sea levels are rising every year and that rate is increasing over time. Considering most of the world’s major population centers are coastal, the consequences of a future Noah size flood are easy to imagine.
In the Biblical story, the reason for the flood was divine wrath at human misbehavior. In modern times, the issue is the relationship between human behavior and climate change, particularly rising air and sea temperatures, leading to ice melting and rising sea levels leading to more extreme weather. Those who don’t believe in climate change often argue that such weather changes are simply part of a natural process; however leading climate scientists believe that human action or perhaps inaction is significantly impacting the environment and the climate and at an accelerated and dangerous rate. And, let’s be honest, it feels hard to really address such a huge concern as individuals; we know that countries and corporations can have a far wider impact on changing the direction we are headed.
We know that Noah built an ark; he did what was in his means to do. What about us as individuals and as a community? If we knew that the threat was truly imminent, how might that impact our choices? We know that we need to be less wasteful in the ways we live our lives; we actually have to make changes and that can be hard because we all are used to being able to do what we wanted whenever we wanted. We can change the ways we live and eat and travel and we can think hard about where and how we invest our resources. Are we investing in companies that are working to heal our environment and can we stop supporting companies that are contributing to the problem. I think that we have arrived at a moment when, in so many areas of our lives, less is actually more.
In the passage about Noah and the great flood this morning, humanity is promised that there will never be another universal flood. I know that we all dearly hope that is true. In the meantime, it’s already past time for us to start building modern day arks to save humanity and our planet from our unsustainable way of life. In the story of Noah, God sends the rainbow as a beautiful sign of God’s promise to care for creation. It is a sign of hope after a devastating time of flooding and loss. That promise is still out there but, like Noah, we have a lot of work to do.
The Season of Creation Story, An Australian Story by Norman Habel
Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, Ph.D.