creation care

Some people named the week beginning September 21, 2015, the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice. Others called it Pope Week. I want to call it Watershed Week: the week when Americans streamed to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia, like rivers pouring through a watershed, eager to hear Pope Francis speak about our call to love each other and all Creation. The week was a watershed in another sense, too: a turning point where everything changed.

Doug Hendren and Dave Pruett express the spirit of the climate rally on the National Mall
Doug Hendren and Dave Pruett express the spirit of the climate rally on the National Mall

I spent most of that week in D.C., swimming through crowds and participating in prayer vigils, concerts, strategy sessions, and rallies. On Monday I gave the opening prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast on Creation Care, an annual event organized by the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC). NRCCC is composed of members of all the major religious groups in America, including Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, Evangelicals and Orthodox Christians.  Joined in prayer, and united with people of every religious tradition, we advocate for a right relationship to God’s creation.

Over the summer I’d taken the lead in composing letters from NRCCC to President Obama and to members of Congress about the moral and religious call to address the climate crisis, and on Monday we officially released the letters and began delivering them to members of Congress. (The NRCCC press release is here.)

The Open Letter to President Obama focuses on actions he can take without approval of Congress, such as becoming an advocate for a carbon tax, modifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, and rejecting new coal leases on public lands. The letter urges the President to adopt the language of “emergency” whenever he speaks about climate change, and “to mobilize the nation with the same focus and determination with which we mobilized during World War II, so that we reach 100 percent renewable energy in two or three decades.”

The NRCCC team gathers for a meeting at the State Dept.
The NRCCC team gathers for a meeting at the State Dept.

We were gratified to hear from the Council on Environmental Quality that the letter was shared widely with the White House climate team. Maybe it will make some waves.

On Tuesday a group of NRCCC members headed to the State Department to meet with Karen Florini, Deputy Special Envoy on Climate Change, and Amy Willis, in the Secretary’s Office for Religion and Global Affairs. With only two months to go until the crucial international climate talks in Paris, we wanted to express in the strongest possible terms our desire for bold leadership by the United States. Ms. Florini welcomed our faith-rooted advocacy – she herself is a person of faith – and we talked about how to push for effective climate action both at home and abroad in the midst of an obstructionist Congress. As she put it, “We are under active political assault.” (Learn more about the visit here.)

Sharing our Open Letter to President Obama with Ms. Karen Florini
Sharing our Open Letter to President Obama with Ms. Karen Florini

From the State Department we headed to the Senate Building to meet with the legal counsel of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. We gave him an earful about the moral mandate to tackle the climate crisis, citing science and Scripture, ethics and economics. In turn, we listened to his concerns about unemployment in Kentucky and the future of coal. A member of our group pointed out, “Coal is over.” So the question becomes: can Republicans and Democrats work together to make a swift and just transition to a new economy based on clean energy? That is something to work and pray for.

Wednesday began with an interfaith coalition of climate leaders meeting over breakfast with the staff of ecoAmerica. EcoAmerica has been instrumental in developing best practices for climate communication, and its Blessed Tomorrow campaign is mobilizing faith communities to engage in the struggle to stabilize the climate. The offices of ecoAmerica happen to be directly across the street from St. Matthew’s Cathedral, where Pope Francis spoke for one hour to Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals. We relished having the chance to see the Pope as he entered and left the sanctuary.

Praying at Multi-faith Prayer Vigil, with Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
Praying at Multi-faith Prayer Vigil, with Rabbi Mordechai Liebling

On Wednesday night I joined a large group on the steps of John Marshall Park near the National Mall to mark the end of Yom Kippur. At the start of Yom Kippur the night before, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling had delivered a powerful sermon that called for atonement – At-One-Ment – with the Earth and each other, a watershed moment that can only take place when we “feel in our hearts and know in our guts that what happens to the oceans, to the forests, to other species, to other people is also happening to us.”

A multi-faith prayer vigil completed the marking of Yom Kippur, and I gave the opening prayer, lifting up Jesus’ cry from the cross as the cry of the Earth-community.

“Why have you forsaken me?” We hear that cry
in the din of collapsing glaciers as they tumble into the sea,
in the crash of forests as they are felled,
and in the blast of mountaintops as they are blown open for extraction of
coal.

“Why have you forsaken me?” We hear that cry
in the murmur of refugees searching for water in lands scorched dry,
in the diminishing bleats and roars and chirps worldwide as species go extinct,
one by one,
and in the silence of dying coral reefs as they bleach in acid seas.

At the foot of the cross, we hear the cry of all humanity, and especially the poor, as the climate crisis unfolds around us.
We hear the groaning of all Creation: “Why have you forsaken me?”

The prayer ended with an appeal for divine mercy, asking God to empower us not to forsake each other, but instead to stand with the vulnerable, the poor, and the living world around us. Receiving God’s forgiveness and accepting our interconnection with all Creation can be a watershed moment. The dusk drew shadows around us; above us, the stars began to shine. (The complete prayer is here. )

Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Rev. Stephanie Johnson
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Rev. Stephanie Johnson

On Thursday morning, I joined thousands of people at a reserved area on the lawn in front of the Capitol Building, to listen and watch on large screens as Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress. Eventually I moved further back on the National Mall to participate in the Moral Action on Climate Justice Rally, which featured lively music, speakers, and a diverse throng of activists. On either side of the stage stretched two long banners in English and in Spanish, quoting from the papal encyclical: Hear the cry of the Earth. Hear the cry of the poor.

A hush settled over the crowd as the Pope began to speak. In a world where so many leaders speak rapidly and evasively, bending the truth to suit their needs and using their words to dominate opponents, defend a narrow, partisan agenda, and push for power, it was rare and sweet to hear a leader speak slowly, truthfully, and from the heart, excluding no one and welcoming everyone. Here was a person whose humility evoked our own basic goodness as human beings, reminding us that in fact we are connected to each other, we do care about the Earth and each other, we do have the capacity to be good, we do have the power to work together and to do the right thing. Was I the only listener moved to tears? I doubt it.

Pope Francis stands at the balcony
Pope Francis stands at the balcony

After the Pope left Capitol Hill, I lingered for a while at the rally to meet with friends, old and new. Activist and writer Ted Glick was on the penultimate day of an 18-day, water-only Fast for New Permits, organized by Beyond Extreme Energy. The fast targeted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which essentially rubber-stamps approval for gas pipelines. Ted, looking tired but resolute, cited Gandhi’s insight that “fasting is the sincerest form of prayer.”

That night I made my way on foot to the National Cathedral (forget driving – roads were closed because the president of China was on his way into town). “Coming Together in Faith on Climate” brought together Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other national religious leaders to express interfaith and ecumenical support of the Pope’s call to action on climate and Creation care. The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop spoke eloquently, and, with the other faith leaders, committed to five initiatives to address global climate change.

As leaders of many faiths were endorsing and amplifying the Pope’s message in Washington, D.C., so, too, countless communities beyond Washington, D.C., were also bearing witness to the moral imperative to create a just and sustainable world. Take, for instance, Springfield, Massachusetts, where, on the same day that the Pope addressed Congress, a rally was held at City Hall to support funding for a climate justice office. Bishop Doug Fisher of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts gave a rousing speech.

I’ve been part of the religious climate movement for many years, but I’ve never experienced as deep and wide an awakening to the urgent call to stand up for life as I did last week. In order to give our children a livable planet, we need the vision and passion of people of faith – people who can see the long view, not just short-term quarterly or annual reports; people who care about the homeless, hungry, and poor, not just about elites; people who understand that the web of life is a gift to be protected, not a commodity to be exploited and destroyed; people who place their hope not in the promise of success but in the faithfulness of God.

People like that are rising up on every side. The image of a watershed may fit this moment in history, but, so, too, does the image of a rising tide. I look back on last week as a watershed moment, because around me and within me I sense a rising tide of activism, resolve, and love.

The most inspiring climate song I’ve yet heard was written by Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman and Yotam Schachter, and first performed by Rabbi Shoshana and Rev. Fred Small on September 20 – just in time for that pivotal week. They also went on to perform it at the National Cathedral on Thursday night.

The song is called: “The tide is rising and so are we.”

The past 24 hours have stretched my sense of time.

One morning I come across a report that in a far off cave in South Africa, scientists have discovered the bones of a previously unknown branch of the human family. A photo on the front page of The New York Times shows an ancient skeleton, neatly laid out from head to toe. The bones of the feet, according to one scientist, are “virtually indistinguishable” from those of modern humans. The finger bones are “extremely curved,” clearly adapted for climbing, and the skull seems to have sheltered a brain no bigger than an orange – one-third the size of a modern human brain. Named after the Rising Star cave in which the bones were found, these ancestors are called Homo naledi (“star” in the local Sesotho language). They walked the Earth more than 2.5 million years ago.

I don’t know what these distant relatives were like – what they thought about, how they spent their time, what mattered to them. But I imagine that in some ways they were just like us: they searched for food when they were hungry; they wept when they were sad; they looked for shelter and safety in a difficult world; they cared for their nearest and dearest. Scientists note that Homo naledi repeatedly placed the bones of their dead in an inaccessible cave, a fact that makes me want to say “the bones of their beloved dead.”

I bow to my ancestors who lived nearly 3 million years ago. Somehow we are kin.

The next morning I come across another report in The New York Times – this one placed not on the front page, but on page 10, as if the editor hoped to shield the reader from frightening news. A new study reports that burning all the world’s deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas would raise the global temperature enough to melt the ice sheet that covers Antarctica, along with the rest of the earth’s land ice. Sea levels would likely rise more than 200 feet.

The big surprise to scientists is that the melting could happen very quickly. Scientists used to think that it would take many thousands of years for Antarctica to melt. It turns out that once large-scale melting begins, half the melting could occur in as little as a thousand years. At that pace, the ocean could rise about one foot every decade, about 10 times faster than it is rising now. The article notes: “Such a pace would almost certainly throw human society into chaos, forcing a rapid retreat from the world’s coastal cities.”

Margerie Glacier Calving, Glacier Bay National Park, AlaskaAs the lead author, Ricarda Winkelmann, puts it: “To be blunt: If we burn it all, we melt it all.”

What takes my breath away is the list of the world’s regions that would be affected by a sea-level rise of 200 feet. The list of cities lost includes (among others) Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Washington, New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Paris, Berlin, Venice, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Rome and Tokyo.

I read the list of cities printed in The New York Times. I touch my fingers to the page, as if physical contact can help me absorb these facts and make them real. I recall the startling new report from James Hansen and 16 other top climate scientists, which predicts that significant sea level rise could be swift and abrupt. Oceans could rise as much as ten feet in as little as 50 years, which means that we would lose all the coastal cities of the world.

The people living in those ruined cities could include my beloved children and grandchildren. I don’t need to exercise any imagination or empathy to know what these people will be like. They will be just like us. They will search for food when they are hungry, and they will weep when they are sad. They will look for shelter and safety in a difficult world, and they will care for their nearest and dearest.

I know in my bones that we are kin.

That night I go outside and stand barefoot in the backyard. The toes of my feet, not so different from those of Homo naledi, dig into the cool grass. Where am I in time? Behind me, in the past, extend some 3 million years of human evolution. Ahead of me lies a human future that could be unimaginably chaotic and short. Here, in this precious, passing instant of time, I stand on the place where past and future meet.

That place is on fire with love.

Surging through the dark night air and rising up from the earth beneath my feet are gratitude for the priceless gift of life, grief for what we’ve lost, anger at what we’ve done, and a love that knows no bounds. I feel an urgent call to spend my life well, to place it in the service of life.

Week of Moral Action for Climate JusticeNext week I will head to Washington, DC, to participate in the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice (Sept. 21-25). Pope Francis is coming to DC to address a joint session of Congress, and people of all colors, creeds, and faiths will converge on our nation’s Capitol to amplify his unequivocal call to humanity to create a just and sustainable future. All eyes are on the U.N. climate talks that will be held in Paris this December, which we fervently hope will chart a course to a low-carbon world.

The Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You), draws from the best of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. As Wen Stephenson points out in a fascinating cover story in The Nation, the encyclical reclaims the once-marginalized terrain of liberation theology and offers a radical critique of the economic and social system that drives climate change. Francis highlights the fact that in a world beset by a disrupted climate, those who are poor have the fewest resources and are the least able to adapt. What’s more, the same mindset and economic system that exploit the Earth are the same mindset and economic system that exploit the poor. The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor form a single cry and should evoke an integrated, comprehensive response.

The encyclical itself has generated a strong response: negative reviews from right-wing politicians wedded to the fossil fuel status quo and ringing endorsements from religious leaders worldwide who view climate justice as a moral imperative.  More than 400 rabbis have signed a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis that was timed to support the papal encyclical.  Islamic leaders from 20 countries recently released the Islamic Declaration on Climate Change, urging action based on a religious mandate to protect the planet. Anglican bishops just issued a fresh call for action on climate justice.

During the week in DC I will offer a prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast for Creation Care, hosted by National Religious Coalition for Creation Care (NRCCC), and I will offer a prayer at the Interfaith Prayer Vigil near the National Mall that concludes the marking of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, and a day of atonement. I will walk through the halls of Congress, delivering copies of a letter about the climate emergency that I took the lead on writing on behalf of NRCCC, and I will stand with thousands of people on the National Mall to watch on Jumbo Trons as the Pope delivers his message to Congress. That night I will savor a celebration of song, prayer, sermons, and poetry about faith and climate at the National Cathedral, which will be live-streamed nationally.

For too long humanity has been caught in a trance of greed, resignation, and shortsightedness, as if we have no choice but to keep drilling and fracking, keep plundering the earth and keep plundering the poor. We stand at the brink of disaster. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called it our “global suicide pact.”

But maybe we will start to apprehend the mystery of time, a sacred mystery that extends far beyond our own little lives. We belong to something much greater than ourselves. After all, human beings were born from stars. Members of Homo naledi are not the only Star People – we all are. We exist within a great sweep of Milky Way time. Yet we are also faced with the fact, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, that “…tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”

In the short span of a lifetime each one of us has countless opportunities to bear witness to what Dante called “the love that moves the sun and other stars.” That love is moving through us, too, and in the brief time we Homo sapiens have left in which to save life as it has evolved on this wondrous planet, it is our call and privilege to do everything we can, because we love our natural world and our descendants, those born and not yet born. They are our future and we are their past.

So we reach out to the ancestors who came before us and to the descendants who, God willing, will arrive long after we have vanished from Earth and are only bones in the ground. We reach out to our human neighbors, to children and the elderly, to the vulnerable and poor, to the countless refugees already on the move as seas rise and drought spreads. We reach out to the living world around us – to all that has been desecrated, to the blasted forests and dying meadows, to the poisoned, acid-drenched oceans and the convoluted air. We reach out in love to all of you, and we say: I stand with you. I belong to you. I am part of you. I will not let you go. We are in this together. I will join the fight to re-weave the web of life.

The most comprehensive schedule I’ve found for the events going on in DC during the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice is here.

September 21: The National Prayer Breakfast for Creation Care will begin at 10 AM, at Capitol Hill Lutheran Church, 212 East Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20003.
September 23: Interfaith Prayer Vigil will begin at 7:00 p.m. near the National Mall at John Marshall Park (at Pennsylvania and 4th Street NW, near Judiciary Square Metro), organized by Franciscan Action Network.
September 24: Ignatian Solidarity Network is helping congregations to organize “watch parties” of the Pope’s historic address to Congress, offering a free step-by-step guide for how to set one up.
Three watch parties are scheduled at 7:00 p.m. in the Pioneer Valley (in Amherst, Northampton, and Longmeadow, MA). Details are here.
At 12:30 p.m. on September 24, the same day that Pope Francis addresses Congress, Springfield Climate Justice Coalition will hold an important rally on the steps of the Springfield, Mass. City Hall, to urge the city to fund and implement a climate action plan. Download a flier here: SpringfieldRallyForClimateJustice2015flyer. Please come if you can!

 

 

 

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12B), July 26, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at Grace Church, Great Barrington, MA. 2 Kings 4:42-44 Psalm 145: 10-19 Ephesians 3:14-21 John 6:1-21

Filled with the fullness of God

It’s a pleasure to be with you on this fine mid-summer morning. Thank you, Janet, for inviting me to preach. I am the Missioner for Creation Care in this diocese, so I travel from church to church, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our call as Christians to protect the Earth. This is my first visit to Grace Church and I haven’t met most of you, but already I feel as if I’m among friends. From everything I’ve heard, you are modeling the kind of Christianity we need in the 21st century: a community of people who gather week by week to be nourished by each others’ presence and by the Word and sacraments of God, and who don’t require a big old building that leaves a big old carbon footprint.

I’m told that many of you are gardeners, and that you know how to cultivate the soil, tend flowers, and grow food. I honor you for that hands-on knowledge of the Earth, and I also honor your dedication to sharing what you grow with your neighbors and to feeding a hungry world. Our call as human beings to “till and keep” the Earth (Genesis 2:15) extends outward to political engagement, as well, so I also want to thank those of you who headed off to New York City last year to join the People’s Climate March. What an astonishing event that was – hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets to proclaim the urgent need to protect and sustain life on Earth! Thank you, friends, for all the ways you bear witness to what Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls the “supreme work” of Jesus Christ: to reconcile humanity not only with God and each other, but also with the whole of Creation. I know you’ve been reflecting for several weeks on food and faith, and I want to jump right in to our Gospel reading from John. Whenever I read this account of Jesus feeding the five thousand, I feel a wave of affection for the little boy who offered Jesus his five barley loaves and two fish.1 We don’t know very much about that boy – we get only a glimpse of him and we see him only in passing, but we do know that his gift to Jesus opened the door to a miracle, one that the early Church found so significant that, among all the stories of Jesus’ public ministry, only this one is recorded in all four Gospels. After that unknown little boy puts everything he has into the hands of Jesus, the hungry crowds are fed – in fact, they are filled with such abundance that the disciples can gather up the leftover food and pile it into twelve baskets. Like many commentators, I’ve wondered about the identity of that nameless boy whose generosity made all the difference. I imagine him as being eight, nine, maybe ten years old. Maybe he heard that Jesus was in the neighborhood, and started begging his mother to let him go see for himself the man that everyone was talking about. If I had been his mother, I would have been reluctant to say yes: for one thing, the boy might get lost in the crowds. But maybe he kept pestering her until finally she gave in and packed him a picnic lunch: some barley bread – in those days, the bread of the very poor – and a couple of pickled fish, no bigger than sardines. What happened next is told in all four gospels. The hungry crowds begin to gather around Jesus – hundreds, even thousands of them – and they have nothing to eat. The sun is hot, their feet are sore, and their stomachs are empty. One of the disciples, Philip, feels hopeless. “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little” (John 6:7). How easy it would have been for the boy to say to himself: “So many people need food, how can my bit of lunch make a difference? I don’t want to look like an idiot. And I don’t want to give away the little I have and go hungry, myself. Let’s just wait and see. Maybe someone else will figure out what to do.” We will never know what went through the child’s mind, but obviously that wasn’t it, for something drew him forward. Maybe he tugged at Andrew’s sleeve and showed him the food that he’d brought with him. It seems that Andrew wasn’t particularly impressed. In fact, he sounds quite doubtful as he turns to Jesus to say, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” (John 6:9). As I imagine it, Jesus listened quietly to Andrew and then turned to look down at the little boy, standing there in the heat with his outstretched offering of some chunks of bread and two tiny fish. Maybe Jesus looked at him and smiled. He took the child’s gift, blessed it, and gave it to all the hungry people to eat. And they ate, and were satisfied. This is a story about hopelessness shifting to hope, about scarcity being transformed into abundance, about empty places being filled to overflowing. It’s a story about one small person initiating a miracle by offering what he has, even though it seems very small. It’s a story about the power of generosity – a story about how one small but selfless act can end up blessing everybody. I relish this story because I cherish that little boy and also because it’s so easy to identify with the crowds of people around him that are hungry, tired, passive, and overwhelmed. It’s easy these days to be agitated by anxiety or paralyzed by despair, for the challenges that press upon us are daunting. In just 200 years – a blink in geologic time – human beings have burned so much coal, gas, and oil and released so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at a level that our species has never experienced before. This spring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that for the first time in human history the global level of carbon dioxide has topped 400 parts per million, reaching a level that hasn’t been seen in about 2 million years. For now the air is still breathable, and for now your life and mine will go on. But what’s so worrisome to scientists is that this process is happening so fast. Already we’ve shot well past 350 parts per million, the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the amount of carbon dioxide pouring into the atmosphere is accelerating at a record pace, one hundred times faster than natural rises in the past. If we stick to business as usual and keep to our present course, then within two, three, four generations we could raise average global temperatures to a level that would make the world very difficult for humans and other creatures to inhabit. Already oceans are heating and becoming more acidic; tundra is thawing; ice caps are melting; sea levels are rising; coral reefs are dying; massive droughts are spreading in some places and heavy rains intensifying in others. This summer the West is so dry, even a rainforest is on fire, and so many fires are burning in Alaska that the smoke has drifted through the Midwest and reached all the way down to Texas. The first half of 2015 was the hottest ever recorded, and this year is on track to beat last year as the hottest year on record. We’re on the edge, or even in the midst, of what some experts are calling the sixth major extinction event on this planet. So when it comes to the climate crisis, it’s not just about polar bears anymore. It’s about saving a habitable world for our children and our children’s children. It’s about finding our moral compass and deciding what kind of world we want to inhabit. Like the little boy caught in the midst of a hungry and restless crowd, we rifle through our pockets, wondering what gift we have to offer and whether one person can possibly make a difference. When I look around, I see a planet at risk and masses of people who are tormented by denial, fear, anger, or despair. But I also see this: person after person bravely standing up to offer his or her vision and skills, energy and time to the shared struggle to re-weave the fabric of life and to create a just and sustainable future. As a Christian, I believe that if we put what we have, whether it’s a little or a lot, into the hands of Jesus, miracles can happen and blessings can emerge that no one could possibly have predicted. As we heard in the Letter to the Ephesians, if we stay “rooted and grounded in love,” we will discover a “power at work within us [that] is able to accomplish far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:17, 20). As I look around this summer I see people rising up for life and refusing to settle for a killing status quo. I see people blocking the path of new fracked gas pipelines and being arrested for civil disobedience as they read aloud from Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical on the environment. I see people lobbying for a fair price on carbon, so that we can build a clean green economy that provides decent jobs and improves public health. I see our own Episcopal Church deciding – miracles of miracles! – to divest from fossil fuels, since it makes no financial or moral sense to invest in companies that are ruining the planet. I see new coalitions being formed and new alliances being forged, as people begin to realize that the environmental crisis is closely connected to the social crises of poverty, income inequality, and racial injustice. The worldview that allows the Earth to be exploited and trashed is the same worldview that allows the poor and vulnerable to be exploited and trashed – which means, as Bill McKibben has pointed out, “The fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one.” On September 24, one year after the People’s Climate March in New York City, people will be gathering in Washington, D.C., and in New York City to welcome the Pope as he addresses a joint session of Congress and then a meeting at the United Nations. This is a defining moment as we head toward the international climate talks that will be held in Paris this December. But you don’t have to leave Massachusetts to join the climate justice movement. We are fortunate to have a strong grassroots climate group right here: 350Mass. for a Better Future. It has nodes across the state, including one here in Berkshire County. If you sign up to receive the weekly newsletter from 350Mass., as I hope you will after the service, you will find friends and allies in the struggle to keep fossil fuels in the ground and to accelerate a transition to clean, safe, renewable sources of energy, such as sun and wind. I can almost promise that in doing so you will receive a wave of hope that will nourish your soul. The Church was made for a time like this – a time when human beings need to remember that we belong to one Earth, that we form one human family, that our life is a gift, and that God entrusted the Earth and all its residents to our care. Despite what our culture tells us, we are not called to be self-centered consumers who grab and hoard everything we can for ourselves, but rather people who find our deepest identity and deepest joy in serving the common good and in being rooted and grounded in love. I think that’s what the little boy in today’s Gospel story discovered when he gave his bread and fish to Jesus and realized, lo and behold, that somehow his gift was enabling the whole community to be fed. I like to imagine how that day ended. I like to imagine that at the end of the day, the boy practically ran all the way home, burst through the door, and told his astonished mother, “Just guess what happened! Just guess what Jesus and I did together today!” Who knows what God in Christ will be able to do through you, today and in the days ahead, as you offer your gift to a yearning and hungry world?
1. I am indebted to a commentator who imagined this scene many years ago. I can’t remember where I read his account, but I want to give him credit and extend my thanks.  
Sermon for the First Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at St. Michael’s on the Heights, Worcester, MA. Isaiah 6:1-8 Psalm 29 Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17

“Here am I; send me!”

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’” (Isaiah 6:8)

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning, and I want to thank Deacon Dave Woessner for inviting me to preach and celebrate. I am the Missioner for Creation Care in this diocese, so I travel from church to church, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our call as Christians to protect the Earth. And what a wonderful day to proclaim God’s love for Creation: Trinity Sunday! Every year, on Trinity Sunday we focus our thoughts on God, that sacred Mystery that creates and redeems and sustains all things and whom we traditionally name as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

It took a long time, and many years of controversy, for the Church to develop its understanding of the Holy Trinity. After Jesus lived, died and rose again, his followers searched the Scriptures for clues about the nature of God. They examined their own life of prayer, and they reflected on the experience of prophets and mystics like Isaiah, who, as we heard in this morning’s first reading, was given a vision of God that surely changed his life. In Isaiah’s vision, he sees “the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty” (Isaiah 6:1). God’s glory so surpasses and overflows the sacred space that just the “hem” of God’s robe fills the entire temple. Then Isaiah sees winged seraphs, and he hears them singing back and forth to each other in words that we’ve included in our Eucharist down through the ages, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah is overcome with awe. He feels small and unworthy in the face of such majesty. “Woe is me!” he cries. “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). We can imagine his amazement. When our eyes are opened to the presence of the Divine, we feel humbled, awe-struck, mortal, and small. We experience our complete dependence on a power greater than ourselves. Yet at the very same time, by the mercy of God we also find ourselves beloved, forgiven, lifted up, set free. That’s what Isaiah experiences: a seraph plucks a burning coal from the altar and touches it to Isaiah’s mouth, as if burning away Isaiah’s guilt and melting away everything in him that is less than love. After that holy encounter Isaiah hears God speaking in his depths. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah replies without hesitation or reserve, without holding back. “Here am I,” he answers. “Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Being touched by God’s presence evokes in Isaiah a wholehearted and joyful response. Count me in! I’m yours! I want to give myself to you just as you have given yourself to me. Biblical accounts of this sort of encounter contributed to the thinking of the scholars and bishops who pondered the mystery of God’s nature. I am grateful for their careful analysis as they gradually shaped the doctrine of the Trinity. It matters how we think about God. But there are limits to what our intellects can do. We will never “figure out” God, as if God were an object that we can separate from other objects and then dissect and probe, as we might study a distant star or a close-up specimen in a laboratory. God is not an object at all, but a mysterious Presence that abides within and beyond all things; not another being alongside many beings, but the very Ground of being; not a big, omnipotent Man in the Sky but a dynamic communion of relationship marked by self-giving love. We will never understand the Trinity from the outside, by thinking about it, but only from the inside, by experiencing it. As St. Augustine put it long ago, “We come to God by love, not by navigation.” And he describes the Trinity very simply as the Lover, the Beloved, and the love that flows between. Step into that flow of love, as Isaiah did, and we are caught up in a love affair that has been going on since before time began. The divine Mystery that we call “God” is an ongoing exchange of love between God the Father – the Lover, the Creator – and God the Son, the Beloved. Flowing between them is the never-ending love of the Holy Spirit. God is one, and yet God is also three, a dynamic relationship, a giving and receiving of love. When the early Councils of the Church debated the nature of God, they came up with an image of the Trinity as a dance. The word in Greek is perichoresis and it means a “dance-around” of love. Imagine that! At the center of reality, a dance of love is in full swing! And we, too, are a perichoresis because we are created in the image and likeness of the Trinity. Jesus came to invite us to join the dance. He was completely caught up in a love affair with God, his beloved abba, which is the Aramaic word for Father. Through the Holy Spirit, our counselor and comforter, our advocate and guide who leads us into all truth (John 16:13), we, too, are drawn into the flow of love between God the Father (or Mother) of our souls, and God the Son. As we heard in the reading from Romans, when we turn to God and cry “Abba! Father!” it is God’s own Spirit that is praying within us, “bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:15-16). God is not just “out there” but also “in here,” not just beyond us but also within us and among us, weaving us together in love. Trinity Sunday reminds us that we live in the midst of a great love affair going on between God and God’s Creation. Divine love has no limit. It embraces not only human beings but also all beings (Genesis 9:12). And the love of God being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) gives us strength to protect an imperiled world and to work for its healing and transformation. Being rooted in the love of God gives us a foundation from which to address the urgent issues of our day. Of all the challenges we face, climate change is the one that wakes me up in the middle of the night. I know that some people are very concerned about climate change, and some people less so. As I see it, climate change is the moral issue of our time. 97% of climate scientists worldwide are telling us with increasing alarm that climate change is real, it is happening now, and for the most part it is caused by us human beings. Of course there has always been some natural variability in the planet’s average temperature, but ever since the Industrial Revolution we’ve been forcing the climate to change in a way that human beings have never experienced before.  In just two centuries – only a blink in geologic time – we have burned so much coal, gas, and oil and released so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at a level that Homo sapiens has never experienced before. This month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that for the first time in human history the global level of carbon dioxide has topped 400 parts per million, reaching a level that hasn’t been seen in about 2 million years.  For now the air is still breathable, and for now your life and mine will go on. But what’s so worrisome to scientists is that this process is happening so fast. Already we’ve shot well past 350 parts per million, the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the amount of carbon dioxide pouring into the atmosphere is accelerating at a record pace, one hundred times faster than natural rises in the past. Already oceans are heating and becoming more acidic; tundra is thawing; ice caps are melting; sea levels are rising; coral reefs are dying; massive droughts are spreading in some places and heavy rains intensifying in others. Last spring we learned that the huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting to collapse and slide into the sea in a way that scientists call “unstoppable.” Here in New England, extreme weather events have increased over 70% in recent years. So when it comes to the climate crisis, it’s not just about polar bears anymore. It’s about saving a habitable world for our children and our children’s children. It’s about finding our moral compass and deciding what kind of world we want to inhabit. The average worldwide temperature is rising, and if we simply stick to business as usual and keep to our present course – if we simply keep carrying out our usual daily activities in our usual carbon-intensive way – then within two, three, four generations we could raise average global temperatures to a level that would make the world very difficult for humans and other creatures to inhabit. How does the Holy Spirit call us to respond as the web of life unravels before our eyes? In a situation that speaks so much of death and despair, it is deeply reassuring, even necessary, to ground our selves again in the dynamic, living presence of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet may be unstoppable, but so, too, is the love of God. We take heart from that unstoppable love. We know that God is with us. We know that when we rise up to heal God’s Creation, we are becoming the people that God created us to be: people who bless and heal the Earth, people who refuse to settle for business as usual. Scientists have done their work. Now it’s up to us to bear witness to the love of God. And that’s just what’s happening in religious communities around the world, especially now, as we look ahead to the crucial U.N. climate talks that will take place in Paris this December. This spring our Presiding Bishop declared that denying the reality of human-caused climate change is immoral. This summer Pope Francis will release a much-anticipated encyclical on climate change, an important teaching about the moral urgency of tackling this crisis. Meanwhile, one by one religious groups are starting to divest – that is, to sell off their holdings of stocks and bonds – from fossil fuels, arguing that if it is immoral to burn up the planet, surely it is immoral to profit from that burning. A wave of religious activism, including, in some cases, civil disobedience, is beginning to sweep the country, as religious leaders and institutions start to speak out that climate change is not just a scientific issue, not just economic issue, not just a political issue, but also a moral issue. For I ask you – is it ethical to ruin the world for our children and grandchildren, and for generations yet unborn? Do we have no moral responsibility for the cascade of extinctions now underway among our brother and sister species, in large part because of climate change? Are we willing to stand idly by and devastate the lives of the poor, who suffer first and hardest from the effects of climate change? Are we willing to thumb our noses at our Creator, who entrusted the Earth to our care and to whom the Creation ultimately belongs (Psalm 24:1)? Will we refuse to bear witness in our lives that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16)? For more and more of us, the answer, thank God, is No. We want to be faithful to Jesus. We want the love of God that is pouring into our hearts to be expressed in how we treat each other and how we treat the Earth. And there is so much we can do. As individuals, we can recycle more, drive less, be sparing in our use of water, and quit using bottled water. We can turn off lights when we leave a room, maybe eat local, organic, and less meat-centered foods, and support local farms and land trusts. I hope that you will form a “green team” in this parish, and I’ve put a signup sheet in the back of church for anyone who would like to help form one. I hope that some of you will sign up to receive emails from our local grassroots climate action group, 350Mass.org. I hope that some of you will sign up to join a network of people across the diocese who care about Creation. I’d be glad to support you in any way I can. With the blessing of God the Father, in the presence and power of the risen Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, our churches can become centers of prayer and action for a more sustainable, just and prosperous world. God is murmuring in our hearts, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and God yearns for our reply, “Here am I; send me!” (Isaiah 6:8).

Next month, leaders in the Episcopal Church will gather in Salt Lake City for our triennial General Convention.   Among the significant decisions that will be made is a decision about whether to divest from fossil fuels – that is, whether to sell off holdings of stocks and bonds from the world’s leading 200 fossil fuel companies as identified by the Carbon Underground and to re-invest in the clean energy sector.

In many respects the Episcopal Church has a history of leadership in addressing the climate crisis (for a summary of that history, you can download here a pdf of my article, “The Episcopal Church and Climate Change: The First Twenty-Five Years,” The Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2013). As a community of faith, the Episcopal Church cherishes the study of science and accepts the consensus of climate scientists that climate change is real and is largely caused by human activity. In fact, our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori (who was an oceanographer before she began studying for ordination) told a reporter a couple of months ago that it is “immoral” to deny the conclusions of climate science. Yet in the same public remarks Bishop Schori also stated that she opposes divesting from fossil fuels.

She is not alone. In speaking with Episcopalians in person, by mail, and on the phone, in small groups and one-on-one, I’ve discovered that although some of us are ardent advocates of fossil fuel divestment, others are moderately or strongly opposed.

Some Church leaders are uncertain, actively wrestling with their conscience, trying to sort out what faithfulness to the Gospel requires. The most poignant conversation I have had so far was with a man who spoke about divestment in terms of religious conversion. His deepest intention is to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. As a person charged with investment responsibilities in the Church he believes that divestment from fossil fuels is the right thing to do, but he does not feel ready to advocate for it. Very candidly he tells me that where he is as a follower of Jesus is different from where he is in carrying out his financial responsibilities. He is aware of the incongruity, and it troubles him. I sense that he lives in an in-between place, not at peace with his conscience. I sense his discomfort. I honor his desire for conversion.

I want to dedicate this blog post to him, and to all people of good will who want our behavior to line up with our conscience, so that the choices we make around money (and everything else) increasingly express our deepest values.

Here are some arguments against divestment that I’ve heard from several leaders in the Episcopal Church, and how I respond.

1) The Episcopal Church has a considered theological belief that encourages positive engagement when change is desired. We do not believe that shunning or cutting off conversation is an effective way to encourage conversion or transformation.

Conversation – including stockholders being in dialogue with corporate management – is indeed an essential aspect of positive engagement, but conversation is not the only or necessarily the best way to engage constructively or to encourage conversion or transformation. Jesus had many conversations that transformed lives, but he did not rely only on words to express his message. He also communicated God’s presence by touch, gesture, silence, and action.

Divesting from fossil fuels does not cut off conversation with the fossil fuel industry. Quite the contrary – it clarifies the message that we need to convey: 80% of fossil fuels must stay in the ground.

There are times when conversation by itself has no power to encourage conversion or transformation, but must be accompanied by action. A personal story may illustrate the point: my father was alcoholic. I spent many years reasoning and arguing with him, until at last I realized that talking with a drunk about his addiction would never change a thing. It was only when I helped organize a family intervention – a disciplined conversation that includes real consequences – that he became willing, however briefly, to address his addiction.

Words by themselves are not enough when it comes to transforming deep patterns of addiction and sin. Divestment, or the threat of divestment, raises the ante, builds social and political pressure, and increases the likelihood that fossil fuel companies will have to listen and change.

2) Stockholder engagement has the potential to shift energy companies’ focus to alternative, renewable, and less polluting sources.

Stockholder engagement makes sense when we want a company to change aspects of how it carries out its business. It does not make sense when we want a company to stop carrying out its core business.

When it comes to fossil fuels, we need to shut down an entire industry, not to fine-tune its operations. Fossil fuel companies now hold five times the amount of fuel that, if burned, would catapult the world into catastrophic climate disruption. Nevertheless these companies continue to aggressively explore for more oil, and they have every intention of burning it. If fossil fuel companies are successful in carrying out their business plans, which require unlimited expansion of markets and ever-increasing extraction and burning of fossil fuels, they will destroy life as it has evolved on this planet, along with human civilization. Their core business is destroying life on Earth.

Fossil fuel companies like to present themselves as being “energy” companies, as if they were equally involved in developing solar and wind power alongside power from fossil fuels (for a while BP tried to persuade the public to call the company “Beyond Petroleum”). In fact, developing power from sun and wind is a miniscule part of what fossil fuel companies do. Meanwhile the industry blocks regulations that would promote clean, safe, renewable energy; funds climate deniers and think-tanks that deny climate science; confuses the public by spreading misinformation; and pours billions of dollars into the effort to persuade the public that fossil fuels are the answer to our energy needs.

I know of no example of shareholder engagement persuading a company to replace its core business with a different business.

3) Pragmatically, an immediate end to fossil fuel use is unmanageable. The world is going to have to continue to utilize fossil sources like gas as a bridge to a sustainable future.

In calling for divestment from fossil fuels, we recognize that we continue to depend on fossil fuels in just about every aspect of modern life. We see divestment as expressing our intention to break society’s dependence on fossil fuels and to create a path to a sustainable future. The goal of divestment is to propel a shift to clean, safe, renewable energy.

So-called “natural” gas has been touted as a bridge to a sustainable future, though that claim is increasingly in doubt, given the methane leaks that result from extracting and distributing this fuel. Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and fracking is associated with contamination of groundwater and aquifers, and with earthquakes.

Pragmatically, all of us depend on a fossil-fuel-based economy, but we know enough about the effects of burning fossil fuels to know that we must create a new clean-energy economy as quickly as possible. As individuals, we must reduce our carbon footprint as much as we can. As citizens, we must push for policies and regulations that keep fossil fuels in the ground and enable a swift transition to clean renewables.

Back in the days of slavery, everyone depended on slaves. Slave-holding was considered essential to a healthy economy. Yet people who depended on slaves – people who wore clothes made by slaves, people who ate food produced by slaves – had a moral awakening, rose up to say that slavery was wrong, and actively engaged in the struggle to bring slavery to an end.

We can do the same thing. The shift to clean, safe, renewable energy won’t happen overnight, but it needs to start right now.  Thanks to the political and economic clout of the fossil fuel industry, most of us depend on fossil fuels because we have no other choice. Generally speaking, fossil fuel is the only source of energy that is available or affordable.  So using fossil fuels by no means removes our responsibility to push for societal change. Even while recognizing that we ourselves remain embedded in an economy based on fossil fuels, we can and must do everything in our power to change that economy, to hold fossil companies accountable for their actions, and to withdraw their social license to keep wrecking the planet. (For an excellent essay on this subject, read KC Golden’s “We have met the wrong enemy”).

4) We don’t want to make a political statement with our investments. Our endowment (or pension fund) is a resource, not an instrument to promote social or political change.

What we do with our money – how we spend it, how we save it, how we give it away, how we invest it – always has political ramifications. Money is always an expression of our values. Jesus had more to say about money than about any other topic.

If it is immoral to destroy life on this planet, then it is equally immoral to profit from that destruction. This is one reason that Archbishop Desmond Tutu – who knows first-hand the powerful role that was played by divestment in bringing down apartheid in South Africa – urges divestment from fossil fuels. Tutu affirms that “people of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.”

5) Our number one priority as responsible investors is to make money. Our fiduciary responsibility requires ongoing investment in fossil fuels.

Regarding financial risk, a strong case can be made that divesting from fossil fuels is a responsible financial decision. Financial analysts have shown that the short-term financial impact of divestment is negligible (see, for instance, “Extracting Fossil Fuels from Your Portfolio”). The long-term financial impact of divestment may actually strengthen a portfolio, because the so-called “carbon bubble” could burst as climate disruption forces governments to limit the burning of fossil fuels and to put a steep price on carbon. Continuing to invest in fossil fuels could lead to financial loss as fossil fuel reserves lose value and become stranded assets.

That said, of all the arguments against divestment, the argument that earning top dollar takes precedence over any other value is the argument – especially when voiced by Christians – that most breaks my heart.

Define “fiduciary responsibility” as being faithful to the future and it makes no sense to invest in fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels undermines any hope of a livable, healthy future for future generations, including our children and grandchildren.

I imagine a dystopian vision: a scorched and desolate Earth, devoid of myriad species that have long-since gone extinct; billions of refugees on the move, searching for food and fresh water; extreme storms and waves of heat; local, regional, and national conflicts erupting over scarce resources; authoritarian governments crushing democracy in the name of national security. In such a world blighted by runaway climate change, will anybody who profited from fossil fuels look back with satisfaction on their investments?  Will the people who managed pension funds and endowments and kept investing in fossil fuels congratulate themselves on their fiduciary responsibility to their clients? We wrecked the Earth, but hey, no problem, we did the right thing – we made a few bucks!

I imagine a life-sustaining vision: one after another, organizations of all kinds – educational institutions, non-profit groups, communities of faith – rise up to say yes to life. In a wave of moral clarity, they divest from fossil fuels. By divesting, they open up a space for a new future and build momentum for deep societal change. By divesting, they make it easier to pass laws that limit carbon pollution. By divesting, they break the mental grip that the fossil fuel industry has on our collective consciousness. By divesting, they make it crystal clear that if business as usual is wrecking the planet, then business as usual must stop.

A wave of religious activism, including, in some cases, civil disobedience, is beginning to sweep the globe, as religious leaders and institutions increasingly proclaim that climate disruption is not just a scientific or economic or political issue, but also a moral issue. I ask you – is it ethical to ruin the world for our children and grandchildren and for generations yet unborn? Do we have no moral responsibility for the cascade of extinctions now underway among our brother and sister species, in large part because of climate change? Are we willing to stand idly by and devastate the lives of the poor, who suffer first and hardest from the effects of climate change? Are we willing to thumb our noses at our Creator, who entrusted the Earth to our care and to whom the Creation ultimately belongs (Psalm 24:1)? Will we refuse to bear witness to the Risen Christ, whose redemptive love embraces the whole Creation?

For more and more of us, thank God, the answer is No. We want to abide in God’s love. We want to be faithful to Jesus. We want the love that is pouring into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) to be manifest in how we treat each other and how we treat the Earth.

Recently the Church of England announced that it is divesting from two of the most polluting fuels, coal and tar sands. The World Council of Churches, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the United Church of Christ have already announced that they are divesting from fossil fuels, as have a number of dioceses in the Anglican Communion and several dioceses in the Episcopal Church, including my own, the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

Fossil fuel divestment by the Episcopal Church at this summer’s General Convention would send a powerful message that climate change is a moral issue. Divestment would also enlarge our capacity to make positive investments in renewable energy, such as sun and wind, and to help build a new, carbon-free economy.

In these perilous times, I pray that the Holy Spirit will transform every member of the Episcopal Church by the renewing of our mind, and will help us to discern what is the will of God (Romans 12:2).

Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fairfield, CT. 1 John 5:1-6 Psalm 98 John 15:9-17

Facing the climate crisis and abiding in love

It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning and to reconnect with some dear clergy friends whom I’ve known for many years. Thank you for inviting me to preach. I work as the Missioner for Creation Care in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, and I travel to different churches, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our call as Christians to honor the holiness of God’s Creation. I know that caring for Creation is a topic that many of you are already concerned about here at St. Paul’s, and I hope to give you a word of encouragement and support.

Today’s Gospel reading makes a fine starting-point for reflection on why Christians feel called to protect God’s Creation. When I was in seminary many years ago, someone told me that a preacher should never mention the word ‘love’ in a sermon unless the readings assigned for the day clearly justified it. It turns out that I’ve managed to ignore that advice for nearly 30 years in just about every sermon I’ve ever preached. But hey – today I need no excuse! I did the count: the word “love” shows up nine times in today’s Gospel: Jesus says to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love… This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:9-10, 12). And so on. The reading from the First Letter of John mentions the word ‘love’ five times. So today I get to proclaim it, no excuses, no hand on the parking brake, and no holds barred: it’s all about love and it’s always been about love. We live in the midst of the great love affair going on between God and God’s Creation. From start to finish, the whole Christian story is a story about a divine love that creates and sustains, that heals and forgives, that brings forth new life and makes all things new. There is a divine Presence within us and among us that is always luring us to connect and to be gentle with each other, always inviting us to be compassionate, always challenging us to confront injustice and to overcome division until at last we create the Beloved Community for which God yearns. Divine love has no limit. It embraces not only human beings but also all beings (Genesis 9:12). And the love of God being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) gives us strength to protect an imperiled world and to work for its healing and transformation. Today is Mother’s Day, and I give thanks for the mothers who brought each of us into the world, for those in this room who are mothers, for those trying to become mothers and those wishing they had been mothers, and for everyone, men and women alike, who know what it’s like to love with a mother’s love and to pour ourselves out – sleepless nights and all! – in the effort to help another being thrive. We sometimes describe our planet as Mother Earth, so today is a good day to honor her, too – this all-embracing Earth that offers us nourishment, shelter, and life. Today we also acknowledge our planet’s vulnerability and the assault now being waged on our planet’s life-systems. Of all the environmental challenges that we face, it is climate change that wakes me up in the middle of the night. I know that some people are very concerned about climate change, and some people less so. As I see it, climate change is the moral issue of our time. 97% of climate scientists worldwide are telling us with increasing alarm that climate change is real, it is happening now, and for the most part it is caused by us human beings. Of course there has always been some natural variability in the planet’s average temperature, but ever since the Industrial Revolution we’ve been forcing the climate to change in a way that human beings have never experienced before.  In just two centuries – only a blink in geologic time – we have burned so much coal, gas, and oil and released so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at a level that Homo sapiens has never experienced before. A few days ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made an expected, though long-dreaded, announcement that for the first time in human history the global level of carbon dioxide has topped 400 parts per million, reaching a level that hasn’t been seen in about 2 million years. For now the air is still breathable, and for now your life and mine will go on. But what’s so worrisome to scientists is that this process is happening so fast. Already we’ve shot well past 350 parts per million, the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the amount of carbon dioxide pouring into the atmosphere is accelerating at a record pace, one hundred times faster than natural rises in the past. Already oceans are heating and becoming more acidic; tundra is thawing; ice caps are melting; sea levels are rising; coral reefs are dying; massive droughts are spreading in some places and heavy rains intensifying in others. Last spring we learned that the huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting to collapse and slide into the sea in a way that scientists call “unstoppable.” Here in New England, extreme weather events have increased over 70% in recent years, and you know first-hand about Hurricane Sandy. So when it comes to the climate crisis, it’s not just about polar bears anymore. It’s about saving a habitable world for our children and our children’s children. It’s about finding our moral compass and deciding what kind of world we want to inhabit. The average worldwide temperature is rising, and if we simply stick to business as usual and keep to our present course – if we simply keep carrying out our usual daily activities in our usual carbon-intensive way – then within two, three, four generations we could raise average global temperatures to a level that would make the world very difficult for humans and other creatures to inhabit. So how does the Holy Spirit call us to respond as the web of life unravels before our eyes? In a situation that speaks so much of death and despair, it is deeply reassuring to hear Jesus call us to abide in his love. The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet may be unstoppable, but so, too, is the love of God. We take heart from that unstoppable love. We know that God is with us. We know that when we rise up to heal God’s Creation, we are becoming the people that God created us to be: people who bless and heal the Earth, people who refuse to settle for business as usual. Scientists have done their work. Now it’s up to us to bear witness to the love of God. And that’s just what’s happening in religious communities around the world, especially now, as we look ahead to the crucial U.N. climate talks that will take place in Paris this December. In March, the Episcopal Church organized a webinar on the climate crisis and our Presiding Bishop declared that denying the reality of human-caused climate change is immoral. Last week Pope Francis and top Vatican officials met with the head of the U.N. and with leading climate scientists to frame climate change as a moral issue, and around the world people are waiting with great anticipation for the release this summer of a papal encyclical on climate change. The Church of England announced last week that it is divesting – that is, selling off its holdings of stocks and bonds – from two of the most polluting fuels, coal and tar sands, for it is immoral to burn up the planet, surely it is immoral to profit from that burning. The World Council of Churches, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the United Church of Christ have already announced that they are divesting from fossil fuels, as have a number of dioceses in the Anglican Communion and several dioceses in the Episcopal Church. I hope that the Episcopal Church as a whole will decide at General Convention this summer to follow suit; the Rev. Stephanie Johnson1 and I are part of a small group of people pushing to make that happen. A wave of religious activism, including, in some cases, civil disobedience, is beginning to sweep the country, as religious leaders and institutions start to speak out that climate change is not just a scientific issue, not just economic issue, not just a political issue, but also a moral issue. For I ask you – is it ethical to ruin the world for our children and grandchildren, and for generations yet unborn? Do we have no moral responsibility for the cascade of extinctions now underway among our brother and sister species, in large part because of climate change? Are we willing to stand idly by and devastate the lives of the poor, who suffer first and hardest from the effects of climate change? Are we willing to thumb our noses at our Creator, who entrusted the Earth to our care and to whom the Creation ultimately belongs (Psalm 24:1)? Will we refuse to bear witness in our lives that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16)? For more and more of us, the answer, thank God, is No. We want to abide in God’s love. We want to be faithful to Jesus. We want the love that is pouring through us to be expressed in how we treat each other and how we treat the Earth. And there is so much we can do. As individuals, we can recycle more, drive less, be sparing in our use of water, and quit using bottled water. We can turn off lights when we leave a room, maybe eat local, organic, and less meat-centered foods, and support local farms and land trusts. As a congregation you can form a “green team,” and if you visit my Website, RevivingCreation.org, you can download a short piece that explains how to do that. Above all, by sounding the moral call we can join the climate movement and push to make it politically possible to do what is scientifically necessary. We need to make a swift transition to clean, safe, renewable sources of energy, such as sun and wind. Interfaith initiatives to address the climate crisis are being organized right here in the Fairfield area, and I hope that you will join me for a conversation about that after the service. I hope that some of you will join me on September 20 in Washington, D.C., where people will converge for the Moral March for Climate Action. I hope that this march will be as powerful and as decisive as the March on Washington in 1963. The love of God will guide us. Churches can lead the way. With the blessing of God the Father, in the presence and power of the risen Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, our churches can become centers of prayer and action for a more sustainable, just and prosperous world. Thank you, good people of St. Paul’s, for everything you are already doing and for what you will decide to do in the weeks and months ahead. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Assistant Priest for Children and Youth Formation at St. Paul’s, the Rev. Stephanie Johnson is also convener of New England Regional Environmental Ministries.

Anyone with a major addiction knows what it’s like to feel imprisoned: you can’t think straight; you can’t face reality; you can’t stop doing what you’re doing, however destructive it is to yourself and others. Because recovery from addiction is such a difficult process, addicts need the tough love of allies and friends in order to make the journey to freedom.

From April 12-17, 2015, members of the Harvard community will come together on campus to speak out for climate justice and to urge the university to divest its holdings in the fossil fuel industry.

Divest Harvard logo
Divest Harvard logo

Harvard Heat Week is an act of tough love.

For me, it’s personal. All my life I have been affiliated with Harvard. My father, John M. Bullitt, was a Harvard professor, specializing in 18th century English literature. When I was seven years old, he was appointed the first Master of Quincy House, and that’s where I grew up. Years later I returned to Harvard to earn a Ph.D. (‘84) in comparative literature.

Harvard was the place where I learned first-hand about addiction. As a graduate student, I confronted my father’s life-long alcoholism and helped to organize an intervention into his drinking. A few months later, I confessed my own addiction, which is to food. On April 13, 1982, I admitted that I was powerless and needed help. On that decisive day I began a journey to freedom, assisted by a community of friends who helped me stay the course. Recovery from addiction changed everything. Now abstinent, I finished my doctorate, left Harvard, and headed to divinity school to learn about the God who had just saved my life. I was ordained in the Episcopal Church and have served as a priest ever since.

On April 13, 2015 – thirty-three years to the day since I began my recovery from addiction – I will head back to Harvard to urge my alma mater to divest from fossil fuels.

Call it an intervention. Call it an act of hope. Call it a plea from one addict to another: liberation is possible. Together we can set a course to a more just and sustainable future. Together we can turn from death to life.

The juggernaut of our economic system is devouring the earth, relentlessly seeking to extract every drop of oil, every ounce of coal, and every trace of so-called “natural” gas. An addictive system is insatiable. It knows no limits. It rejects any regulation and restraint as it strains forward to grab the next dollar and franc and rupee and yen.

Like every addict, an addictive system can’t think clearly. It hides behind excuses and denial, distraction and delay. It prefers to talk about the problem rather than to take meaningful action. It insists, sometimes in all sincerity, that no other way of life is possible. It’s too late to change. We can’t stop – not yet, anyway. Not now. First let’s drill more oil wells, build more pipelines, suck out more tar sands, and blow off more mountaintops. Let’s find out how much more petroleum we can burn, how much more carbon pollution we can pour into the atmosphere, and how much more money we can make before we propel the world into climate chaos.

Divesting from fossil fuels is an act of recovery and liberation. It is a way of saying no: no to the fantasy that corporations can gobble up the earth with impunity, and the devil take the hindmost; no to the lie that where we invest our money doesn’t matter, as long we make more; no to the illusion that you can argue with an addict – by, say, engaging in shareholder activism – and provoke any fundamental change in the addict’s behavior. Divest for Our Future

Divesting from fossil fuels is a way to say no to a death-dealing, addictive system. Investing instead in clean renewables, such as wind, water, and sun, is a way of saying yes: yes to aligning our money with our mission and values; yes to safeguarding life as it has evolved on this planet; yes to making the rapid personal and societal changes we need to make if we’re going to prevent the web of life from unraveling.

As many addicts know, sometimes only a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. In the end, the most abundant and most powerful source of energy is the power of love. I put my trust in that power, in the divine Spirit that longs to “renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:31).

During Harvard Heat Week I will return to campus and risk arrest in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. I will do this for all kinds of reasons: because I love my son, because I love my grandchildren, because I love the holy Mystery that creates and sustains life. Above all, I will do it because, speaking as one addict to another, I understand how hard it is to change. Sometimes only love can stop a person, group, or society from self-destruction – the kind of tough love that stands fast, holds the addict accountable, and refuses to settle for a catastrophic status quo.

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 8, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Sutton, MA. Exodus 20:1-7                    1 Corinthians 1:18-25 Psalm 19                             John 2:13-22

O beautiful for spacious skies

It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning and I’d like to thank your rector, Lisa, for inviting me to preach. I have heard many good things about St. John’s Church. I know that you honor the Gospel call to love and serve in Jesus’ name. I’ve heard about your annual “Mall for Humanity,” which generates funds for your outreach ministry. And I know that you support Connect Africa, an organization that helps children in Uganda, who have been orphaned by AIDS, to receive an education. So I know that the Spirit is alive and well in this congregation and that your hearts are open.

I’d like to preach about a subject that is very much on my heart these days, and I hope that you will give me a hearing, even though some people consider my topic controversial. As you know, I serve the diocese as your Missioner for Creation Care, so I travel from church to church, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our call as Christians to defend the integrity and sanctity of God’s Creation. I know that to some Christians, this ministry makes no sense. Many years ago I preached a sermon about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Some of you may remember what happened: on Good Friday, in 1989, a supertanker ran aground, dumped millions and millions of gallons of crude oil along a pristine coastline in Alaska and caused one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history. Into that long-ago sermon I poured all my anger and heartbreak about humanity’s troubled relationship with God’s Creation. After the service was over, a friendly but baffled parishioner approached me and said, “Thanks for your sermon, but I don’t get it.  What does religion — what does Jesus — have to do with ecology?” That’s a question that has pursued me ever since. What does religion have to do with ecology? Would Jesus care about this? After all, isn’t paying attention to the natural world a rather suspect practice for Christians? Aren’t Christians supposed to be focused on “otherworldly” things like heaven and the salvation of our individual human souls? Some people scoff at Christians who emphasize the value, even the sacredness, of the natural world, charging that this is just a foolish, New Age mistake.  Christians who care about the Earth must be naïve and sentimental “tree-huggers,” or “pagans,” or “do-good liberals.”
Joel Pett, Climate Summit
Joel Pett, Climate Summit
Despite what some people say, in fact we Christians belong to a tradition that proclaims the basic goodness and value of the natural world. In the first chapter of Genesis, as the universe is created, we read that “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In the second chapter, we read that the very first task God gives to human beings is to tend and care for the Earth (Genesis 2:15). Several chapters later comes the story of Noah and the flood, which ends with God making an everlasting covenant, in the sign of a rainbow, and that covenant is not just with human beings, but also with every living creature and for all future generations (Genesis 9:12). It’s not just human beings that God cares about, but all beings, the whole creation! It seems that Jesus lived in close relationship with the natural world. He spent a lot of time outdoors, walking from place to place. In the Bible we meet him on hillsides and mountaintops, beside lakes and in deserted places. He speaks of seeds and harvest, of fig trees, vines, and weeds, of clouds and storms, sheep and hens. He teaches about God in elemental, basic terms, using images of fire and wind, water and stones. Jesus knew that the birds of the air and the lilies of the field could teach us about our relationship with God (Matthew 6:25-33). And he gave us bread and wine as an ongoing sign of his living presence with us. So: believing that the natural world is sacred is not some outlandish heresy or fantasy. It is basic to Christian faith. It’s not that Christians worship the Earth – we don’t. We worship God, and God alone. But we have reverence for the Earth, because, as we hear in Psalm 24, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24:1). The Earth and all its creatures ultimately belong to God – rivers, meadows, and trees, oceans and air, owls and otters, beetles and bumblebees. And all of it shines with God’s glory. Just listen to the first line of today’s psalm: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). What a blessing! We live in a sacred universe. Thinking about that brought to mind the words of “America the Beautiful,” which is one of our country’s most popular patriotic songs and which you can find in our hymnal (#719):           O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,            for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. When we consider the natural magnificence of this country, we join eagerly in the refrain, “America! America! God shed his grace on thee…” Because we know that God’s creation is sacred, it’s painful to see the natural world being degraded by human activity. When we see those “spacious skies” being polluted by greenhouse gases that pour into the atmosphere as coal, gas and oil are burned; when we see those “amber waves of grain” withering away in the face of massive droughts caused by a changing climate; when we see those “purple mountain majesties” blown apart and taken down to extract coal, and “the fruited plain” spoiled by yet another violent deluge caused by climate change – when we see these things we feel grief and anger and regret. Nature can recover from some wounds, but human activities are overwhelming nature’s capacity to heal itself, and this beautiful land of ours is being desecrated. I know that some people are very concerned about climate change, and some people less so. As I see it, climate change is the great moral challenge of our time. 97% of climate scientists worldwide are telling us with increasing alarm that climate change is not a future threat. It is happening now, and for the most part is caused by us human beings. Burning fossil fuels is releasing gases into the atmosphere that make the world’s climate increasingly hot and unstable.  Of course there has always been some natural variability in the planet’s average temperature, but ever since the Industrial Revolution we’ve been forcing the climate to change in a way that human beings have never experienced before. But hey, we may be saying to ourselves, it’s been so cold this winter, and we’ve had so much snow! It turns out that massive snowstorms are linked to climate change, because warmer air holds more moisture. Some climate scientists are also studying the possibility that the rapidly warming Arctic is causing changes in the patterns of the jet stream, and making unusually cold air pour into some regions. As the world grows warmer we can expect more erratic and extreme fluctuations in local weather, and some places will sometimes become unexpectedly cold. Global warming does not necessarily result in warmer winters, but it does push the over-all direction of temperatures worldwide in only one direction: up. Yes, it was cold this winter here in New England, but other places were unusually warm, and on average the temperature of our planet worldwide is rising. Because we love God, we feel a shock of penitence and remorse when we hear the commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:12), for we don’t want to contribute to the mass extinction of life that is now underway around the planet.  Because we love God, we feel a shock of penitence and remorse when we hear the commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), for we don’t want to steal a livable world from our children and grandchildren. We want to be faithful stewards of the world that God entrusted to our care. We want to bear witness to the Lord of life, who rose from the dead and who proclaims that life, and not death, will have the last word. What can you and I do? Well (thanks be to God!), there is a lot we can do. Individual actions add up: we can recycle more, drive less, be sparing in our use of water, and quit using bottled water. We can turn off lights when we leave a room. Maybe we can eat local, organic foods and support local farms and land trusts. I hope you’ll form a “green team” in this parish, and name a Creation Care Minister. I hope you’ll sign up to join a network of people in the diocese who care about Creation. I’d be glad to support you in any way I can. Here in Massachusetts we also have a strong and growing grassroots climate action group, 350Mass.org, and I hope you will sign up to receive weekly updates about their campaigns. Together we can work for a swift transition from fossil fuels to energy that comes from wind and sun. I saw a wonderful bumper sticker this week. Beside a sketch of the sun were the words: One solution comes up every morning. Let’s use our imaginations here. What if everyone had solar panels on their roofs to generate their own electricity? What if these rooftop panels powered our homes and recharged the batteries of our cars? We would enjoy a level of personal energy independence that hasn’t been seen for generations! We wouldn’t be getting our energy from halfway around the world, but rather from a place as close as the roofs over our heads! And what if fields of wind turbines produced energy from wind? We’d be replacing dirty smokestacks and cleaning up the dirty air that kills 3 million people every year from illnesses related to outdoor air pollution. By making a swift transition from coal, gas, and oil to energy from wind and sun, we would become more energy independent, we would improve public health, and we would stabilize the climate. We’d be creating a lot more “green” jobs.1 And you and I would be praising God all the way. Let’s work together to make that happen. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). With the blessing of God the Father, in the presence and power of the risen Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, I pray that our churches will become centers of prayer and action for a greener and more just and stable world. I hope you’ll join me.
1. Thanks to Earth Policy Institute for supplying this vision and these arguments. For a fascinating account of the fast-changing politics of solar energy, read “Utilities wage campaign against rooftop solar,” (Washington Post, 3/7/15) and “Solar energy’s new best friend is … the Christian Coalition” (Washington Post, 2/20/15).

This guide will help you set up a Green Team at your church and will equip your congregation to become more effective in caring for God’s Creation. Green Teams expand environmental activities in our churches and help congregations to connect their faith with sustainable living. This guide offers a variety of specific activities from which you can select the ones that best match your church’s level of energy and engagement.

(Updated and adapted by Patrick Cage and the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas from “Green Team FAQ’s,” the Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN).)

To download a pdf, click on this link: How to Start a Green Team at Your Church

What is a Green Team?

A Green Team (or Environmental Stewardship Team, or Creation Care Committee) is a core group of people in a congregation who are committed to raising awareness about the urgent need to protect God’s Creation and to work for environmental sustainability and responsibility. Green Teams develop sustainability in church life by increasing energy efficiency and conservation, decreasing consumption and waste, and, if possible, encouraging the use of clean, safe, renewable energy. Your group may also choose to engage in issues of public policy and to advocate for ecological and climate justice.

The Importance of a Green Team

Every congregation can find ways to better preserve and protect God’s Creation as an aspect of faithful discipleship. Forming a group that can inspire, implement and/or oversee environmental progress in your church is essential for long-term success. A Green Team avoids burnout by dividing and sharing tasks. By praying together and by creating opportunities to reflect on how protecting God’s Creation connects with their faith, Green Team members can offer each other a sense of community and moral support. A group also shows church decision-makers that there is a constituency that supports real change.

Starting a Green Team

To start a Green Team, begin by talking to friends within your congregation that might be interested in forming the core group with you. Talk with your clergy and staff to gauge their level of interest and support. Be sure to speak with whoever is in charge of facilities; begin to form alliances and to develop an understanding of how the church buildings work. Once you have gathered several committed people, announce the first meeting in your church’s bulletin and during announcement time at worship services. Your Green Team can include any number of people, as long as you conduct meetings and choose projects that keep your scale in mind.

What should we do during our first meeting?

Organize a potluck if the group is small enough! Invite everyone to share what led him or her to come to this meeting. Discuss goals and brainstorm possible projects, drawing on the suggestions below, if desired. Choose your first project, and set up a basic plan for how to complete it, with delegated tasks. Then set up a time to meet regularly to check in with one another.

What should we choose as our first project?

During your first meeting, after brainstorming, choose one project that can be quickly and inexpensively accomplished so that you build confidence and create momentum within your team. Be sure to consider the energy and interest of your group, the pace of change within your congregation, and how much support you have from clergy and staff.

Initial projects to make church life more sustainable:

There are many different ways to start treading more lightly on God’s green Earth. Below are a number of possible activities. Consider this a guide to prompt brainstorming for your own congregation, rather than a checklist.

  • Set up a bulletin board and post news articles and photos that relate to Creation care.
  • Provide Eco-Tips for publication in your church’s service leaflets or newsletters.
  • Minimize waste during coffee hour by replacing Styrofoam cups with mugs.
  • Connect your church with local recycling, composting, or e-waste resources.
  • Replace incandescent lighting with CFL bulbs and LED lights for your Exit signs.
  • Transition church land to organic greenscaping or community gardens.
  • Organize carpools to church services and events.
  • Encourage local, organic, and vegetarian-friendly foods at church events.
  • Ditch bottled water and serve tap water at church events.
  • Conduct an energy audit through your local utility company, or with the assistance of Interfaith Power & Light.

…or anything else!  Be creative.  Choose something fun.

Further Green Team Projects:

In addition to the ideas above, here is an expanded list of projects that could supplement “greening” church life by further engaging church members in environmental and climate justice:

  • Encourage your pastor to preach about climate change and to develop special worship services that honor God’s Creation. Celebrate an annual Creation Sunday, or an entire Season of Creation.
  • Host a movie night for your church and your local community. Watch a film like “Renewal,” “Chasing Ice,” or “A Climate of TRUST,” and hold a discussion afterwards.
  • Host a 100-Mile Potluck, in which as many foods as possible are grown or produced within 100 miles of the church.
  • Join your local chapter of Interfaith Power & Light and help your church to save money while it saves energy.
  • Build relationships with other groups in the congregation. Encourage Sunday School programs, Bible camps, adult education programs, and spiritual retreats that focus on care for God’s Creation.
  • Support local green energy through a program such as MassEnergy in Massachusetts.
  • Install solar panels on your church’s roof.
  • If your congregation has an endowment, work with the investments committee to divest from fossil fuels.
  • Encourage everyone to join the climate movement and to sign up to receive newsletters from your local climate action group, such as 350MA.org in Massachusetts.
  • Organize church field trips to witness the beauty of creation and to participate in rallies.
  • When circumstances call for it, participate in nonviolent civil disobedience or ease the financial burden of people who choose this step.
  • Reach out to other churches in your area. Create an ecumenical event.

How can I make our Green Team more effective?

As you consider ways to improve the work of your team, you might consider the following questions:

  • Are you accomplishing the goals you have set for yourselves?
  • Are you meeting regularly (even if only once per month)?
  • Do you have a sense of community commitment?
  • If your goals are proving elusive, are you able as a group to set new goals and to analyze errors without blame or despair?
  • Are you welcoming newcomers, and do you accommodate differing interests and schedules?

Tips for Success:

Focus on achievable, incremental changes. Don’t try to do everything at once. Let engagement grow like a mustard seed.

Don’t be bashful! When your Team is graced with successful completion of a project, share this in your church announcements. Use the church website and banners to inspire others and potentially to attract newcomers. Reach out to regional denominational leaders. If your Green Team achieves something major, like divesting from fossil fuels or building a community garden, contact your local media!

Connect action and education. Combine a movie night on plastics with efforts to reduce your congregation’s consumption of petroleum-based products. If your church joins a compost pick-up, let church-members know that they can do the same in their own homes.

Continue to reflect on how this work connects to the values of our faith.

Whatever you decide to do, have a blast doing it! Let it bring your church together.

Scriptural Resources:

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” –Matthew 5:15-16

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” – Matthew 18:19-20

“Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” –Mark 4:30-32

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” –Romans 8:19-21

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for [God] founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” –Psalm 24:1-2

Web Resources:

See Interfaith Power & Light for many other ways to connect your congregation with environmental stewardship, and look at your statewide branch.

Further actions for greening your church from Eco-Justice Ministries.

Divest & Reinvest resources from GreenFaith.

The homepage for the Season of Creation, which in some denominations runs from September to mid-October each year.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 18, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Northampton, MA. 1 Samuel 3:1-10                                         1 Corinthians 6:12-20 Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17                                 John 1:43-51

    Martin Luther King, Jr. and the climate movement

Friends, it is good to be with you this morning. Thank you, Cat, for inviting me to preach. I serve the diocese as your Missioner for Creation Care, so I travel from church to church, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our call as Christians to heal the Earth. I am blessed by the timing of this invitation to speak, for across the U.S. this weekend Americans are celebrating the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who gave his life, quite literally, to the quest to heal our country’s great racial divide, and who dreamed of a world in which men and women of all races could live together with justice and mutual respect. Racism and racial justice is of course a vital issue in our country right now, a topic of intense debate as we observe in several cities the tragic tensions between some white police officers and the people of color that they were sworn to protect. Across the country people are exploring hard questions about white privilege and institutionalized racism, about how far we have come as a society and how much farther we have to go before we finally manifest what Dr. King called the Beloved Community.

Dr. King recognized that race relations do not exist in a vacuum. He understood that racism intersects with other patterns of violence, including poverty and militarism. If he were alive today, I believe that Dr. King would add a fourth item to what he called the “triple evils” of poverty, racism, and militarism. To that list I believe that he would add environmental destruction, especially human-caused climate change. For unless we stabilize the global climate and rapidly reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, we will unravel the web of life and destroy any possibility of Beloved Community for human beings and for most of the other beings with which we share this precious planet. The struggle to end racism is linked to the struggle to end poverty, the struggle to end war, and the struggle to protect life as it has evolved on Earth. Racial justice, social and economic justice, environmental justice, climate justice – all these struggles intersect. In the end we share one struggle, one dream, one deep and God-inspired longing: the desire to build a peaceful, healthy, just, and sustainable world. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is God who whispers that dream into our hearts, God who plants  that longing in us like a seed that grows into a mighty oak, God who stirs us out of our complacency and sends us into action. It is God who gives us a heart to care, and strength to keep fighting the good fight. For it can be difficult to keep going, difficult to keep the faith in the face of sometimes brutal opposition and the sheer inertia of business as usual. There is a wonderful scene in the movie Selma, a movie that I hope you will see, if you haven’t already. The movie is set during the turbulent three months of 1965, exactly fifty years ago, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was leading a campaign to secure equal voting rights. Early in the movie we see David Oyelowo, the actor playing Dr. King, awake at home late at night, restless, anxious, and acutely aware of the threats against his own life and against the lives of his wife and children. Should he keep going and head to Selma? He is resisting the powers and principalities of this world and he has reached the limit of his strength. In that late-night hour he picks up the phone, dials, and says to the person on the other end of the line: “I need to hear the Lord’s voice.” The friend he has phoned is the legendary Gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, and into the phone receiver she begins to sing very tenderly, “Precious Lord, take my hand.” It is an intimate moment, as intimate as the moment recorded in this morning’s first reading, when late at night the boy Samuel hears the voice of God speaking his name in the darkness (1 Samuel 3:1-10). When God speaks to us in that intimate way, often without any words at all, we feel mysteriously addressed. In that quiet, intimate encounter we feel known by name, touched very personally by a loving power that sees us, knows us through and through, loves us to the core, and gives us strength to carry on. This is the experience of the psalmist who writes – marveling and full of wonder – “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1). This is the experience of Philip, who hears Jesus call him to follow, and of Nathaniel, who realizes that Jesus saw, and knew, and thoroughly understood him even before they’d met (John 1:43-51). As Christians, we open ourselves to be seen and known, loved and guided by an intimate, divine presence that will never let us go. That is what prayer is, and it gives us strength. And when we’ve lost touch with that divine presence, when we feel frightened, despairing, or overwhelmed, we rely on each other to help us find our way back to God, just as Philip helped Nathaniel, as Eli helped the boy Samuel, and as Mahalia Jackson helped Dr. King. As people of faith, we are in this together, and when any of us lose heart, we try to help each other, as individuals and as a community, to turn again to God and to make our appeal: Precious Lord, take my hand. I feel as powerfully as ever that call to prayer, that call to community, and that call to active, faithful service and advocacy. I don’t usually carry a newspaper into church – actually, this is the first time I’ve ever done it. But I want to show you the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, which gives a map of the world colored in shades of red to indicate all the areas that were above average in temperature last year. The year 2014 broke the record for the hottest year on Earth since we started keeping records. But hey, we may be saying to ourselves, it’s been so cold in New England! It turns out that below-average temperatures in our region may be indirectly linked to climate change. Some scientists are studying the likelihood that the unusual dips they are noticing in the jet stream are connected to the rapidly warming Arctic and the exceptionally warm waters of the Pacific Ocean. Bottom line is that the phrase “global warming” is probably much too simple – a better term might be “global weirding.” As the world grows warmer we can expect more erratic and extreme fluctuations in local weather, and some places will sometimes become unexpectedly cold. Yet all the while the average global temperature is heading in only one direction: up. In just two centuries – a blink in geologic time – we have burned so much coal, gas, and oil and released so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are higher today than they’ve been for hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of years. I heard a climate scientist say, “We are breathing from an atmosphere that none of our ancestors would recognize.” Sticking to business as usual could raise average global temperatures between 5 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit in this century. That may not sound like much, but in fact it would make the world extremely difficult for humans and other creatures to inhabit. Oceans are already heating and becoming more acidic; tundra is thawing; ice caps and glaciers are melting; sea levels are rising; coral reefs are dying; massive droughts are spreading in some places and heavy rains are intensifying in others. Last spring we learned that the huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting to collapse and slide into the sea in a way that scientists call “unstoppable.” The latest climate report from the U.N. warns of food shortages, waves of refugees, and the mass extinction of plants and animals, if we keep to our present course. This is the sort of news that wakes me up at night and pulls me into prayer: precious Lord, take my hand. It is also the sort of news that propels me out of bed in the morning, eager to find a way to be of use. Once we have grasped what the bishops of the Episcopal Church call “the urgency of the planetary crisis in which we find ourselves,”1 there is so much we can do, so many ways that we can contribute to the healing of Creation. Thank you for the work you’ve done here at St. John’s to conserve energy, switch to efficient light bulbs, and use cloth rather than paper napkins. Our individual actions add up: we can recycle more, drive less, be sparing in our use of water, quit using bottled water. We can turn off lights when we leave a room. Maybe we can eat local, organic foods and support local farms and land trusts, maybe even leave them some money in our wills. I hope you’ll form a “green team” in this parish, and name a Creation Care Minister. I hope you’ll sign up to join a network of people in the diocese who care about Creation. I’d be glad to support you in any way I can. I also hope you’ll sign up to receive a weekly newsletter from the grassroots group, Climate Action Now, which is centered right here in the Pioneer Valley. If we work as isolated individuals, our success will be limited, for the scope and speed of the climate crisis require action on a much broader scale. So we link arms with other people and we join the movement to make it politically possible to do what is scientifically necessary. The climate movement is gaining momentum, and many of us are inspired by Dr. King and the civil rights movement. Last week I spent a day in Amherst with other local climate activists, studying the principles of non-violent civil disobedience as practiced by Gandhi and Dr. King. Along with more than 97,000 people across the U.S., I have signed a pledge of resistance, a pledge to risk arrest in non-violent direct action if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved. Stopping that pipeline has become a powerful symbol of the urgent need to keep 80% of the known fossil fuels in the ground, where they belong. Fossil fuel companies now possess five times the amount of coal, gas, and oil that, if burned, would force the average global temperature to rise far higher than the 2 degree threshold that gives us a 50-50 chance of preventing runaway climate change. So now is the time to make a swift transition to clean, safe, renewable energy, such as sun and wind. In this unprecedented time, many of us feel called anew to listen to the tender voice of love that God is always sounding in our heart, and then to embody that love in the world as bravely and clearly as we can. If ever there were a time to bear witness to our faith that life and not death will have the last word, now would be the time. If ever there were a time to take hold of the vision of a Beloved Community in which human beings live in right relationship with each other and with all our fellow creatures, now would be the time. The collapse of the ice sheet in Antarctica may be “unstoppable,” but so is the love that calls us to stand up for life. Archbishop Desmond Tutu fought for racial justice and against apartheid in South Africa, and now he is one of the world’s champions of climate justice. Reconciling human beings to each other, to God, and to the rest of Creation is what Tutu calls the “supreme work” of Jesus Christ. Thank you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, for joining me in that supreme work.
1. In 2011 the bishops of the Episcopal Church issued a pastoral teaching on the environment that begins with a call to repentance “as we face the unfolding environmental crisis of the earth.” For the full text of “A Pastoral Teaching from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church,” meeting in Province IX, in Quito, Ecuador, September 2011, visit here.