It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 1 of 8 It s a Wonderful World Caring for Creation at Home Proverbs 22:6, Genesis 9:8-17, Proverbs 20:11 INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES Last week I gave you four answers to the question: Why should we care for creation? There are lots of other answers to that question like: this earth is the only place we have to live so we d better take care of it or caring for creation can save money. I m not questioning the importance of such answers. But I am suggesting that, as people of faith, we have very specific reasons to care for creation. So, I want to remind you of the answers we explored last Sunday. Why care for creation? Because we love the Creator. We love each other. The Bible tells us to. Today I m offering you a fourth reason. We care for creation because Jesus is Lord of our lives. John 1:3 tells us that All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. Paul reinforces that in his letter to the Colossians: Colossians 1:15 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth Four reasons now for our Challenge to Engage God s Creation and this sermon series, It s a Wonderful World: Because we love the Creator. We love each other. The Bible tells us to. The Lord of Creation is our Lord too. Seems to me that those four reasons ought to be motivation for any believer. Do you appreciate the Creator for giving us this wonderful world? Then care for it. Do you care about the generations yet to come? Then care for the world they will live in. Do you believe we should do what the Bible says to do? Then care for the world that is celebrated in Scripture. Do you want to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation? Then care for all that was created in and through Him. Something there for everyone. So, let s get started today. Over 300 of you stepped up to take this challenge last Sunday. That leaves a whole lot of us who can do so today. Sign up as you leave. Remember as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, whose birthday and legacy we celebrate
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 2 of 8 tomorrow, said, The time is always right to do the right thing. And folks, taking care of God s Good Creation is just the right thing to do. So, what do I hope will come out of this series? Well, I m hoping for three very specific things. I m hoping that the people Williamson s Chapel will 1. Change the way they think and speak about this whole subject. I want us to talk about Creation Care. When you change light bulbs, or turn down the thermostat, or choose not to use harsh chemicals when you clean, or separate the recyclables, or combine errands when you drive, or turn off the lights when you leave a room in the church, I want you to think: I m taking care of God s good creation. That s the first thing I hope will come from this series. That s why I asked you last Sunday to say I love you, God each time you engage in an act of creation care. The second thing I m hoping is that 2. Every person and household that is part of the Williamson s Chapel family will commit to at least one new act of creation care. And finally, I m hoping 3. We can make some of those same changes here in our shared home Williamson s Chapel. But really, Pastor Jan, any changes we make will just be a tiny drop in a great big bucket. So why? Well you see folks, these goals, are not so much about what happens out there as they are about what happens in here. When we talk about creation and creation care to others, we make a profound faith statement. Creation requires a creator. Using that language is confessional. It may be the easiest way yet to bear witness to your faith. Here, let me have that plastic bottle. I ll take it home and recycle. Gotta take care of creation. And with that simple statement, you are declaring your faith, as well as caring for creation. Language is incredibly powerful. Changing the way you talk about this subject will, I believe, make a difference in your own faith walk and perhaps in the faith walk of others. That s the real reason for my first goal. The second two goals (about committing to new acts of creation care at home and here at the church) are really just calls to obedience. Listen to me, friends; obedience is greatly underrated in this world. I can tell you from personal experience that simple obedience will see you through some dark and difficult moments when feeling and reason fall short. So, even though we are casting them in terms of creation care, the goals of this sermon series are really about witness and obedience. And so we started with the why but now we shift to the how.
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 3 of 8 INTRO TO SERMON This taking Care of Creation thing is a big, big challenge so we ve broken it down into four different areas. I believe that a real commitment to caring for creation begins at home. In fact, seems to me most everything begins at home. In Proverbs 22:6, we read: Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he shall not depart from it. There is in that verse a wonderful promise. But there is a flip side. In that teaching, we find both comfort and conviction. It is a comfort to parents who have done their part to faithfully train their children in the right way. But it is a conviction of parents who have not. Most things attitudes, behavior, values, beliefs, self-esteem, practices, habits, language and yes even caring for God s good creation begin at home. That s why I think it s important that as we answer the question, How? We begin at home. What would it mean for us to truly care for creation at home? COVENANT WITH CREATION To get serious about that, we have to believe that how we treat creation really does matter. How we use natural resources, what we put back into the world around us, our responsibility to other creatures, how we interact with all of creation, we have to believe that really matters not just to us but to our God. The first Fence Post of the Bible is what? Yes, Creation. That s easy. Who knows the second Fence Post? Yes, Covenant. The theme of covenant winds its way through the whole Bible. Covenant is God s chosen way of being in relationship with his people. But the very first mention of that covenant includes more than God and people. The first mention of the covenant appears in Genesis 9. Genesis 9:8-13 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 God said, This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. God s very first covenant includes look now every living thing. Look at the last verse. Amazing, really, standing under that first rainbow, humanity was linked to all other creatures, through a divine covenant, a holy agreement between God and the earth. Obviously, God cares about the whole of creation. And if we are going to truly
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 4 of 8 honor the covenant of the rainbow, then we have to take good care of creation. I believe that begins at home. You know, God went to a lot of trouble to save all those animals on the ark. Each one of them, even the tiny bugs, must have been incredibly important to God. They should be important to God s people too. That s one thing that having pets, caring for them well and loving them, can teach us. Our first dog was husky mix solid white, always with a rusty tint because of the red dirt in our yard. We d just moved back from England and, in tribute to our friends there, we named him Bristol. When Bristol was not quite a year old, he was run over. One hip and both legs were broken but no internal organs were damaged. The vet told us he could live but it would take orthopedic surgery. It would be costly. We d have to go to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to have it done and the recovery would be long and require much care. Well, the simple fact was we didn t have the money. We were both on the church s minimum salary at the time and Cecil was just working halftime. We already spent everything we made. The problem was telling the kids. And then I came up with this idea. We could save Bristol if we all gave up something. Sunday was the one day we took the kids out to eat. It was usually just McDonald s but still if we gave up going out on Sundays, we d have some extra money. We agreed not to take a vacation until we had paid the debt; I agreed to buy no new clothes. Together the four of us kept coming up with ways we could save money until we had enough to save Bristol. And we did. We didn t talk about it this way, but this is what we all learned: we could save something we loved through our own sacrifice. It took over a year to raise that money but we did it. And it was well worth it to us all. Bristol was a grand addition to our family for many years. The pets in our lives, the birds and squirrels in our yards, even the insects all give us great opportunity to marvel at God s creation. Caring for them gives us a chance to honor that covenant made under the rainbow. And yes, caring for the creatures included in that covenant means caring for the black rhino and the cross-river gorilla and other endangered creatures that we may never see. But it seems to me that the attitude of caring for such creatures begins at home with those creatures that are within our reach. We will never really care for creation until we start caring for creation at home. ACTIONS But caring for creation at home means taking concrete action. It means doing things differently.
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 5 of 8 Proverbs 20:11 Even children make themselves known by their acts, by whether what they do is pure and right. God is not pleased when we express our love and appreciation for His creation through our words, our prayers and our songs but fail to do so through our actions. Behavior begins at home. Kids taught to clean up after themselves at home tend to clean up after themselves in other places, too. One of the best things I ever did in an interview process was have the candidates stay with my family in my home. It s kind of the ultimate test. Did they make the bed in the morning, clean up after themselves in the bathroom, help out in the kitchen? Did they interact well with the children? You can tell a lot about a person by their actions not just what they say but what they do. And that s true when it comes to creation care too. What would your actions in your home tell others about the way you care for creation? Do you recycle correctly? Have you changed over to compact fluorescent light bulbs? Do you turn off the water while brushing your teeth? Do you turn off the drying cycle on your dishwashing machine, wear a sweater in the winter so you can set the thermostat lower, and use both sides of a piece of paper before discarding it? Do you take your plastic bags back to the grocery store or use a cloth bag when you shop? What do you do? What do the actions you take in your home tell others and more importantly, tell God about the way you care for His creation? Seems to me, we will never really care for creation until we start caring for creation at home. HOME OR HOTEL Former Vanderbilt professor, Sallie McFague, uses an analogy that really resonated with me. The question for her is whether we treat creation the way we treat our home or the way we treat a hotel. Listen to what she says: The Western hotel sensibility views the earth as if it were set up for our convenience, with endless supplies of hot and cold running water, gourmet room-service meals, and luxurious fresh towels that, when we have used them up, can be tossed in the middle of the room as we drive on down the highway for more of the same. (Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993, p. 57 taken from a paper by Tanya Marcovna Barnette presented at the Celebrating the Wonders of Creation conference, Anchorage, AK, May 2004.) How differently we would treat God s good creation IF we thought of it as our home and all the others living here as part of our family. Once we begin to think that way, then we realize that this shared home can never really belong to us. Be sure you understand that.
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 6 of 8 Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord s and all that is in it. Oh Beloved, we make a grave mistake if we think of God as a distant landlord with little or no interest in how we use the creation He has given us to be our home. Everything we read in the Bible tells us that God is involved in our lives, in the lives of others and in creation itself. Emmanuel God is with us. And the way we live in our homes should reflect God s constant presence. THREE HOUSE RULES But what would that look like? Well I m going to suggest to you three house rules that I believe would help us honor God s presence in our homes and enable us to do a much better job of caring for creation. The first rule of caring for creation at home would be: Use only what you need. This is the most important house rule for me because my biggest problem in creation care is simply waste. I hate it, but constantly I am throwing out food that has gone bad before I could use it. I m not the only one. Would you believe that we together generate 21.5 million tons of food waste every year? Composting that food would have the same effect as taking 2 million cars off the road. (Carnegie Mellon University. CEE Green Team, Web Accessed April 25, 2015) So, now I compost. It s not hard. I have a composting barrel out back. I keep that little red container on my counter, put my scraps and all the food that is going bad in there, and my coffee grounds. Then when it is full, I take it to the barrel. While one side is active the other has great fertilizer to add to my vegetable beds. Look, I would not presume to tell you how to use only what you need. Each of us has to decide what we need for ourselves. I m simply asking us all to make intentional choices. Think about it carefully and then Use only what you need. The second house rule is: Use what you have.
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 7 of 8 Now following this rule would mean a variety of things in most homes certainly in mine. It would mean things like eat your leftovers. Use what s in your closet rather than buying new clothes. Go through your cabinets and use up all the bits and pieces the partial bottles of lotion and conditioner, all that wrapping paper, read the books on your shelves before you buy new ones, wash out Ziploc bags and reuse them, use glass jars to hold old buttons, nails, and screws. Use last year s Christmas cards as this year s gift tags and the list would go on and on and on. Use what you have. And there is a flip side to this rule that is important too. If you don t use it, give it away. If you don t wear those clothes, give them away. If you don t use that TV, give it away. If you ve already read those books, give them to someone else to read. Use what you have and if you don t use it, give it away. The third rule is simply: Clean up after yourself. Imagine how much better life would be if everyone would learn to follow this rule. Just clean up after yourself. Take responsibility for your own actions. When it comes to creation care, this would include making wise decisions not only about the resources we take out of creation but also what we put back into creation. Here s where recycling is important. Does it save money? Maybe not. But it does enable us to use less land for landfills. It does enable us to use what we already have by reusing it in the production of new items. It s just a better way of cleaning up after ourselves. And then there are all those chemicals things we don t see that we put into creation. That happens when we use cleaning supplies filled with harmful chemicals. And there are those items that need to be handled in a special way. No batteries, cell phones, compact fluorescent light bulbs or computer equipment should be thrown away from home. If they go into our landfill, they damage the land and water. As part of the Challenge, we are going to help you with some of that special recycling in the coming months. Watch for the details. It s just one more way of cleaning up after ourselves. After all, we will never really care for creation until we start caring for creation at home. CONCLUSION There s a word that shows up many times and in many different forms in the New Testament. It s the Greek word, oikos. It s used to describe household, home, and even church those cherished places where people learn to live together to manage their lives and care for one another. The form of that world I like best is oikonomos, which means caretaker of the household. That s the word we usually translate as steward, the one who is trusted to care for something that belongs to another. And that, Beloved, is what we are all called to do. The earth is the Lord s and everything in it. It s our home
It s a Wonderful World -- Caring for Creation at Home Page 8 of 8 but it belongs to God. All God asks is that we be good stewards. And we can, we can be good caretakers of the household but we ll have to start by taking good care of God s creation at home. (I want to acknowledge the work by Tanya Marcovna Barnette presented at the Celebrating the Wonders of Creation conference, Anchorage, AK, May 2004. It contributed to my thinking and writing about earth as home, oikos and oikonomos.) Life Application Questions: 1. Are you comfortable using the language of creation care? Not just at church but in your day-to-day conversations at home, at work, with family and friends? Why or why not? What can you do to make this shift in language? 2. Have you identified one more act of creation care to which you will commit in your home? What and why? 3. The first covenant mentioned in the Bible is between God and every living creature on the face of the earth. Is that important? Why or why not? How does that impact the way we should treat animals? 4. Do you have a pet or animal story to share, an experience that taught you something about God, creation, our responsibility, etc.? 5. How does acknowledging that earth and everything on it belongs to God impact our treatment of creation? 6. The sermon suggests three household rules. How would each affect the way you live in your home? A. Use only what you need. B. Use what you have and if you don t use it, give it away. C. Clean up after yourself.