Video for February 13th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
I’m just doing a little gardening before we head off on sabbatical on Monday. I’m recording this just before I go and all being well, I shall be on the other side of the world as you watch it.
We come in this video to the final mark of mission – to treasure, to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth. Of all the marks of mission, this is perhaps the most difficult to construct an audit trail back to the words and actions of Jesus. This is no surprise in some ways. The culture of the ancient near east did not have a very high carbon footprint and trod lightly and sustainably. Jesus was primarily concerned with the pressing issues of the time. Climate change wasn’t one of them.
However, there were a lot of things Jesus didn’t speak about explicitly but left us with basic principles to work things out for ourselves. And the two that seem to me most relevant here are again the values of the Kingdom and specifically the great commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves.
Tom Wright in his book, How God became King says, “our questions have been wrongly put, because they haven’t been about the kingdom. They haven’t been about God’s saving sovereign rule coming on earth as in heaven. Instead, they have been about a ‘salvation’ that rescues people from the world, instead of for the world”. The end of the story of the Bible looks forward to a new heaven and a new earth. What exists will not all fry up but be renewed and redeemed. As Paul says in Romans 8: 19-21, “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”. This is the vision of the Kingdom in all its fullness, re-integrated, relationships restored. It is one aspect of the kingdom we pray for when we pray the Lord’s prayer.
The creation narrative in Genesis has been used extensively to justify humanity’s right to exploit the resources of the earth. But the sense in this story is of humanity as stewards of something created by someone else. We have a role as co-regents, but respectfully. If our young child was to bring back a work of art they had created at school we would not immediately screw it up and throw it in the bin. It would most likely find pride of place under a fridge magnet. How much more the world that God has made.
The scriptures make it clear that creation is one of the first places we encounter the reality of God. Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth his handywork. It shouldn’t therefore surprise us that the natural world is a place many have a spiritual encounter. Many environmental movements have a spirituality component. Part of our missional task is to help people connect creation with creator. There is an obvious connection here with many in our culture, especially young people. Our churches can be catalysts for action both locally and internationally. We will find it very difficult for the message of the kingdom to be heard unless our communication and action shows we take this seriously.
So, environmental concern is clearly a part of the values of the Kingdom. But this can be an arid intellectual thing. Responsible stewardship needs to have a practical outworking. There is an imperative from God’s charge to humanity at the beginning, but even more so now since the effects of climate change are most keenly felt by those least able to accommodate them. Our neighbours in Christian theology are not just those who live in our community but everyone. If my neighbour’s country is disappearing because of sea level rise it behoves me to look very carefully at my own carbon production to reduce it as much as I am able. One could argue that our own individual efforts make very little difference, but collectively we can shift the dial just a little. In so doing we are connecting with cultural sensitivities and perhaps building a bridge over which the Gospel can travel that will lead to repentance and faith.
+Richard