Preached on March 8, 2015

Early morning in Galilee

The first chapter of Mark’s gospel ends with the story of Jesus’ first day of ministry:

Jesus entered the synagogue and taught the congregation… Then he healed a man with an unclean spirit… Then he left the synagogue and went to Peter’s home, where he healed Peter’s mother-in-law… When the sun set, crowds of people came to Peter’s home, begging to be healed, and then he cured many who were sick, and cast out many demons…. (Mark 1:21-34)

And now Mark adds one more sentence: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1:35-37)

Even Jesus needed silence and peace – and one of the places he found that peace was the natural world. Perhaps he even went into the natural world to be healed himself – that is, to be put back together, to be re- centered in God.

Throughout my adult life I’ve often thought of Jesus’ own need for rest and healing – as a human being, how could he keep going without it? I thought of his need for rest as I served as a pastor in busy parishes; I thought of his need for rest as I taught young children in public school; but most of all I thought of him when I was mothering small children at home, day after day after day.

We all need the healing that comes from a loving God – even Jesus. And each of today’s lessons points to the healing that comes from God:

• Again and again, Mark’s gospel will show us Jesus’ compassion, his desire to lift people up, his power to heal: Now Peter’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and she served them. (Mark 1:31)

• The prophet Isaiah also speaks of the power of God to lift up, to heal: The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth… He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless… Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

As we Christians have learned the story of Jesus’ life in the Scriptures, seen the examples of his caring and compassion in his life and in the lives of his saints, we have learned of God’s compassion for human beings; we have learned that God is a God of love. But perhaps we need to look more closely at the Biblical story, because there’s another theme in all these texts: God loves the world. That is, God loves the whole world, not just human beings – and God wants to heal the whole world – this whole exhausted world.

Of course, for most of my life I have deeply believed that God loves the world – but Elizabeth Johnson, and many other modern theologians, have shown me that in the past when I’ve thought of ‘the world,’ I’ve thought of the world of human beings – we are the ones Jesus came to save.

But: What if God really loves the whole world?

These are primary themes of Elizabeth Johnson’s Ask the Beasts, which we’ve been discussing here on Thursday mornings:

• The Christian God is a God of love and compassion.…and God’s compassion is not just for humans – it is for the whole universe, for the earth and all its species.

• The world we live in – its environments, its species – is in need of healing. We are at a truly critical point in our planet’s history. The earth’s peoples are in need of healing – from disease, yes, but also from the harm we do each other. The earth itself – its lands, its seas, its air – is also in need of healing – mostly from the harm humans have done. As God loves the world, as God wants to heal the world, God calls us to work together to bring healing to the whole world – its peoples, its species, its lands and seas and skies.

• Both science and faith can guide us as we seek to heal God’s world.

Ask the Beasts begins: “This world evolved in all its splendor without human help. It was the context in which the human species itself evolved, and daily provides irreplaceable nourishment for human bodies and spirits. In our day the world’s future is in jeopardy due to human action and inaction, destructive behavior shot through with a disastrous failure of our vaunted intelligence and virtue. … This book charts a way to see that far from being simply ‘nature’ in a neutral sense, and far from being made only for human use, these living species have value in their own right.”

Elizabeth Johnson’s title, Ask the Beasts, comes from a passage in the book of Job. Job’s friends have been telling him that his suffering is his own fault. If he would just follow the prescription of their traditional religion and confess his sins, God would restore him to health. Job sees God as far more complex and mysterious than their traditional religion teaches, and so he retorts, Ask the beasts, and they will tell you – speak to the birds of the air, the plants of the earth, and the fish of the sea, and they will instruct you. (Job 12:7f)

But when we humans begin to ‘ask the beasts’, Johnson says, “this seems a simple thing to do: consult the creatures of the earth and listen to the religious wisdom they impart. Given Christian theology’s longstanding preoccupation with the human drama, however – and we are a fascinating lot – the invitation to consult the plants and animals asks for a change of method. We have to step outside the usual presumption of human superiority to place something else at the center of our attention.”  We have to shift to those parts of the world who have been silenced, or who have never had a voice.

Ask the Beasts conducts a dialogue – between Darwin’s theory of evolution in The Origin of Species and an exploration of the meaning of the Nicene Creed. (This month and last, we have been discussing Darwin’s theory of evolution – we’ll get to the theology later this spring.)  Johnson writes, “Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species gives full play to life’s natural character by charting its emergence through the interplay of law and chance over millions of years and thousands of miles. The Nicene creed witnesses to the gracious God who creates, redeems, and strengthens these same evolving species, grounding hope for their ultimate future. One scientific account, one religious testimony: my wager is that the dialogue between both sources – one in the realm of reason, the other in the realm of faith – can build a theology that supports an ecological ethic of love for Earth’s community of life.”

In our discussions, we are seeking to conduct a dialogue between science and faith:

• stretching our minds to understand the science explaining how the world works

• stretching our faith to understand a God big enough to embrace the whole world

And we are also singing a new hymn each time we meet, because our hymns reflect our theology – that is, how we think about God.  Sometimes a hymn can make us think about God in a new – and bigger – way, that is:

• stretching our image of God – beyond the box we keep God in

The contemporary poet and hymn-writer, Brian Wren, has written a hymn which speaks of God’s care for the whole earth.

Great Lover, calling us to share your joy in all created things,
from atom-dance to eagles’ wings, we come and go, to praise and care.
This is a God who rejoices in all creation,
a God who is lover of the whole universe, not just lover of humankind.
What is your image of God?

In the passage from Isaiah, God is above the world, looking down; acting upon the world.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is in the world, reaching out to us; acting within the world.
In the hymn, God is called great Lover and questing Spirit;
God is seen acting within the world, around the world.
How do you see God in your mind’s eye?
Above the world, looking down? Acting within the world?
Remote from your own concerns? Walking with you in the Spirit?
Sometimes with you, sometimes not?

Self-giving Lover, since you dare to join us in our history,
embracing all our destiny, we’ll come and go with praise and care.
God as self-giving Lover weaves in and through creation,
there at the beginning and with us all the way to the end,
joining the world in its history, sharing its destiny…
Our image of God will shape our image of ourselves.
How are you a self-giving lover? How do you care for God’s creation?

Though sure of resurrection-grace, we ache for all earth’s troubled lands
and hold the planet in our hands, a fragile, unprotected place.
Earth’s troubled lands could be the peoples of Syria, Nigeria, Central America…
It could be rain-forests steadily cut down,
mountains destroyed by mine tailings,
rivers and seas and sea-life choked by oil…
Which of ‘earth’s troubled lands’ do you ache for?

Your questing Spirit longs to gain no simple fishing-ground for souls,
but as life’s story onward rolls, a world more joyful and humane.
‘No simple fishing-ground for souls….’
Christians need to work for a more human world,
living our faith within this beautiful world God has made.
What can you do to make this world more humane?

As midwives who assist at birth, we give our uttermost, yet grieve
lest folly, greed or hate should leave a spoiled, aborted, barren earth.
Our image of God shapes our communities as well as ourselves:
We’re called to work not just as individuals, but as a community.
because there’s no way any one of us can do all the caring.
Working together, can we help bring a new world to life?

A homily preached at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, Los Osos
March 8, 2015

 

Great Lover, Calling Us to Share

Great Lover, calling us to share your joy in all created things,
from atom-dance to eagles’ wings, we come and go, to praise and care.

Though sure of resurrection-grace, we ache for all earth’s troubled lands
and hold the planet in our hands, a fragile, unprotected place.

Your questing Spirit longs to gain no simple fishing-ground for souls,
but as life’s story onward rolls, a world more joyful and humane.

As midwives who assist at birth, we give our uttermost, yet grieve
lest folly, greed or hate should leave a spoiled, aborted, barren earth.

Self-giving Lover, since you dare to join us in our history,
embracing all our destiny, we’ll come and go with praise and care.

by Brian Wren – Copyright 1989 – Bring Many Names
Hope Publishing Company