Advent and Ecology: Isaiah's vision of a sustainable future
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on 7th December 2008 by Rev Margot Hodson
Readings: Isaiah 40: 1 - 11 and Mark 1: 1 - 8
Sermon
Introduction
One feature of this time of year for me over the last few years has been to help to run a Christian-environmental stand at the Green Fair in Oxford.
The fair is organised by the Oxford Green Party that is a significant force in our local politics. The fair is always in early December and gives an opportunity for finding exotic and unusual Christmas presents.
We've mostly been the only Christian group present, though certainly not the only spiritual one!
One year, the girl on the stand next to ours, offering palm reading, asked if I would mind it for a while so she could look round the fair. I said I'd keep an eye on it but couldn't really make any sales!
When she returned she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong. 'There is no hope,' she said. 'Everything is getting worse and worse and there is no hope for our planet any more.'
I asked her if she knew we were a Christian group and when she said yes, I told her that we had hope. From there I explained that God loved his creation so much that he sent Jesus to die to redeem the cosmos. Far from giving up on the world, God is holding it together and will not let it fall into chaos.
I was glad to see a glimmer of hope amid the tears and realised that my future gazing had given faith to a professional in the field!
We are facing a century with major environmental challenges - Climate change - biodiversity loss, human population, and the squeeze on resources to name but a few.
On top of everything we have ended this year finding ourselves with the added problem of world recession - if ever the world needed hope it is now - The question to ask is Do we as Christians have the resources and the courage to provide it?
The book of Isaiah was written to a nation in despair. A nation suffering from Exile and a nation with their own land and society in disarray.
Though there is plenty of judgement in Isaiah - especially in the early part of the book. These opening verses of second Isaiah provide a message of hope.
If we look at the passage with the eyes of an environmentalist - I hope we can see that they can be applied to provide hope for our situation today.
Isaiah and the Environment
If we look at the book ecologically we find that we can uncover the perception of nature of the people who lived through the Exile period. If we do that we uncover the way that people understood the relationship between God, his people and the rest of creation. So what does it tell us?
Wilderness in Isaiah
In our passage there are two places that are seen as the dwelling places of God - The Desert in verse 3 and the High Mountain in verse 9.
These are consistent images throughout Isaiah and indeed much of the rest of the Bible. The Israelites went out into the desert to meet with God and fully met with him at Mount Sinai. Jesus went out into the Desert to pray and was Transfigured up a mountain.
So coming away from one¿s normal life activities and entering a wilderness area is a biblical way to meet with God.
Many of us will resonate with that and I know there are many modern and ancient centres of Christian worship in some of the remoter parts of Scotland.
The difficulty of Mountains
Now some of you may have spotted the flaw in this argument - that is the classic phrases in verse 4 - most familiar in Handel's Messiah - Every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill made low.
Surely this does not sound that eco-friendly?!
There were two types of perception of Mountain for the Israelites - the first was the Sinai and Jerusalem images of places to meet with God and sacrifice to God.
But there was a second - the High Places of the Old Testament where sacrifices were made to other gods.
These verses a looking to a time when there will be a universal recognition of God - when the pagan high places shall be no more.
This might be seen as giving an overall negative image of wilderness and nature - lets destroy nature in case it tempts us away from worshipping God in our nice man-made buildings - But that is not consistent with the rest of the book.
There are too many places in the book where there are positive images of wilderness and of wildlife within them:
- The desert blossoms and rejoices,
- Mountains are seen as places where the Glory of God dwells;
- Of animals, there are 160 species of animal mentioned in Isaiah and many of them are typical dwellers of wilderness areas - there are three species of owl mentioned by name. Almost all references to animals - whether wild or domestic - are positive images.
In summary - the book has been written by people of God who had a deep appreciation of the natural world and made a connection between nature and their God who was the creator of all.
Summary
So God comes to us from the Desert Wilderness - he comes in Glory to forgive his people and restore them.
He brings down the high places - the places of temptation - so that God can come and reign. But he does not destroy his Good creation - he comes to redeem it and bring it into harmony.
How are these images portrayed? What does God's redemption of humanity and nature look like?
A domesticated image
The last image in our passage gives this clearly to us:
God is portrayed as a shepherd tending his flock:
He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Isaiah uses domesticated images to provide metaphors for a restored relationship with God.
Here it is the image of a Shepherd with his flock
Toward the end of the Book he describes the Messianic Age as being where a person can work and rest with security - tending their own vine or resting under their own fig tree.
The very famous passages of Isaiah 11 and 65 describe the Wolf lying with the lamb, lions eating straw and children playing with cobras.
It is as if these ancient peoples looked ahead to a time when all animals would be brought into a relationship with humans.
Redemption for people and planet
All of this gives us Isaiah's view of redemption:
Isaiah's harmony with creation - is not portrayed as a return to wilderness living - but is one of sustainable working of the earth.
Using the earth and its resources for human purposes but in a way that is sustainable - that enables all life ¿ human and non-human to flourish.
The overall message that comes through is that as we turn to God in repentance and are redeemed by him, as we come under his rule and reign in the way we were always intended to do, so that harmony will be mirrored in the rest of creation.
And the subsequent fruitfulness of creation will then sustain its human population.
As an environmental ethic ¿ it holds to a strong sense of intrinsic value of all aspects of God's world but it is an interventionist ethic.
The task of humans is to get involved in caring for the world around us - whether that is planning vineyards, tending sheep - or taking proactive action on climate change and biodiversity loss.
Holistic redemption
As an international community - we are only beginning to grasp the full extent of the very serious environmental situation that we are in this century and its implications for both people and also our world-s biodiversity.
We face a shift in our climate that might potentially be as great as the last Ice Age - but it is one of warming not cooling and the evidence from the paleo-record is that all the mass extinction events happened when the world became too hot.
In looking for solutions - it is easy to have a bias either towards people or towards the environment.
Many NGOs - whether Christian or secular have a bias to one or the other and this impacts on the scope of the projects that they undertake.
The prophetic message of Isaiah - is that we need to be proactive - and we need to engage with the needs of both people and the rest of nature in an integrated way. We need a holistic approach to our world that will enable us to balance human and environmental concerns - however difficult that may be. Because that is the only way forward for our worlds people and our worlds non-human life.
Application
So how do we move forward as Christians - how do we bring hope in this difficult century?
We could be overwhelmed by the size of the task we face in the call to rediscover our active role as life giving stewards for a sustainable earth - we look to our earth to provide the resources to sustain all humanity to a decent level of life while also enabling a rich biodiversity of other creatures on the planet.
These two factors are interconnected - if our human populations destroy our biodiversity - then we will find our planet will not have the resources to sustain humanity itself. Our future is dependant on collaboration with the rest of God's creation.
But we are not on our own in striving towards this collaboration. We can move forward trusting in God and in his will for his creation.
But our call does not stop there: as we seek to sustain people and planet so we are called to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of God and to demonstrate in our lives and our words Christ's living hope of redemption.
If we take seriously our call to care for all God's creation so we will find that our serious call to make disciples of all nations will begin to unfold if we keep that priority in our hearts.
Amen