Connected Planet
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
April 23, 2023
Good morning and welcome to Light Reflections from First Friends. This morning we are celebrating Earth Sunday. Our scriptures are from Luke 12: 13-31 from the New Revised Standard Version.
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith! And do not keep seeking what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
This morning we are celebrating Earth Sunday, a day when we give thanks for the beauty and abundance of the earth, and when we reflect on our call to care for the earth. Or as one of our Quaker Advices on Environmental Sustainability reads:
“Friends have connected with the earth and all it holds as part of our spiritual development. From George Fox walking throughout England searching for his spiritual identity to current times, we are aware that we are only stewards, not owners of the Earth. We need to be constantly aware of how our actions affect the rest of the world. By not using more than we need and by sharing with others, we help ensure that the earth will continue to support everyone.”
As Quakers on this Earth Sunday I would like to begin by posing a query for us to ponder,
“What is becoming of this small, fragile planet drifting through space, we call the Earth?”
Let’s be honest, the argument about climate change is over. Science has proved that the earth is warming at an alarming rate, and all but a very few are convinced that the polluting of our planet will only get worse as new economies such as China and India strive to achieve the standard of living, we have in the U.S.
We are already seeing ominous consequences—melting ice caps, glaciers shrinking at an increasingly fast rate, intensifying storms, fires, and droughts, and just this week a study was released on rising coastal waters being way worse than imagined.
James Hansen of NASA, probably the world’s most significant climate modeler, has said that the earth has ten years to start producing less carbon dioxide instead of more. If it fails, we will have a “different planet.”
The British scientist James Lovelock, who built the equipment that allows us to measure deterioration of the ozone layer, said that he believed the “tipping point” had already passed and that the earth is careening toward a worse disaster and on a faster time scale than almost anyone realizes.
New reports trickle out in the news almost every day of water supplies, animal species, and habitats at risk. But so far, it is still by and large business as usual in this country.
It seems that there are two great issues humanity must face if it is ultimately to survive and thrive and they are two of the top concerns historically for Quakers.
· The first is, can we learn to deal with our differences without turning to violence and war? - from our testimony of peace.
· And the second is, can we muster the vision and courage to stop the destruction of the earth before it is too late? – from our testimony of stewardship and sustainability.
We Quakers begin our thinking about our life on this planet with the simple affirmation of Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Everything is God’s first.
In our scripture for this morning, we heard the implications of that sweeping claim. In the first part, Jesus tells a simple parable of a rich man who is bringing in large crops. The man decides to build larger barns to store everything he’s producing, and says to himself,
“Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
But then God says to him,
“You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.’ What good will all that do you?”
And then Jesus turns around and talks not about farmers and barns, but about nature:
“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them… Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these…”
What we are being presented in our scriptures are two views of life.
In one, the solitary person accumulates for themself.
In the other, Jesus describes life in an interconnected world where there is enough for everyone.
Your life, Jesus is saying, is part of a single great economy, the Economy of God, in which all of nature, all of life is held in God’s love, and there is enough for everyone. Again, seen in our testimonies of simplicity and community.
There are enough resources, enough food and clothing for everyone—but only if we take our place in God’s economy and not just our own. Folks, this shows how everything is connected.
I strongly believe and have taught for many years now that Christianity has made the mistake of narrowing its focus to personal salvation.
“My faith is about ME and MY own well-being and private spiritual life, and above all about MY own going to heaven.”
But if you really read the scriptures, they tell us that God creates and loves the WHOLE world of oceans and rocks, plants and animals, and that human beings are created to be part of that great harmony.
It’s God’s world, God’s house, after all, not ours. And too often we humans have been rude and self-centered guests in someone else’s house.
Dean Lloyd at the National Cathedral in Washington helped me process these ideas and reminded me that the greatest spiritual leaders of the past and present from St. Francis to Mahatma Gandhi to the Dalai Lama to Desmond Tutu have believed that God’s universal love knows no bounds of race or faith or nation, or even of species.
They each have taught that All OF LIFE is connected.
Even scientists now tell us that All life participates in a seamless web of connection. Reminding me of the great metaphor of Indra’s Net from the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, which symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependencies among all its members, wherein every member is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole.
But let’s get more scientific and “down to earth” -- this means that it is possible that the flap of a butterfly wing in Japan can set off a hurricane in the Caribbean. And the driving of a gas guzzler in Washington can melt an iceberg in Greenland.
There is science to prove these things.
The spiritual teacher Father Zosima, in the book The Brother’s Karamazov described our connectedness this way:
“All is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world… Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing you will perceive the mystery of God in things.”
That vision is what moved St. Francis to write one of my favorite poems celebrating “brother sun and sister moon.” Everything is made of the same star dust—the elements and molecules unleashed by the first Big Bang.
So that makes us cousins to a granite rock, a polar bear struggling to stay alive in the Arctic, or a grand sequoia along the coast of California. Just let that sink in.
By contrast, many of us have been taught in churches and schools a radical individualism in our religion, politics, economics, and business. The only questions we learned to ask were,
“What’s in this for me? What can maximize my prosperity, what will make me happy, what politicians will improve my own life and pocketbook?”
Thus, we have become consumers above all.
Of course, as Quakers, who love and are called to be stewards of this earth, we have to ask, What then shall we do? How can humanity pull back from the brink we are racing toward?
Of course, ultimately the answers will have to be technological—finding new, sustainable ways to generate the energy a growing, increasingly demanding world will need.
But folks, we ALL have work to do.
I know that it can be daunting to imagine how the likes of you and me can make any difference at all. Maybe we should begin with the wise advice of Nellie McClung, an early 20th century Canadian environmentalist:
Let us do our little bit with cheerfulness and not take the responsibility that belongs to God. None of us can turn the earth around. All we can ever hope to do is to hit it a few whacks in the right direction.
I like that concept – “a few whacks in the right direction.” What might that look like? Let me suggest a couple possible “whacks” each of us might deliver.
First, we can begin to see ourselves as a part of God’s world. We can see our health and our destiny in relationship to ALL that exists. Clean water and air must be seen as spiritual issues.
“God so loved the world,” Jesus said. We must learn to do the same.
We need fellow Friends and even our Meeting to help challenge us to see through the phony consumerism and individualism that leaves us more anxious and lonely.
And we need to stay connected to nature—through walks and bike rides, through watching the birds carry out their daily dance, through strolling around our neighborhoods, in local parks and hiking on trails, or just taking time in our Meditational Woods.
Second, you and I need to evaluate the lives we are living—the cars we drive, the trips we take, the size of our homes, the light bulbs we burn, the ways we get to and from work, the amount of meat we consume.
Some Quaker Meetings are beginning to have two pledge campaigns during the year—one where people pledge their financial resources for the church’s ministries, and the second is a pledge of what they intend to do in the coming year to be less of a burden on the earth. I like that idea because it makes us stay conscious of what we are doing.
And finally, with the guidance of our national organization - Friends Council on National Legislation and our local organization - Indiana Friends Council on Legislation, we can support candidates and leaders who are committed to addressing this crisis in our nation and right here in Indiana. If you want to know more talk to Phil Goodchild or Mary Blackburn – and if you do not know them – come see me and I will introduce you to them.
So, to close, I cannot reiterate enough that the stakes couldn’t be higher for the human race, and in fact for the entire planet. Either we will learn new ways beyond a self-centered individualism or millions will suffer and our children and their children will inherit a critically ill world.
The main query for us on this Earth Sunday is,
Will we deliver a few whacks in the right direction—for God’s sake, for the sake of human lives already at risk, for our children’s sake, and for the sake of the earth itself and our fellow creatures?
May that query weigh on our hearts during Waiting Worship this morning. And may we ponder opportunities for possibility, healing, and change!