B
Creation 3 Sky BFC 2015
Psalm
19:1-6
September
20, 2015
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| Sky, based on Psalm 19:1-6, painting by congregational member, Sue Betz B Creation 3 Sky BFC 2015 Psalm 19:1-6 September 20, 2015 |
Last week four members of our
congregation shared a Readers’ Theater during worship to relate the two stories
of creation found in Genesis and some of the deep truths found in each
story. Evan Page read the Scripture for
the first story of creation, and I told Evan to read it like a father or
grandfather relating the story to his children or grandchildren. There was that amazing moment the first time
I heard Evan read the Scripture like that, when he came to the second day of
creation and he said, “So God made the dome and separated the waters that were
under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God
called the dome . . . Sky!” He read it
like it was the first time in the world anyone had ever heard the word, “sky”
as the amazing, wonderful, multi-chromatic canvas on which God paints the colors
of the universe. And I imagine the
children and grandchildren, all gathered around the fire as Evan told the
story, going, “Wowwwwwwww! Sky.”
As was read for today, the
heavens--the mythological understanding of looking upward and outward--the sky,
the atmosphere, conveys God’s visceral artistry and delight with all of
creation. Psalm 19 shares God as a
Child, holding up splashes of color for us to see and respond in awe, wonder,
gratitude, and praise. As stated in the
introduction to the Scripture reading, the sky also relates God’s continuing
spiritual practice as Creator. The sun
bounds forth onto the horizon like a wedding partner who has just experienced
the sexual ecstasy of that first night on the honeymoon. Day after day, God is involved in maintaining
the balance and order in the universe.
God is in the heavens and all is good and right with the universe.
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,
red sky in the morn, sailors be warned,” is the old proverb encouraging us to
read the sky for the harbinger of things to come. Even within the gospels, Jesus, in an effort
to get people to critically read the signs of the times, said, “When it is
evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is
red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘There will be a
storm today, for the sky is red and threatening. But you refuse to read the signs of this
present time.”[1]
Beyond Psalm 19, when things are not
good and right in the sky, it is the first sign that all is not good and right
with the created order. The sky is one
of the first alarm bells that tell us: 1)
change is happening, 2) the transformation of unjust systems and structures is
about to take place, ways of being are now being accomplished. Or, 3) the created order is being undone, 4) injustice
and violence now reign supreme and transformation needs to take place. The
sky as a portent for the end times or changing times is so deep in our
mythology that when this iridescent, mystical cloud formation over Costa Rica
appeared this last week, headlines referred to it as something from out of “the
end of times.” In Mark 13, the sun does
not run its course but darkens, the moon does not give light, and the stars
begin falling from the sky. In the
apocalyptic vision of Daniel it is the winds, like the primordial chaos at the
beginning of creation in Genesis, which stir the sea. Throughout the Bible, it is said that on the
great and terrible day of the Living God, the sun will darken and the moon
shall become as blood red.
As I thought about that poetic discourse,
what it would mean to ancient Jewish peoples, I imagined that the sun grew dark
and the moon becoming blood red was an allusion to the state of the world when
empire after empire burns your cities to the ground and the smoke from those
fires dims the skies and tints the color of the moon into orange and reddish
hues. Blood-red would have been used to connote the original sin of the Bible,
violence from morning till night, shedding blood and creating untold suffering. On the great and terrible day of the Living
God, smoke darkens the day and tints the moon, not unlike the days and nights
in Missoula, Bozeman, and Billings, Montana, not so long ago when the fires in
Washington, California, and even at Glacier remind us that the whole Western
United States seems to be on fire. Some
of you may have seen the video I posted on Facebook from the guardian which shows a person trying to escape by car through
the wildfires in California. It is a
very real picture of what hell must look like on earth. Change is happening, the transformation of
unjust systems and structures, ways of being, is now being accomplished, the
created order is being undone, or injustice and violence now reign supreme.
Again, I am somewhat surprised when
the climate change “debate” is framed as science versus religion when not only
scientific data but the ancient Biblical worldview would tell us that something
is amiss, that creation itself is groaning in labor pains hoping for a new day
when the sun might bound from its bridal chamber, eager to run its course.
In ancient Mayan theology, among the
Lacandon who still inhabit the Chiapan rainforest, it is said that when the
trees are destroyed, the sky will fall.
That is a poetic statement which reflects a scientific reality. And Yale University ecologist, Thomas
Crowther, said in a report earlier in this month that there are fewer numbers
of trees on the planet that at any time since the dawn of human civilization
and the numbers continue to fall at an alarming rate. There is a net loss of 10 billion trees per
year and a gross loss of 15 billion trees per year. The Yale University team stated that human
activity is responsible for this depletion.[2]
No, I am not Chicken Little, but the
way our ancient wisdom tells us to critically discern and the way over 97% of
climate scientists discern that humankind is responsible for the way the
climate is rapidly changing in devastating ways, we must respond to the ways
the sky is falling. As people who affirm
that poetic understanding of God creating the earth and declaring it good, we
are called once again to collaborate with God in the spiritual practice of the
necessary order and balance of the universe.
I am totally envious of my
mother-in-law. She has lived out her
retirement better than anyone I know. If
she did have a bucket list, I imagine she has had to create two more master
lists. For she checks off item after
item with each coming year. One item she
has checked off six different times! is serving as a volunteer in Antarctica. When she was in Antarctica the last time, she
called my wife, Tracy, to say that she wanted to pay for both of us to go see a
movie that was just coming out, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” The reason was that her time in Antarctica
had given her a front row seat to the early effects of climate change. She also was in a community of people who
spoke openly about the reality of climate change and its effects on the
beautiful landscapes surrounding McMurdo Station.
In October another movie is to be
released, the movie that premiered in the prominent position as the one shown
as the finalé to the
Cannes Film Festival: “Ice and
Sky.” “Ice and Sky” begins with the
story of Claude Lorius, who replied to an ad way back in 1955 with two fellow
travelers for a one-year wintering journey in the Antarctic with no possible
return or support. Lorius, now 83,
became known as a glaciologist for his work in using glaciers to trace the
history of climate on our earth.[3] In those glaciers, Lorius could see the
effect of nuclear testing in the Northern Hemisphere on the atmosphere. Indeed, Lorius, concluded, what he learned in
his research is that there is only one atmosphere.[4] We all share the same blue or smoke-filled
sky. What is done to one part of the
atmosphere is done to it all.
Lorius went on to show how
greenhouse gasses (accelerated, compounded, and multiplied by humankind) have
begun to destroy the protective envelope—the exosphere, the thermosphere, the
mesosphere, the stratosphere, and the troposphere—that protective envelope, the
atmosphere, our sky, which then begins to threaten life as we know it on our
planet.[5] The
destruction of the sky is the harbinger of things to come.
The movie “Ice and Sky” ends with a
quote from Lorius who asks, “Now you know, what are you going to do about
it?” My hope is that this movie finds
its way to Billings, Montana, so that we can invite friends, neighbors, family,
enemies, anyone who shares the same sky, so that we may form wide and broad
communities and coalitions to share in a love for God’s good earth.
By now most of you know that I
believe people of faith, as they have so often, can and must lead out on these
things to which God is calling us. How
shall we lead out? How shall we be the
people who affirm the truths of a God who seeks to paint the skies with
brilliant colors and have us lost in wonder, awe, gratitude, and praise as we
behold what is out and up? When we leave
this building today, I hope you will look up and out and behold the good gift
that God has given to us and ask how we, as a community of faith, shall honor
that gift. Hear Psalm 19 one more time:
The skies are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of God’s hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In the sky God has placed a tent for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a warrior who runs a course.
6 Its rising is from one end of the sky,
And its circuit to the other end of the sky
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
And their expanse is declaring the work of God’s hands.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In the sky God has placed a tent for the sun,
5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a warrior who runs a course.
6 Its rising is from one end of the sky,
And its circuit to the other end of the sky
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Hear in that beautiful poetic
discourse the same truth confirmed by the scientific data by Claude
Lorius. There is but one sky. And we all share it. And nothing is hidden from the heat of the
sun in that one sky. We and the soil are
one. We and the sky are one. We are one people. Now we know, what are we going to do about
it? Praise God?
God called the dome . . . “sky” and it was good. And it was good. Amen.
[1]Matthew 16:2-3
[2] Will Dunham, “Earth has three trillion trees but
they are falling at an alarming rate,” Green
Business, September 2, 2015.
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