A Lent 2 Psalm 8 BFC 2020
Psalm 8
March 8, 2020
A little under six years ago, I gave
my candidating sermon at Billings First Congregational Church. In that sermon, I spoke of human-induced
climate disruption and quoted environmental activist and Harvard Divinity
school graduate, Tim DeChristopher who asked for hard deeds. I quoted Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari
Maathai who said, there come times when a necessary change of consciousness is
called for and she said, “That time is now.”
It must seem crazy that I would get up in front of a congregation, in a
city built by fossil fuels, and preach what we call a “trial sermon” to ask you
all to join me in offsetting human caused climate disruption.
Trial sermon. “Take the accused and throw him in the trough
of justice! If he be a witch, he will
float on polluted waters.”[1] Luckily, all you did as a congregation was
make me wait outside with my family as you voted. No troughs of justice. Whew.
But I wanted to know. Could we be courageous together? I didn’t want to pretend I was this kind and
sweet feller from Illinois only for you to realize, “Yeah, he’s kind of a bastard,”
a year into my ministry in Billings.
Seriously, I wanted to find a congregation that would join hands with me
to draw a line in the sand and say, “This is not who God created us to be. This is not who we were born to be, to set
the world on fire and watch it burn, to destroy and divide in our diversity
rather than celebrate it. And I didn’t
want to preach a sermon that made it easy to like me only for you to find out
what a bastard I can be.” Hard
deeds. The time is now.
You may say different but I thought
the recent movement to place the Welcoming Diversity Ordinance was
glorious. How amazing is it to be part
of so many courageous people who stepped forward to represent the beautiful
tapestry of Billings, Montana. In that
moment, I became somewhat of a fanboy about Billings, Montana. I looked around at all these beautifully
diverse people and, contrary to what you hear colloquially, Billings is and is
becoming this wonderfully colorful, gritty, celebratory people. I find myself sneering about other cities in
Montana who think they are better. Even
with friends in each city, I have prejudices about the people who live there. Is that healthy? Am I just getting grouchy in my old age? Or is Billings just becoming that glorious—as
Native people rise, all the women who represent me at City Council or in the
legislature seem to be a force of nature, and the 406 Pride in Billings throws
the best parades with the best Grand Marshalls?
This is Billings. And it’s darn glorious. Right?
Not only is there bone beginning to connect to bone here but spiritual
muscle is straining and growing and exerting
itself in very real ways.
I share all this remembering that last
week I began my sermon referencing about every person I have talked to over the
last month sharing with me just how tired they are, how exhausted they are, how
exhausted I am. I want you to hear that
I think that exhaustion is intentional. We
are being fed a steady diet of narratives to batter us, wear us down, to keep
us off balance in fear, and to make us believe we are powerless. So last week I wanted you to make plans to be
resilient—to make plans to plant yourself near resources that feed you, to keep
your heart pliable and tender, and to share your gifts at the right time
remembering your interconnection with all of creation.
Today I want to go a step further with
this passage I have preached from twice before.
In my trial sermon, the one where I was found not to be a witch (so they
say), I preached about our created-to-be connection with Creator’s
universe. In the second sermon, I spoke
of the balance the Jewish creation stories put before us—we are created both
out of the humus, the fertile soil, literally Children of the Earth, as a
humble people full of potential, and created to be a little less than the
Divine Artist, crowned with glory and honor.
All that stuff about original sin is just so much fertile topsoil. Seriously.
This is what the Jewish creation story says and what Psalm 8 says.
Today
I want to emphasize that second statement made by the Jewish creation stories
and repeated by Psalm 8. We are
capable. We are powerful.
Recent research by sociologist,
Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Yale University, says that we are wired for
goodness. “We come to social goodness as
naturally as our more bloody inclinations.”[2] It is not true, Christakis believes, that we
are born for cruelty, selfishness, and fearful of our own diversity. There is great proof that in our very social
DNA is written cooperation, friendship, love, and teaching. Below the surface, these are tectonic forces
we are choosing again and again. On the
whole, we are kind to strangers, we cooperate with one another, and we teach
each other things. We do it, in contrast
to much of the animal world, across genetically unrelated individuals. It is encoded within us to learn from each
other, to imitate one another. Christakis
does not discount that each age comes with its horrors of what humankind does
to one another and to this good earth. But
he wants us to be aware that we are not naturally just a bloodthirsty,
colonialist, and violent lot.[3] We have built into us what Christakis
references as a great social suite that shows our capacity and capability for
amazing social goodness.
We need to be reminded of that great
capacity and capability as we turn to the challenges that face us. Again, at the Welcoming Diversity Ordinance
conversation at City Council I was just reminded how intersectional,
interconnected all of those challenges are by a speaker who did not support the
WDO and said that the City Council should invest their time and dollars in the
things that made Billings great as a city—our history in fossil fuel extraction
economies which threatens to destroy all of us.[4] I thought to myself how this gentleman’s
speech reflected a weird kind of indigenous wisdom which knows the despoiling
of the earth as the first injustice. For
that history not only reflects our present despoiling of the land but it also
is a reminder of the historic racism perpetuated against Native people for
profit, power, and to perpetuate the lie that white folk are somehow chosen,
through manifest destiny, to take as they see fit—all three-power, profit, and
to take as we see fit-eerily similar to the temptations of Jesus in the
wilderness. Now this gentleman was
confirming that the first injustice also required the dehumanization of the
LGBTQ+ community.
So
let’s say it straight out. We were not
born broken with the need to extract and exploit and profit at another’s
expense to be human. This violence does
not make us human. This is a lie. And I say to you, sisters and brothers,
siblings and cousins, we have the capacity and we are capable. It is God-given. It is in us.
I say this but I also know the reality
is grim. Since that candidating sermon almost
six years ago, our historical usage of extractive economies, our unwillingness
to see ourselves as made of land and water, is actively leading to cataclysmic
results. The insanely warm winter we are
having in Billings and the Corona virus pandemic are indicators. The World Heath Organization shares that
climate change will affect infectious disease occurrence.[5] In August 2019, Greenland lost 11 billion
tons of surface ice to the ocean in one day.
That is the equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic size swimming pools.[6]
Our capacity and capability does need
to be measured by a humility to remember our connection. It was Mark Twain who said of glaciers,
A [person] who keeps company with
glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able
to take every bit of conceit out of a [person] and reduce [their]
self-importance to zero if [they] will only remain within the influence of
their sublime presence long enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to
do its work.[7]
And you may know
better than me that the snow in Glacier National Park is now on the ground an
average of thirty days fewer than it used to be, meaning that trees grow
earlier in the season, grow larger, and use up more water. Thus, the size of forest fires grows. To compound this great loss, Dr. Dan Fagre,
the United States Geological Survey’s research ecologist and director of the
Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems Project says of the glacier ice at
Glacier National Park, “Ice is not just melting, it is collapsing.”[8]
Once again, the intersectional
nature of justice issues has almost all climate action groups centering the
voices of indigenous people around the globe.
Noam Chomsky, the celebrated, almost 90 year-old linguistic professor, peace
activist, and social critic said back in 2016 that indigenous people are taking
the lead in so may struggles to try to save us all. Even back then he related the great stands
indigenous people were taking at threat to their own safety from the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. “The commons is
under attack,” Chomsky said, there are those who are trying to take the global
environment away and sell it off to the highest bidder.[9] Indigenous people around the world are making courageous stands to save us. Chomsky saw that in 2016
with a struggle in Canada which has been heightened all the more by the
courageous stands taken by the Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nations people.[10]
Not surprisingly and sadly, at
Standing Rock, all the predictions the Native elders made about what would
happen with the pipeline have come to fruition.
Nick Estes, writer of the great book, Our History Is Our Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access
Pipeline, and the Long History of Indigenous Resistance shared that the leaders of the protest were
often from the Two Spirit community. All intersectional. All tied together. All connected.
Stan
Rushworth, a Cherokee Elder, and teacher shared that the Elders he invites into
his classroom have known what is happening and spend hours speaking to his
classes about the recognizable signs.
When asked by the class what they can do, the Elders almost always
respond by reminding the students of their capability and capacity. “What can we do?” Arapaho Elder Henry Tyler
was asked. He would take a finger and
point to his head, say nothing in a long pause, and then answer, “Use this,”
and smile.[11]
As our creation stories teach us, we
are called to be the shadows of the divine in the world. Psalm 8, that ancient hymn, remembers these
great Jewish creation stories that tell us we are a little less than God or the
angels, people of great capacity, capability--and what I know of this
incredible congregation, people of great courage. Think
I’m kidding? When news broke on Facebook
of someone with a gun at our church, some feared it was because of our
courageous stands in the community. Who
was our most ardent defender? It was
Adrian Jawort, a profound and wise Two Spirit Native writer, who was asked to
speak at our church last year for Our Whole Lives Sunday and spoke at the
Climate Strike in September. He spoke in
deep and loving ways about how we had embraced him.
There
are some ways that Billings was a great city already. But what is happening now is that Billings is
changing in such profound ways that opponents of the WDO have to ship pastors
in from Laurel to tell us how we should run things in our fair city. People from the LGBTQ community led us
out. Who were the prolific city leader
allies who did the blue-collar work? Who
brought up the WDO? Penny Ronning. Who helped to organize from the faith
community? Lisa Harmon. Who organized the speakers? Carmelita Dominguez and Kiely Lammers. And
this congregation already knows about what great leadership we have in the
Montana legislature with Margie MacDonald and Emma Kerr Carpenter. And, of course, many of us have first-hand
knowledge of the rising of the Native community in Billings.
But
the challenge is before us. For our own
salvation, Billings must become more than its fossil fuel history to be crowned
in glory and honor. In a month, the week
around Earth Day is being hailed as hopefully the largest climate strike ever
around the world. We have the
capacity. We have the capability. We have the courage. How shall we use this as an opportunity to
sing of the great truths shared in Psalm 8 and make it a point of departure for
even greater work in our beautiful city. Because we are Billings. We are Billings’ first church. Powerful.
Capable. Courageous. Amen.
[1]
Please . . . you don’t remember? Steve
Martin as Theodoric of York from Saturday Night Live. See.
When you have to explain a joke . . .
[2] Nicholas Christakis
interview with Krista Tippett, “How We’re Wired for Goodness,” OnBeing, March
5, 2020, https://onbeing.org/programs/nicholas-christakis-how-were-wired-for-goodness/.
[4] The Scottish American
naturalist, author, philosopher, and early wilderness-preservation advocate
John Muir who knew a different set of values, “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making
money. I am learning nothing in this
trivial world of men. I must break away
and get out into the mountains to learn news.”
Dahr Jamail, The End of Ice:
Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption,
(New York: The New Press, 2019), p. 8.
[5] World Health Organization,
“Climate change and human health - risks and responses. Summary,” https://www.who.int/globalchange/summary/en/index5.html.
[6] Mark Tutton, “Greenland's
ice sheet just lost 11 billion tons of ice -- in one day,” CNN World,
August 15, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/world/greenland-ice-sheet-11-billion-intl/index.html.
[7]Mark Twain, A Tramp
Abroad (Leipzig, 1880), p. 158.
[8] Dahr Jamail, The End of
Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning
in the Path of Climate Disruption, (New York: The New Press, 2019), pp. 36-39.
[9] Michael Keefer, “Noam
Chomsky: Indigenous people “are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect
all of us,” Real People’s Media, December 22, 2016, https://realpeoples.media/noam-chomsky-indigenous-people-are-the-ones-taking-the-lead-in-trying-to-protect-all-of-us/?fbclid=IwAR0JQFtb6EuIGgwEmC5tCbpALrSsd3N2-l1zasY-1BcJsPRLckQCMeMtexw.
[11] Jamail, “The End,” pp. 220-224.
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