SERMON FOR FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

TEXT: Jeremiah 18: 1-11

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

TITLE: "You have the Power: Faith and the Environment – a Natural Partnership"

PREACHED BY: The Rev. Caroline B. Edge on Sunday, September 9, 2007 at Carter Memorial United Methodist Church, Needham, MA.

"Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives." (Jer. 18:11) When God spoke through Jeremiah, God did not mince words. Jeremiah imaged God in a very threatening way. Imagine God saying, "If I as the master potter throw a defective pot, I’ll junk that piece of clay and start over remolding it – You – into a good pot." Shape up or be re-created!

Our modern prophets are more scientific in their imagery. Our vehicle emissions are causing the ozone layer to thin which is allowing global warming. The fossil fuels which make our lights burn, our washing machines churn, our clothes dryers whirl, our computers function are filling the atmosphere with pollutants. Deforestation threatens wild life – even our migrating birds – and the balance of exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide on earth.

Since Rachael Carson – the first prophet to speak about our modern environmental woes – published her book The Silent Spring in 1962, scientists have been alerting, warning us about how our lifestyle is effecting the delicate balance on this good earth.

By the 1980’s theologians were weighing in – ecotheology it is called. Father Thomas Berry who wrote The Dream of the Earth, the Roman Catholic scholar Matthew Fox, the physicist Brian Swimme who studied with Father Berry and wrote the dialogue called The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story, all posed strong, well-thought out reflections. And there was Daniel Quinn, trained in Catholic universities who wrote Ishmael, the prize winning novel about a gorilla who teaches a human about the universe and our place in it.

What all of these writers did was to take humanity from our place as the ultimate creation for which everything else was created as the Genesis creation stories intimate and place us as one of the creatures of the earth – yes, the smartest – and the dumbest ( I learned recently that animals in Africa slow their reproduction rates when climate influences their environment negatively; humans seem to do just the opposite). This theological shift removes us from having the right of "using" all of creation for our gratification. The rest of creation – the trees, the atmosphere, the earth, other animals – is lifted to a higher level of value – not more than humans, but equally as valuable. When we operate in this cosmic schema, we lose our ‘right" to use everything else just for ourselves. As responsible co-creations with all of nature, we are to find our rhythm within the universe.

Now ecotheology has proponents in all religions – Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, indigenous religions. One of the newest organizations on the Christian Right in this country is the Evangelical Climate Initiative which is focusing on climate change as a moral issue that will disproportionally hurt the poor around the world.

The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School gathered 800 scholars in 1996 & 1998 to discuss ecotheology from their various religious viewpoints. That turned into a continuing Forum on Religion and Ecology with over 5,000 participants.

The various religions are not only theologizing about ecology, but they are "beginning to generate the energy needed for restoring the Earth" observes Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim who are founders of the Forum and are now offering joint degrees in theology and the environment at Yale.

They cite a most striking example of the intersection of religion and ecology in Iran in the first five years of this century. Under the former President Mohammad Khatani, the government of Iran and the United Nations Environment Program sponsored conferences in Tehran that focused on Islamic principles and practices for environmental protection. The Iranian Constitution identifies Islamic values for appropriate ecological practices and threatens legal sanctions against those who do not follow them."

The greening of churches and synagogues in the United States is leading to some exciting joint projects. Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light is a cybercommunity helping congregations to become greener. I’ve asked Trustee John Frantz to research this website and to report to the trustees as we continue to work toward making our buildings more green. Building work team chair Barbara Beard has proposed replacing the light bulbs in the balcony chandeliers with compact fluorescents. I said why not do all of them in the entire sanctuary since none of them are on dimmers. They will not only last 6 to 10 times longer but will burn many fewer watts of electricity. We’ve placed a blue recycle wastebasket in the Narthex for you to recycle the parts of your bulletin you do not need to take home to remind you of upcoming events.

Lay Leader Nancy Frantz recommends creating a Green Team for volunteers who want to work on ways to make Carter greener. See details in your insert!

Now what about in our own homes and individual lives? I know many of us are already doing "green" things.

Stand up if you recycle your papers, cardboard, cans and bottles!...Let’s give us a hand!

This is a good point to give a commercial for our church dump week for deposit cans and bottles. That is Sept. 18-22 here at the Needham Dump. If you do not live in Needham, bring your deposit bottles and cans to the church before or during that week and the Mission Team will recycle them for you as we earn money for missions.

Now you who commute to work or school: stand up if you walk, ride a bicycle or motorcycle, drive a hybrid car, carpool or use public transportation to commute… Let’s give these people a big hand!

When I was in Canada this summer, I saw a billboard of a famous Canadian holding in his hand a compact fluorescent light bulb. The caption was "You have the Power." Stand up if you have at least one of these compact fluorescent bulbs "screwed in" somewhere in your home. Let give them applause!

Now I am glad to see some of you were still sitting because this gives me the opportunity to encourage you to put your faith – that we are creatures that share in this universe, rather than the ultimate who were created to use it up – to begin to replace these with these.

I started doing it this summer in my cottage and the parsonage and learned a few things because I did not do the research first. Don’t put these in lights that have a dimmer. They sizzle ruining the bulb and causing a fire hazard. They don’t work in lamps where the shade fits on the globe of the bulb. They don’t work in three-way switches. But there are energy saving bulbs designed for those uses.

I also learned that in New Hampshire Home Depot and other places that sell these bulbs there are coupons from the electric company that give generous discounts right at the counter when you buy the bulb. I just this week discovered a website that gives $2 to $4 discounts for up to 6 bulbs a year here in MA, again funded by your electric provider. The website is energystar.gov. That website says, "If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars." You have the power!

Many of us could afford to change every possible light bulb in our home today. Others of us could afford to change one bulb a month or when a bulb burns out.

It was interesting to me this summer in Kenya that all of the light bulbs were the compact fluorescent ones. There in a developing country they had already made the shift! Of course, the electricity did not work 24 hours a day in most of the resorts we stayed in, but they had these bulbs!

Now these compact fluorescent bulbs are not perfect. They contain a small amount of mercury which causes its own problems. So when this bulb burns out 10 years from now, dispose of it properly. Here in Needham at the dump take them to the Universal Waste Shed. It doesn’t cost anything. If you should break one, safe clean up instructions are on the energystar.gov website.

There are other ideas down on the green table in PM Hall and a place for you to add some of the things you are doing. There will also be hybrids for you to test drive after lunch to whet your appetite for a low emissions, high miles per gallon vehicle. You will be surprised how roomy they are!

Back to Jeremiah: He quoted God saying, "Turn back from your doomed way of life. Straighten out your lives."

What will be our response? Will Jeremiah be right when he said, "But they’ll just say, "Why should we? What’s the point? We’ll live just the way we’ve always lived, doom or no doom."

Amen.