Erl Purnell Sermon

cEpiphany 6 ~ February 11, 2007 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Jeremiah 17.5-10; Psalm 1; 1 Corinthians 15.12-20; Luke 6.17-26

On Thursday this week an email arrived at church for Karen. She forwarded it to me. It was from a parishioner. Not unusual. This particular email, however, contained the attachment BlueBeauty, a Power Point presentation. BlueBeauty? I had no idea what that meant.

I loaded the file. There IT was. Of course. BlueBeauty is the Earth viewed from space. In the opening slide we see two views of our planet. In the one on the left, the United States is seen front and center, with the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rolling off our shoulders to the east and west. The upside down cup of the Gulf of Mexico opens to the top of South America, while north of Hudson’s Bay white glaciers cap Greenland as it edges over the blue-black horizon.

The other view of Earth is focused on India. Far to the west and sliding south is the horn of Africa. There’s the Red Sea embracing one side of the Arabian Peninsula as the Persian Gulf hugs the other. North of Iran, we see the Caspian Sea and, to the west, the Black Sea and then the Mediterranean. Stretching east from the Caspian are the vast plains of Asia, reaching all the way to Mongolia. Indo-China seems to hang from the bottom of China proper. A whisper of Australia can be made out as the earth curves south to an unseen Antarctica. Both images are simply spectacular.

BlueBeauty. Yes. I remember so well those very first Earth-Rise photos taken on December 24^th, 1968 when Apollo 8, with astronauts Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders aboard, emerged from the far side of the moon. Crew commander Frank Borman rolled the spacecraft so as to position its antennas for radio contact with mission control. Looking to the lunar horizon for reference he exclaimed, “Oh my God, look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up!”

There were actually three photos taken at the time, the first in black and white by Borman and two others in color by Anders. Anders framed his photographs from the perspective of being in orbit about the lunar equator. As a result, his horizon was the plane in which he was traveling. This meant he framed the picture so the edge of the Moon was vertical, with planet Earth a little to the left but with its North and South poles aligned the same way as the North and South poles of the Moon. Borman corrected for this anomaly in his photo by holding his camera so the moon was in the horizontal plane.

By all measures the first Earth-Rise photos are spectacular and known as the most famous pictures in human history. Homo sapiens and our ancestors have seen the moon rise every night we have inhabited this beautiful blue ball. A curious thing, however, is that, the earth has been rising over the moon’s horizon for all those years as well. But, it was only in 1968 that we had the privilege to witness earth coming “up” across the moon’s horizon.

Why so much attention to BlueBeauty and the Earth-Rise pictures? Well, a few weeks ago during our adult education time after church, many of us watched Al Gore’s documentary aninconvenienttruth. A certain buzz resulted among quite a few parishioners. Because we’ve had a two week hiatus between seeing aninconvenienttruth and the resumption of our conversation about the environment as a Christian concern, I thought I’d say something this morning about it.

What a difference it makes to have the perspective of distance. Until 1968 we couldn’t fully appreciate our place in the solar system or the universe for that matter because we had never experienced a “long view” of earth. Do you remember the line from aninconvenienttruth attributed to Carl Sagan? As spacecraft Voyager leaves the solar system in the 1990’s, Sagan requests that Voyager’s cameras be turned back to earth to get a parting shot. The image that many of us saw when we watched aninconvenienttruth was an earth the size of a single blue pixel in the huge and expansive universe. Sagan then said something like, ‘Everything that has ever happened in the memory of human kind has happened on that tiny blue light.’ Whoa.

Getting perspective in many circumstances is often difficult. So it is with climate change. We talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. When we are very close to something, understanding where that “thing” fits into a larger whole can be a tremendous challenge. Do you remember the Allegory of the Cave that Plato poses in The Republic? In it, the only reality prisoners in a cave have are shadows on the wall in front of them. They have to understand what is happening outside by watching imperfect shadows which represent their reality.

Another example of what I mean by perspective—imperfect perspective—may be illustrated by the famous Indian legend of the six blind men who encounter an elephant. The first puts his hands on the side of the elephant and proclaims, “God bless me, an elephant is very much like a wall.” The second comes upon a tusk and shouts, “This wonder of an elephant is very much like a spear.” The next blind man encounters the trunk and quickly pulls his hands away, crying, “The elephant is very much like a snake.” The fourth has come upon the elephant’s leg and he confidently tells the others, “No, the elephant is like a tree.” And then the fifth fellow, who had discovered the elephant’s ear, offers, “I find this marvel of the elephant is very much like a fan.” All the while, the sixth blind man was wandering aimlessly until he came upon the tail and calls out, “Surely, the elephant is like a rope.”

Returning to Gaia—what the Greeks called the earth—we are looking through a glass darkly when we try to understand its life force. Gradually, however, a new appreciation for the systems that govern the planet, including climate, is emerging. Our perspective is improving. A mere fifty years ago plate tectonics was a laughing matter. It’s now accepted geophysics. When ozone depletion was recognized in the late 1970’s, people didn’t understand that it had been caused by rampant use of fluorocarbons. Now, through a global effort, the ozone is repairing itself. When Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, few people shared her concern for the ecology of planet Earth. Since then the environmental movement has come to life world-wide.

Most recently—actually on February 2^nd—the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel released its fourth report: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Our perspective is improving. We are beginning to get a long view. The scientists who prepared the report argue with more than 90% certainty that human activity is the cause of climate changes that are currently underway and that will alter the way humanity and all other living creatures and plants exist on the planet for at least 1,000 years. That science proclaims that human activities—specifically the burning of fossil fuels—have produced so much excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as to effect the temperature of the atmosphere. The science is now unassailable. The question is not whether or not to act, but what to do.

While these catalysts are vitally important and the need for dramatic action is unquestioned from a scientific point of view, there is also a critical motivation for us as children of God to act, and act responsibly. In our sacred Scriptures, humankind is granted the privilege of being stewards of Creation. And yet, as we are slowly learning from an improving perspective, we have not done well as planetary stewards. Quite the opposite, it turns out. Indeed, the earth’s eco-systems are threatened mightily by our actions.

If we are to take seriously our place as stewards of Creation, shouldn’t we educate ourselves and ask some hard questions? For example: How do I, personally, contribute to global warming? What can I actively do to contribute more to the solution than to the problem? How am I willing to change for the sake of God’s Creation?

Some obvious places to start include: recycling, lowering thermostats, driving energy efficient cars, insulating our homes, using efficient light bulbs and appliances, and even turning computers off when they’re not being used. What’s required are systemic changes—conservation, the development of renewable and alternative fuels, and much lighter cars, trucks, busses, and planes to name a few.

By way of raising our consciousness at OSA about climate change and environmental concerns as theological issues, won’t you consider having an on-going dialogue here about how we can respond to the challenge of being more responsible stewards? Won’t you help encourage and teach each other to develop new patterns and habits? Will you ask, “What can we do at OSA to improve our energy profile?” Dare you imagine and then lead OSA into the future as a, so called, green church?

Climate change is not a short term problem like the oil crisis of the 1970’s. What we need to be about is accepting our responsibility for the future of God’s BlueBeauty. And … and, there can be no room for saying, “It’s not my problem. I’ll let somebody else deal with it.”

Let us pray. Creator God, you have filled the world with such magnificent beauty; open our hearts and eyes so we might value the earth’s marvelous order and the infinite complexity of Gaia and all living creatures. Grant that, as we probe the mysteries of your creation and discover your very presence in all things, we may learn to be responsible, innovative, and selfless stewards of this fragile Earth, our island home. In these and all things we pray in the spirit of Christ that bonds us to each other and to you and to the only world we know.

Amen.