2024-04-22
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
April 21, 2024, Earth Sunday Hamilton Coe Throckmorton
Psalm 23 The Federated Church, UCC
A week and a half ago, Mary and I made a quick trip to Vermont for the funeral of Mary’s cousin’s husband, Wayne Hamilton. Wayne and I shared a Scottish name, he with the last name and I with the first name Hamilton, so I wore my red Hamilton tartan tie in his honor.
Wayne had a somewhat mischievous sense of humor. During my last visit with him, this past summer, he invited me to join him and two of his friends for a golf outing one day. When we arrived at the course, and before I had met our playing partners, Wayne said to me conspiratorially, “I’m not going to tell them you’re a minister. This way, I’m betting you’ll get a nice little display of some colorful language. It will be fun!” he said. And he was right. There was indeed a vivid and imaginative use of language on the golf course that day! It was just like Wayne to instigate some innocent, good-natured entertainment.
What impressed me at least as much about Wayne, though, was the remarkable affinity he had for the Earth, and for “the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). A master gardener, he had a massive and beautiful garden full of flowers and all manner of delectable vegetables and herbs that he and his wife Rachel tended. Every summer, when Mary and I visited, he would walk us through the gardens—gardens which got bigger every year, incidentally—and show us their variety and abundance. In addition, he raised chickens, both for meat and for eggs, whom he treated humanely and I would dare say even with affection. Not only that, but he and Rachel had recently put in their own substantial array of solar panels that provided nearly all their electricity needs. Just being around Wayne deepened my reverence for the Earth.
I tell you this because, while it is no surprise to anyone here, we live in a time of unsurpassed peril for this precious planet of ours, on numerous fronts. That most beloved of all psalms, the one we hear so often at funerals, was acutely aware of encroaching danger. We tend to romanticize this psalm, as though it’s all sweetness and light. Remember, though, that fourth verse: “I may walk through valleys as dark as death,” says one version (CEV). Another version, The Message, puts it this way: “Even when the way goes through Death Valley.” And we know in our bones the shadowed valleys of which the psalmist speaks—the tiny children hospitalized with major surgeries; the families torn apart by politics and religion and money; the sudden and shocking termination at work; the seemingly intractable violence in the Middle East; the interminable war in Ukraine.
And not least among those grim valleys is the climate crisis in which we’re embroiled. The list of human offenses to this home of ours is too long to enumerate. Just to take one assault, and the focus of this year’s Earth Day, human use of plastics degrades the earth on numerous levels. The Justice and Peace Action Network (JPAN) of the United Church of Christ says that plastic “is in everything and [is] wreaking havoc on our ecosystems and bodies.” It reports that “[G]lobal plastics production reached 460 million tons in 2019 and contributed to 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. . .. [M]ost plastic is not truly recyclable. Instead, it ends up landfilled, incinerated, or uncollected, accumulating on land and in the water. As plastic breaks down into smaller polymers known as microplastics, it is ingested by organisms and finds its way up the food chain, including into our own bodies.” A death-shadowed valley.
Because of that, our denomination, the UCC, urges us as individuals to “reduce and eliminate our own plastic consumption” and at the same time insists that “petrochemical and consumer product corporations . . . be held accountable for the waste management of their harmful products [so that they] move away from plastic and toward more environmentally friendly materials” (email from JPAN, April 18, 2024).
The valley of the shadow of death lurks in countless corners. And yet, as a human race, we continue to hurtle toward this self-destructive abyss of our assault on the Earth. And many of us may wonder: where in the world is the hope? What can we possibly do to make a difference? The Death Valley forces of destruction are so overwhelmingly arrayed against the health of the Earth that we may well wonder what our puny actions can do to turn the tide.
So we’ll say two things about that. The first is about hope and it’s wisdom conveyed by the Quaker theologian and activist, Parker Palmer. Palmer insists that our seemingly small steps do, indeed, matter, that it’s good to, among other things, recycle, and burn as little fossil fuel as possible, and not use plastic straws in restaurants. And these things matter not because our little steps are going to make all the difference. They’re not. They matter because they are signs of hope. Palmer says there’s the way the world is on the one hand, and the way it could be on the other. And every step we make, no matter how small it may seem, that narrows the gap between the way the world is and the way it could be is a sign of hope. It’s that hope that keeps alive the spark of God’s love and moves us toward wholeness. And every one of those steps matters not just on a practical level, but also centrally on a psychological and spiritual level. If we’re part of narrowing the gap between what is and what could be, we’re part of a movement of hope. We’re emissaries of love and justice. That’s not to say that that’s all that’s needed. It is to say that those deeds matter.
And we do those things why? The second thing we emphasize today is that we reside on a gorgeous and radiant orb floating in the heavens, a planet whose beauty and grace we so easily take for granted. We so often go through our days oblivious to the mesmerizing magnificence of this scintillating Earth. With holy grace at the core, the psalm reminds us how spectacular this “pale blue dot” is, in Carl Sagan’s arresting phrase. “Goodness and mercy,” says the psalm, don’t just “follow” us, as our traditional translation has it, but actually, as the Hebrew conveys it, “pursue” us. That goodness and mercy pursue us “in green pastures” and “beside still waters” (23:2, NRSV); or, as another translation has it, “in fields of green grass” and “streams of peaceful water” (CEV); or, as The Message has it, “You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from.”
Yes, the Death Valleys threaten. But the Earth’s grass is also lush, its waters still and refreshing, its beauty breathtaking and restorative. The psalm’s images from the natural world evoke in us the radiant beauty and sustenance provided for us by this God-given Earth in which we live. We will increasingly make a difference as we take that in.
To remind us today of the striking wonder and beauty God has offered us, I invite us now to pause and to reflect on some of the grandeur God has showered upon us. We’re going to gaze at some of the magnificence with which we’ve been blessed. These are photos taken by Federated church member and staff member Marty Culbertson and by Mary’s and my son Taylor Throckmorton, and accompanied by Marcia Snavely. Let these images remind us of the grace that surrounds us, and stir us to yet more deeds of hope. [SLIDE SHOW]
[AFTER IMAGES] From green pastures to still waters to peaceful paths to exhilarating mountains, from birds to butterflies to foxes to deer, from startling lightning to that indescribably marvelous total solar eclipse we were just privileged to witness, we are opulently blessed.
I mentioned earlier my cousin-in-law, Wayne Hamilton, who just died and whose funeral Mary and I attended last week. Wayne contributed to the wellbeing of the Earth in countless ways. And that was because he loved this Earth with a heart of tenderness and adoration. Here is a photo of Wayne with Gladys, one of his chickens, who is nestled in Wayne’s arms. At Wayne’s funeral last week, his brother-in-law Guy said this about that photo: “This is the Wayne that we . . . have known. . .. We are [all] like Gladys in a way. Comfortable in his company, warm in his embrace.” That was so true. And what is perhaps even more true is that we are all, every one of us and indeed the Earth itself—we are all Gladys, nestled in the arms of the God who adores us and who cherishes the Earth itself. May we adore and cherish the Earth in that same way, and live with an active and transforming hope, and give ourselves to the preservation and enhancement of this insanely magnificent planet. For this Earthly home of ours is God’s stunning and irreplaceable gift to us. And we have the privilege of treasuring it and tending to it. May it always be so.