The Gift of the World

So, who got stuff for Christmas?  Who gave stuff for Christmas?  Was it good stuff?  I wonder where the stuff will be a year from now?   Christmas is often called the season of giving, and people all over the world give one another gifts, even if they don’t agree with or believe in what Christmas represents, I’ve never met an atheist who refuses Christmas presents.  Big gifts, little gifts, the perfect gift and completely irrelevant gifts.

Did you ever give someone a gift and they just didn’t seem to appreciate it?  Maybe they didn’t understand the significance or the cost of the gift.  They didn’t realize the love that went into creating the gift or the sacrifice that you had to make to buy the gift. 

Or maybe it just wasn’t the gift they wanted.  Maybe it was the gift you wanted.  You know what I mean, you took the words of Jesus to heart from Luke 6:31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.  And it’s easy to take that too literally sometime and we do or give to those in our lives based on our preferences.  But think about it, if Angela and I went out to eat and I decided in my limited wisdom that I would order for both of us and Jesus words came to mind I would order burgers for both of us, great big juicy burgers with bacon and cheddar, cooked medium well.  I would have taken the words of Jesus, to do unto others, to heart.  The problem is that Angela is a vegetarian, she doesn’t eat burgers. But I followed the Golden rule. Or did I?   Probably what I should have thought is, We are eating out, what do I want?  And ordered my favorite burger.  And then realized that Angela, like me, would like her favorite meal and I would order her Nachos.

All that was said to say that maybe you bought them the gift that you wanted someone to buy you.  And that wasn’t what they wanted.

Or maybe they liked the gift you bought but got bored with it and it ended up collecting dust in a corner or worse they just didn’t take care of it and pretty soon the gift that you put so much thought into was broken.

How would you feel?  Probably not very good.  God gave mankind an incredible gift, well actually he has given us numerous incredible gifts and some we have embraced, and some we have taken for granted and some we have abused and neglected.

I often talk about the gift of salvation and the gift of grace but the gift I’m talking about this morning is the gift of creation.  The gift of the world we live in.    Do we ever stop and think about the world we live in?  And if we do think about it do we think of it as a gift or an entitlement?  Do we see the world as something to be exploited or something to be treated with respect? 

A few years ago I was challenged by my son as to why I didn’t address environmental concerns when I preached. 

We were having a discussion; discussion is a good word, over big business, development, internal combustion engines and our society’s reliance on fossil fuels.  And in the midst of one of his discourses he challenged me, his father, to take responsibility for the mess the world was in. 

Can you imagine?  And then he said something to the effect of “You say you serve and love God but how can you allow them to do what they do to His creation?”  I sputtered out a response and he replied by saying “Why don’t you use your influence to do something?”  You can tell he is an idealist by assuming that I have that much influence. 

Although in my office I have a quote by that great American philosopher George Carlin who said “I have as much influence as the Pope just fewer people believe it.” 

My response was “Well I’ve preached on the environment.” To which he replied “Must have been after I left.”  I didn’t even know he was paying attention. 

So I went back through my messages and sure enough, I hadn’t, felt kind of bad.  Then I discovered that I wasn’t alone.  I am a contributor to a website called sermoncentral.com.  It is a place that depending on your scruples you can use it to research messages or to plagiarize messages.  I use it for research, my commitment to you is that other people may preach my messages but I don’t preach other people’s messages.  As I told one colleague, some of us have to keep writing them if the rest of you are going to keep stealing them, but I digress.  

So I went to Sermon Central and did a search in their data base of over 150,000 sermons for environment and didn’t get any hits, I was a little disappointed, then I realized that I had spelled environment wrong. So I spelled it right and hit search and out of the 150,000 messages I got 12 hits and 7 of those sermons had titles like “Remaining Encouraged In A Discouraging Environment”, “How To Create A Safe Environment” and “How to Survive Working in a Hostile Environment”. Out of a 150,000 messages there were 5 messages on the environment.

That was over five years ago so I went back and checked and now there are 7 messages on the environment and one of those is mine.

 

Apparently most evangelical preachers share former Vice President of the US Dan Quayle philosophy, he said “It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”

So I got to thinking about our responsibility to God and the world he has allowed us to occupy.  If we go back to Genesis 1:27-28 We read:  So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  And in those two verses humanity became tenants in the beautiful home that God had created.  And to quote Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben “With great power comes great responsibility”. 

Some people have developed an entire cult around the protection of mother earth, kind of an Eco-Theology and have begun to worship the creation instead of the creator, and that is wrong.  Number 2 of the 10 commandments is given to us in Exodus 20:4 You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.  Unfortunately for too many people the heavens, earth and sea have become idols.  People miss out on the fact that there is a creator who is to be worshipped. 

The opposite of that are those who believe that we have been given absolute dominion.  In other words the earth and everything on it has been given to us to use as we see fit and if that means that at the end of the game it is gone while so be it, after all we have been promised a new heaven and a new earth at the end of the story.  They often will go back to the promise in Genesis 8:22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. For them that is evidence that as hard as we might try to use it up or destroy it that the word of God promises that the earth will be around as long as we need it, and then who cares. 

But really what does it say about our view of our creator when we are intent on destroying that which he created.  My son is an artist through the years he has given me various pieces of art that he has created, and if I destroyed one of those paintings or ripped up one of his drawings because it was mine to do with as I like what would that say to Stephen?  Would it say “I love you and appreciate what you have done for me?”  I think not.

The third option is something called Creation Care, which sounds really cool but simplified it puts creation and the environment at an equal priority with the salvation of humanity.  So when Jesus said in John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Now we usually understand that to mean:  John 3:16 “For God loved the (people of the) world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”  But this philosophy would say that this scripture is not to be seen the way we would traditionally interpret it But instead it should be seen more along the line of John 3:16 “For God loved the world (the earth) so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

And with that it puts all of creation, all of nature, every species on earth on equal footing with humanity.  And that’s not what we are taught in scripture.  We are told in Psalm 8:4-6 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority. 

And then we have Genesis 9:2-3 All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea will look on you with fear and terror. I have placed them in your power. I have given them to you for food, just as I have given you grain and vegetables.  

Face, it if God hadn’t wanted us to eat cows he wouldn’t have made them taste so good.  Although I think deer hunting would be a lot more fun if the deer got guns as well.

So I think I lean more toward a Global Stewardship model.  This is where we are not only in charge of our environment but have a responsibility to respect it.   Carl F. Henry once offered this sage observation: “Scripture does not set forth specific lines of ecological action, which may vary with time and place. But it does adduce fixed principles that indicate that God was not content to create a chaotic wasteland but rather a habitable universe and that he expects his designated stewards to maintain it that way.” 

Let’s go back to Genesis 1:27-28 We read:  So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”  The word that people try to define is translated “Reign over” in the NLT and ‘Rule over” in the NIV in the KJV it is translated “Have Dominion over” in the original Hebrew it is rādâ and it can mean any or all of those things.  The interesting thing is that is the same word that is used in Psalm 72:8 May he reign from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.  Or maybe you are more familiar with it in the old King James Version Psalm 72:8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.  It was from that scripture that the name The Dominion of Canada came from.

And so the scriptures do not lay out specific guidelines for how we are to protect our earth, thou shalt not drive hummers and thou shalt separate thine garbage.  The implication is there that if we are to be its ruler we are to be a benevolent ruler.  And the question might be: why?  And the answer is: because it’s not ours.  Never was and never will be we are merely tenants, some of us might have a longer lease than others but ultimately it will all go back to the owner.  God.

And so you should take care of it for Your Own Sake. 

I would suspect that we have no homeless people here, we all live somewhere, it might be a house, or a mini home or an apartment. 

If you don’t take care of your home eventually it begins to affect the quality of your life.  The roof begins to leak, the wind blows through the cracks, insects begin to breed and take over.  After all bugs love dirt and damp. 

You ever watch the program Extreme Makeover?  We used to watch it before it ended in 2012.  Some of those homes were poor and spotless; you can tell that the occupants take pride in what little they have.  Others were dives, dumps and it has nothing to do with the fact the folks are poor and hard done by they just didn’t care.  I think they should do another program called Extreme Makeover: Two Years Later, and see what those new big beautiful homes look like.

We need to take care of this planet because we have to live here, that’s the bottom line, we have to drink the water and we have to breathe the air. 

And if that isn’t enough, if it sound slightly self-serving to just do it for our sakes you need to do it For Your Kids’ Sake If we keep talking about the house we live in, if you knew that the house you were living in you kids were going to live in and their kids were going to live in would it make a difference to how you treated it?  If you knew that you weren’t just responsible for the house while you occupied it would you take better care of it?

People are always commenting on higher rates of cancer and Alzheimer’s today than there used to be and they may very well have a point.  And I wonder if it has to do with the amount of garbage that was dumped into the environment over the past century?  Those of you old enough will remember what happened with the “Love Canal” in Niagara Falls NY, and closer to home the Sydney Tar Ponds and even closer with the Halifax Harbour.  And while we can’t change the past hopefully we can change the future. 

Bacteriologist Rene Dubos said “The most important pathological effects of pollution are extremely delayed and indirect.”  We are not just poisoning this generation but also the next one. Most of us are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the safety and well-being of our children and grandchildren.  But are we willing to change how we live.  And I know pollution and disregard for the environment isn’t a new problem and we’ve come a long way from open sewers and garbage in the streets and if you don’t believe that than travel with me to Africa or talk to Andrew about what he saw in Haiti.  But we still need to get better at doing better.

And finally we need to change how we deal with the world For Your God’s Sake If we go back to the original analogy of the house, someday the owner is going to want it back and what will we say?  I mean seriously what will we say?  Each of those species that humanity has driven into extinction God created for a purpose and with the same thought he put into you.  Every river that is now clogged with garbage and chemicals was created pure and pristine.   It goes back to how we treat the creation is a reflection on how we view the creator. 

And maybe part of the problem is when we lost sight of the command in Genesis 1:27-28 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”   The command was to fill the world not just the cities.

American author  Henry Miller wrote “What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”

So what am I calling you to do?  Just be responsible, separate your trash, don’t litter, personally I think people who litter should be publicly flogged but that is just me.  Choose wisely.  I’m not the greatest environmental example but we do drive small cars that get great mileage, I think hummers and escalades are just dumb, sorry if you drive one but they are.  We have water savers on our showers, and solar hot water at the house, I try not to idle my car like I used to, we have programmable thermostats and have been replacing our lights with CFLs and LEDs because if enough people do little things they can make a big difference.

And Cornerstone is working at reducing our carbon footprint and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.  Through the years we have put in programmable thermostats, motion detectors to turn off lights when we aren’t using them.  We replaced as many lights as we can with CFLs or LEDs.  A few years ago we moved to time of day usage for our heat which reduces the load we place on NS Power in the winter. 

And this year we are embarking on a major project that will eventually save Cornerstone money and will from the beginning have an impact on the environment.  If you were in the Congregational meeting we had back in October then you know the basics.  The scope has remained the same but the scale has changed a little bit. 

So in late December we started a three phase project that is designed to save us money, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and ultimately reduce our carbon foot print.  Will it keep the polar bears from drowning?  I’m not sure but if it cause more people and churches to think about how they treat creation it might. 

So two weeks ago we installed mini split heat pumps to heat the office space instead of the electric base board heaters that we have been using.  Later this month we will install 2 five ton air to water heat pumps to heat the floor of the building.  Continuing to use time of day power the estimates are that we will be able to reduce our heating costs by an estimated $5,500.00 a year.

In the spring we will be installing an 11 KW solar array on the roof of the worship centre.  This is smaller than originally planned but the largest practical array that we can install.  This should produce about $2,000.00 a year in electricity that will be used or sold back to NS Power.

The price tag on the project is $80,000.00 which will be covered by an add on to our mortgage.  The first year the projected savings and production will cover the payments.  But each year with increases in Power it will save us more and more.  The return on investment is estimated to be around 11 years. 

And it’s not just to save us money, we are only tenants and managers and we are ultimately responsible for how we treat what has been given to us. And it was Albert Einstein who said “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”

Time and time again in the New Testament Jesus tells us parables of servants who were trusted with money, talents and properties that acted foolishly and wasted that which they were entrusted with and in each case they were condemn.  Not excused not commended but condemned for not doing the best with what they were given by their master.  Interesting.