“How Much More?”

“How Much More?”

Mark 1: 40-45

2 Kings 5: 1-14

A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley

February 12, 2012

I was walking down Fourth Street in Berkeley on Monday when an urgent young woman greeted me with this question: “Do you have a minute to save the world?”  As I was thinking about it she said, “Really, it will just take a second.”

I decided that I would be willing to give a whole minute to saving the world.  (Actually, I knew and supported the organization for which she was raising funds …  but I didn’t really believe that the world would be saved by our time together.)

Epworth is a member of Interfaith Power and Light, a network of 10,000 communities of faith mobilizing a religious response to global warming through the promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and conservation.

Now despite what deniers may broadcast, global warming is not a tenet of faith.  It is observable reality.  Human contribution to global warming is not a tenet of faith.  It is observable reality.  The science is clear: global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible.

Global warming is caused by the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. Many of the activities we currently do every day – like turning lights on, cooking food, heating our homes, driving to work, rely on the combustion of fossil fuels like coal and oil, which emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases when burned. Global warming destabilizes the delicate balance that makes life on this planet possible.

Climate changes are happening now and will intensify.  Threats to water, food sources, and human health will increase.  The melting Arctic ice cap, shifting wildlife habitats, floods, droughts, wildfires, heat waves and intensifying storms will increase.

As one late night commentator said, “According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.”

Hence the urgency in our conversation on 4^th Street this week.   At some level we believe that our decisions can save the world.

But lest we get too caught up in saving the planet ourselves, words of the late comedian and social satirist George Carlin can help keep us humble. Carlin said,

Save the planet,… we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves …  The planet has been through a lot worse than us… hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets, asteroids and meteors, floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages… The planet isn’t going anywhere. BUT WE ARE! And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little styrofoam. The planet will be here for a LONG time after we’re gone…

Theologian Sallie McFague in her book New Climate for Theology:  God, the World and Global Warming seems to agree with Carlin.  She writes that we human beings are not only dispensable, but in fact “we are at present the planet’s most dangerous force (and) all other species would be better off without us.”

While global warming may not be a tenet of faith, what is a tenet of faith is that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.  We did not create and we do not own the earth.  We are stewards, caretakers, and part of God’s creation.

What is a tenet of faith is that God is God and we are not. And God’s desire is to heal and to save.

We love God as we participate in God’s healing of creation, personal, public and planetary healing. The most important thing we can do is to live and love and immerse ourselves in the glory of God’s creation – That’s it? Live, love, immerse? Simple. Not easy.

Naaman was a great commander in the army of Aram, a kingdom just to the north of Israel in what is today Syria.  Naaman led the conquest of Israel.  He was highly favored by the King of Aram.  But a terrible skin disease also afflicted Naaman. Power and favor did not protect him from suffering. He wanted to be healed.

The story of Naaman’s healing begins with an unexpected person, a girl who had been taken prisoner in Israel and was servant to Naaman’s wife. This young captive told her mistress that she knew a prophet of Israel who could heal Naaman.

Kings, military might, and wealth could not heal Naaman. Only the prophet of God.  The prophet Elisha sent a messenger to Naaman who told Naaman where to go and what to do to be healed.  “Go to the Jordan River, wash seven times and be made clean.”

Naaman was not happy. That’s it? That’s what it would take to heal him?  Elisha didn’t even come himself.  He sent a servant! Totally unacceptable! Naaman had an image in his mind of what healing should look like … Elisha would call on God and wave his arms over Naaman… something much more direct and dramatic than a muddy river washing at the word of a servant. And Naaman knew the Jordan River.  It was backwash compared to the great rivers he knew back home.

Angry, Naaman started to walk away.  But his servant convinced him to turn back … to do as the prophet had directed him … and be healed.

Naaman was healed, but he was also changed.  He found the road from high favor to humility, from greatness to gratitude, from control to blessing, from the illusion of self-sufficiency to the vital reality of mutual vulnerability, from healing to transformation.

This story is not for individuals alone.  The global community needs healing from the violence of economic disparities, from political assumptions and ambitions, and from environmental degradation that all pose a threat to life.

When we are guided by prophets rather than profiteers, when we are led by the wisdom of those at the margins, rather than the presumption of those in power, when we immerse ourselves in the love of creation rather than the obsession with consumption, we will be healed. And we will be changed.

There is a Hasidic story about the child of a rabbi who used to wander in the woods every day.  One day the rabbi said to his son, “ You know, I have noticed that each day you walk in the woods.  I wonder, why do you go there?”  The boy said to is father, “I go there to find God.”  “That is a very good thing,” the father replied gently.  “I am glad that you are searching for God.  But, my child, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?”  “Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”   (David Wolpe, Teaching Your Children About God)

We change as we open our hearts and realign our lives to love the earth, and reverently care for God’s creation. Every day in small acts of love, by minutes, in seconds, we choose healing and God saves the world.

In the Westminster catechism, the first question is, “What is the purpose of human being? And the response is “To glorify God and enjoy God forever.”

It is the light and joy and love in God and God’s creation that will lead us to healing for ourselves, for the world.  Thanks be to God.