Sermon

Climate change is among one of the leading concerns of our time. Two events in 2015 gave it a special focus. The first was the publication in June of that year of the papal encyclical 'Laudato Si'. Pope Francis' encyclical offered a wide-ranging diagnosis of the human roots of the crisis, and a series of proposals for what a global and local change of heart might look like. The second was the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris in December. The Paris agreement committed the signatories to limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels, suggesting the earth as a whole might achieve zero emissions sometime between 2030 and 2050.

Fast forward 6 years later and the effects of climate change are accelerating at an alarming rate. The scenes of devastation during recent months of floods in Northern Europe, of extreme heatwaves in the west coast of America and Canada, wildfires in Turkey, Greece and southern France are harrowing indeed. It was reported that these dangerous and life-threatening events are becoming far more frequent than the scientists own forecasts. Yet whilst global warming is a cerebral and long-term issue for the rich and comfortable, it's a present and tangible issue for the world's poor. Those living in poorer countries are disproportionately affected by climate change. The irony is that these are the people least responsible for causing the ecological crisis.

Last month on the 9th August 2021 a sober assessment of our planet was delivered by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists whose findings are endorsed by the world's governments. Its startling findings revealed that human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways. The landmark study warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade. The report "is a code red for humanity", said the UN chief. But scientists say a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast. There is hope that deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases could stabilise rising temperatures.

In the face of such an alarming potential catastrophe how can we personally and in our churches, in faith, practice and mission, start to combat such an impending disaster? Maybe our synod might encourage everything from new technologies to greening the church gardens by planting more trees, to support moves to become a carbon 'net zero' synod by 2030, to reduce local churches carbon footprint with the help and advice of Revd Trevor Jamieson the synods green lead officer, conceivably saving money and energy on supplies from LED lighting to boilers realising that a church's heating system affects its fabric, its contents, its congregation and its mission (heating makes up the vast majority (over 80%) of its energy use and carbon footprint). Radical steps might be taken to possibly insist that clergy and synod staff use electric cars; local churches providing vehicle charging points. The options are endless. At home we might wish to consider eating less meat, think twice about flying, kick plastic out, plant trees, capitalise on the experience of the pandemic by working from home, ditch the car for short distances and resort to cycle power, use a carbon calculator, write to your member of parliament to insist on a 'road map' of sustainable concrete action, maybe reduce the speed limit on our roads. Again, the options are endless.

I vividly recall my time working as a regeneration officer in the East End of Newcastle when a resident in one of my seminar groups said, 'You planners aren't really the community. You'll be here for a while and then you'll move on. We, the residents, are the real people in his community. We'll be here long after you're forgotten.'

The same could be said of humankind's relationship to the planet. We're the priests of creation, fostering and facilitating and enjoying and ordering creation. But the world was here before us, and, quite possibly, it'll be here long after we're gone. We've done more damage than any previous species. But arguably the damage has been largely to ourselves. The earth will find a way to recover from the impact we've had on it, even if it takes a billion years or two: but what we do to the planet may make it impossible for our own species to survive as the IPCC report recently has indicated. It's important, however, to keep a sense of perspective. Humanity has the ability to do a lot of damage; but the earth will win out over the long term, however much damage humanity does to it. The issue for humanity is less whether there'll be a future for the planet, than whether there'll be a future for itself.

I wonder whether in the final analysis the problem in the end is not about climate change but about God? I guess it would not be a problem for God if humanity destroys the planet, or makes it uninhabitable, God is perfectly capable of creating a new planet, or a new species to be in special, incarnate relationship with. The problem today is that we often seek a world without God. Some thoughts from St Augustine (354-430AD) here might be helpful. St Augustine in his writings makes a distinction between what we use and what we enjoy. If I am to understand St. Augustine correctly Augustine says that what we use is of limited value, and serves mainly to enable us to reach what we enjoy. It quickly runs out, and is largely a means to an end. By contrast what we enjoy is an end in itself. It never runs out. It is of value for its own sake. The climate and ecological crisis, in Augustine's terms, is simply expressed: we have used what should be enjoyed. How do we learn to enjoy, and not simply to use?

One of my favourite 'Creation' hymns is "All creatures of our God and King,' based on words of St Francis of Assisi (1182 - 1226) found in R&S No.39. I often use it at the start of a Sunday morning worship. Worship is the password to our Synod daily Morning Prayer Zoom services. This secret code or password word might be valuable as we start to consider how as a church and nation we start to combat the effects of climate change.

In worship we praise God for the beauty and wonder of his world. Reading between the lines of St Francis's hymn I suggest he is implying that every created thing has a source and a destiny: it may be a gift to us, but we should never assume that gift is our possession; rather it's a reminder of where it came from and what purpose it serves in the kingdom. 'Dear mother earth, who day by day, unfoldest blessings on our way' (v4) reminds us of the produce of the land..... crops, fruit and flowers warmed by the sun (v1) and nourished by 'flowing water pure and clean (v3). In our service of Holy Communion we are reminded that wine, for example, 'fruit of the earth and work of human hands,' comes from the grape and exists to embody Christ's blood; bread comes from grain and exists to convey Christ's body. To dwell in the world in such a spirit of worship means to exult in the sheer abundance of the world and the universe beyond as St Francis in his hymn does. It is a form of resistance to the pragmatic, bureaucratic, utilitarian culture widespread in so much human society and a celebration of the existence of things for their own sake. This should be the spirit of every act of worship: it is a joy to be alive, to be redeemed, to be a child of God, to be placed in such a great story, to live among such glorious dimensions of God's creation.

The seventeenth-century, poet Thomas Traherne (1636-1674), Anglican cleric, theologian, and religious writer captures this vocation to enjoy creation. His writings frequently explore the glory of creation and what he saw as his intimate relationship with God and conveys an ardent, almost childlike love of God, and is compared to similar themes in the works of later poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. He says, 'When things are ours in their proper places, nothing is needful but ... to enjoy them. God therefore hath made it infinitely easy to enjoy, by making everything ours ... . Everything is ours that serves us in its place. The Sun serves us as much as is possible, and more than we could imagine. The Clouds and Stars minister unto us, the World surrounds us with beauty, the Air refresheth us, the Sea revives the earth and us. The Earth itself is better than gold because it produceth fruits and flowers. ... By making one, and not a multitude, God evidently shewed one alone to be the end of the World and everyone its enjoyer. For every one may enjoy it as much as he.' (1.14) Thus the goal of dwelling with the creation is to enjoy the world as God enjoys it. Traherne articulates perfectly the state of mind that's missing in humanity's maltreatment of creation.

I believe we should begin by tackling the issue of climate change, in the spirit of Traherne, with the sheer overwhelming joy of God and abundant delight of creation, and seek to embody that joy and delight in our life of discipleship and ministry, with all the repentance and change of life that involves. We should then take a sober estimate of our place in the 8 billion years of the earth's history, and neither exaggerate nor downplay the significance of this moment. Then we should attend to the injustice that those who've done least to bring the impending ecological crisis about as a result of climate change are bearing its most pressing effects. And finally, neither deterred by the purity of our worship nor overcome by the anger of our perception of injustice, we must participate in the political process of managing cultural and social change, accepting that the only argument that will prevail is that we are all doing this for our own good.

Amen