Green our Faith

1
Green our Faith

• The Rev. Fletcher Harper
• Kansas City, MO

• 10/25/11

2
Overview

• Stories and worldviews
• Hebrew themes and texts
• New Testament themes and texts
• Questions and Discussion

3
Narrative Frameworks on the Earth

• The hearers mental roadmap
• Powerful, emotional
• Need to be recognized
• Several common narratives
• Sermons, teaching must engage

4
A Serious, Complicated StoryThe Scientific
Narrative

• Research as authoritative
• Narrative of concern often fearful, serious
• Can be difficult to understand
• Uncertainty
• Religion and science

5
Danger! Danger! Why Dont You Listen!The
Environmentalist Narrative

• Ideological and polarizing
• Emotional
• Liberal
• Critical of business
• Commitment to beyond-human life and landscape

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Doubtful - and proud of it!The Skeptics Narrative

• Defiantly independent
• Claiming rationality
• Experts be damned
• Create doubt, undermine resolve to act
• Environmentalists react!
• Masculine and American

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Breaking, or Making the Bank?The Economic
Narrative

• History of mistrust
• People vs. environment
• More expensive
• Green business, green jobs emerge
• Hopeful, tentative, problematic

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What is the Religious Narrative?
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Hebrew Bible Themes

• Divine ownership
• Goodness and purpose
• Gods Commitment
• Source of awe
• Creation as worshipping community
• Compassionate care
• Responsible leadership
• Do not destroy

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Divine Ownership

• Psalm 241
• The earth is the Lords and all that is in it,
  the world and all its inhabitants.
• 1 Chron. 29
• All things come of thee, and of thine own have we
  given thee.

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Goodness and Purpose

• Gen. 120-22
• God said, Let the waters bring forth swarms of
  living creatures ... God created the great sea
  monsters, and all the living creatures of every
  kind that creep, which the waters brought forth
  in swarms ... And God saw that this was good. God
  blessed them, saying, Be fertile and increase.

12
Gods Commitment to the Earth

• Genesis 619-20
• And of every living thing, of all flesh, you
  shall bring two of every kind with you into the
  ark, to keep them alive with you of the birds
  and of the animals and of every creeping thing
  of the ground.
• Genesis 821
• I will never again curse the ground because of
  humankind, nor will I ever again destroy every
  living creature as I have done.

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Source of Awe

• Psalm 83
• When I behold Your heavens, the work of your
  fingers, the moon and stars that You set in
  place, what is man that You have been mindful of
  him, mortal man that You have taken note of him?

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Source of Awe

• Job 38-39 (selections)
• Where were you when I laid the earths
  foundations? Speak if you have understanding. Do
  you know who fixed its dimensions or measured it
  with a line? Onto what were its bases sunk? Who
  set its cornerstone when the morning stars sang
  together and all the divine beings shouted for
  joy? Who closed the sea behind doors when it
  gushed forth out of the womb, when I clothed it
  in clouds, swaddled it in dense clouds.Have you
  commanded the day to break, assigned the dawn in
  its place, so that it seizes the corners of the
  earth and shakes the wicked out of it?Have you
  surveyed the expanses of the earth? If you know
  of thesetell Me.Can you hunt prey for the lion,
  and satisfy the appetite of the king of beasts?
  Who provides food for the raven when his young
  cry out to God and wander about without food? Do
  you know the season when the mountain goats give
  birth? Can you mark the time when the hinds
  calve?Who sets the wild ass free? Who loosens
  the bongs of the onager, whose home I have made
  the wilderness, the salt lands his
  dwelling-place? Do you give the horse his
  strength? Do you cloth his neck with a mane?

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Creation as Worshipping Community

• Psalm 1486-11
• Praise the Lord, O you who are on earth, all sea
  monsters and ocean depths, fire and hail, snow
  and smoke, storm wind that executes His command,
  all the mountains and hills, all fruit trees and
  cedars, all wild and tamed beasts, creeping
  things and winged birds, all kings and peoples of
  the earth, all princes of the earth and its
  judges, youths and maidens alike, old and young
  together.

16
Compassionate Care

• Gen. 215
• The Lord God took the human creature and placed
  him in the garden of Eden, to till it and to tend
  it.

17
Responsible Leadership

• Gen. 126-31
• And God said, Let us make man in our image,
  after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of
  the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the
  whole earth, and all the creeping things that
  creep on earth. And God created man
  in His image, in the image of God He created him
  male and female He created them. God blessed them
  and God said to them, Be fertile and increase,
  fill the earth and master it and rule the fish
  of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the
  living things that creep on the earth.
• God said, See I give you every seed-bearing
  plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree
  that has seed-bearing fruit they shall be yours
  for food. And to all the animals on land, to all
  the birds of the sky, and to everything that
  creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of
  life, I give all the green plants for food.
  And it was so God saw all that He had made, and
  found it very good.

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Do not destroy

• Deuteronomy 2019-20
• When in your war against a city you have to
  besiege it a long time in order to capture it,
  you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax
  against them. You may eat of them, but you must
  not cut them down. Are trees of the field human
  to withdraw before you into the besieged city?

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New Testament Themes

• What is salvations direction?
• Do we want to be Left Behind?
• What is saved?
• What holds Creation together?
• Where does Jesus meet, teach about reveal God?
• Where is Paradise
• What is holy?

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What is salvations direction?

• 1 Thessalonians 413-18
• But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers
  and sisters, about those who have died, so that
  you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose
  again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring
  with him those who have died. For the Lord
  himself, with a cry of command, with the
  archangels call and with the sound of Gods
  trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead
  in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive,
  who are left, will be caught up in the clouds
  together with them to meet the Lord in the air
  and so we will be with the Lord for ever.
  Therefore encourage one another with these words.
  
• See Acts 2815 apateson

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Do we want to be Left Behind?

• Matthew 2436ff
• But about that day and hour no one knows,
  neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but
  only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so
  will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in
  those days before the flood they were eating and
  drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until
  the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew
  nothing until the flood came and swept them all
  away, so too will be the coming of the Son of
  Man. Then two will be in the field one will be
  taken and one will be left behind. Two women will
  be grinding meal together one will be taken and
  one will be left behind.

22
What holds Creation together?

• Colossians 115-20
•  He is the image of the invisible God, the
  firstborn of all creation for in him all things
  in heaven and on earth were created, things
  visible and invisible all things have been
  created through him and for him. He himself is
  before all things, and in him all things hold
  together. He is the head of the body, the church
  he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
  so that he might come to have first place in
  everything. For in him all the fullness of God
  was pleased to dwell, and through him God was
  pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
  whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace
  through the blood of his cross.

23
What is saved?

• John 316
• For God so loved the world (Gk kosmos) that He
  gave his only-begotten son ...
• John 114
• And the Word became flesh (Gk sarx) and dwelt
  among us

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Where does Jesus meet, teach about or reveal God?

• Luke 612
•  Now during those days (Jesus) went out to the
  mountain to pray and he spent the night in
  prayer to God.
• Matthew 51-2
• Jesus saw the crowds. So he went up on a
  mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to
  him. Then he began to teach them, saying
• Matthew 171-3
• After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James
  and John the brother of James, and led them up a
  high mountain by themselves. There he was
  transfigured before them.

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Where is Paradise?

• Revelation 21-22
• Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the
  first heaven and the first earth had passed away,
  and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city,
  the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
  God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
  And I heard a loud voice from the throne
  saying,See, the home of God is
  among mortals.He will dwell with them they will
  be his peoples, and God himself will be
  with them he will wipe every tear from
  their eyes.Death will be no moremourning and
  crying and pain will be no more,for the first
  things have passed away.

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Where is Paradise?

• Revelation 221-3
• Then the angel showed me the river of the water
  of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the
  throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle
  of the street of the city. On either side of the
  river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds
  of fruit, producing its fruit each month. And
  the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the
  nations.

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What is holy?

• Matthew 2626-28
• While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of
  bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it
  to the disciples, and said, Take, eat this is
  my body. Then he took a cup, and after giving
  thanks he gave it to them, saying, Drink from
  it, all of you for this is my blood of the
  covenant, which is poured out for many for the
  forgiveness of sins.

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Conclusion

• Downward view of the direction of salvation
• Leave me behind!
• What is saved? All is redeemed, all is saved
• What holds Creation together? Jesus Christ
• Where is God at home? Jesus is at home in
  Creation, and manifests Gods love for all
  Creation
• What is holy? Not only people, but all
  Creation.