It is Earth Day. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but being "green" has become all the rage these days. Surely there are unintended consequences, like high food prices due to corn's new found value, but we should be giving some credit to those who are trying; failure on the way to new ways of seeing is not a bad thing.
Anyway, I was struck this morning by the environmental implications of Sunday's readings.
The collect that calls us to love God in all things and above all things is so appropriate for this day. Many have and will go overboard on the "green" thing and worship Creation as God, but our prayer instead calls us to love God in Creation and above Creation. God is so much bigger than our planet. To worship the Creator means to give due reverence to his Creation, but to worship him who is much larger. Brian McLaren has a quote about the problem with most environmental movements. I don't have it handy, but in effect it says that when Creation is our mother it is lifted to the status of God and thus Christians rightfully have a hard time jumping on board. Instead, we should think of Creation as our sister - created by God just as we were. If we saw our sister being treated like the Earth is, we'd react without a doubt. This reaction is part of living out the commandments of Jesus. Loving our neighbor as ourself doesn't have its end with loving people who annoy us, but we are called to love all things God has created. It wasn't that God saw humanity and said it was "very good [good good]", but God saw "everything he had created" [the whole system that was in place] and IT was "very good."
As Christians we must find a balance between loving neighbor and worshiping Creation. On this Earth Day, and since it is the fashion of the times, I vow to work on finding that balance for our household.
Happy Earth Day!
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