We had a great Earth Day on May 4 — lots of displays and information after the service, and a sermon during the service that invited everyone to dig in the dirt, play in the water, and says Thanks to a tree.

Here’s the sermon — the title comes from the story of the Ascension in the book of Acts.

The Ends of the Earth

Acts 1:6-14 ;1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11 

It is an irresistible image for the artist: gather up your crayons, stir up the paints, unfold the easel, grab your camera. Jesus is lifted up to heaven on a cloud. The problem for us, of course, is that all of those wonderful works of art seem either quaint or naïve to us – we who know that heaven isn’t up and that clouds are not elevators.

We would make a mistake, however, if we let this story of the Ascension of Jesus go by without further reflection. Suppose that we listen to the question raised by the two mysterious men in white robes: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” [Acts 1:11] Suppose that instead of looking up at Jesus, we imagine Jesus looking down on us. You might picture this in a literal way (like so many artists have done), or you might picture it in a symbolic or metaphorical way – that as Jesus moves away from the particular place and particular time in which he lived on earth, he takes in a wider and wider view of the earth. This is a view that only a few score human beings in all of history – those who have been in space – have actually seen. And without exception, every one of them has been changed by the experience of seeing the whole earth all at once.

For his part, Jesus says this: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:8] And so today we turn out attention to the ends of the earth – the whole great globe on which we live.

After the service this morning you will have the opportunity to learn more about ways to care for the earth and for all its creatures and features. But before we turn to those practical matters, I want to invite you to a time of reconciliation with the earth. I believe that a faithful response to the needs of our planet takes more than information, alarm, and scolding. I believe it requires that we repair our relationship with the creation around us, so that we can move forward with joy and resolve, rather than with fear and guilt.

[Move to the table with a container of soil]

Let us begin with the soil beneath us. The fourth gospel tells the story of Jesus healing a man blind from birth by making some clay out of spittle and dust and rubbing it on his eyes. In our time, we seem to have lost the sense of the soil having miraculous properties, and yet soil itself is a miraculous substance. It is composed of the decomposed bodies of plants and animals, from which it becomes the source of nourishment for more plants and animals. In its hidden and humble ways, soil tells a story of resurrection and new life every day.

The truth is, though, that we do not treat soil as a miracle as much as we treat it as a resource or a commodity. We ask much of it, we fail to honor its natural cycles, and we fill it with substances for our own convenience.

This morning, after you receive the traditional elements of communion, I invite you to come to the back of the sanctuary and to touch the soil. Take a moment to remember the ways in which our relationship with the soil has been broken, and offer a prayer of reconciliation.

[Move to the containers of water]

When we celebrate the sacrament of baptism, we remember together some of the ways that water has been part of the sacred story of God’s people: the spirit of God moving over the waters at the time of creation, the flood in the time of Noah, the people of Israel passing through the waters of the Red Sea and crossing the river Jordan to enter the promised land. We remember that Jesus was nurtured in the waters of Mary’s womb, that he was baptized by John in the water of the Jordan, became living water to a woman at the Samaritan well, washed the feet of the disciples, and sent them forth to baptize all the nations by water and the Holy Spirit. [UCC BOW]

What we also remember today is that we have broken our covenant with the waters of the earth. We have wasted it, dirtied it, taken it from one place to another to suit our own needs, and made it, too, into a commodity instead of a blessing.

And so I invite you to come to the font, to touch the water and remember some of the ways that our relationship with water has been broken, and to offer a prayer of reconciliation.

[Move to the tree]

As Damen reminded the children earlier, trees are a precious part of creation. They are also our teachers. They draw nutrients from the soil, but they also pay back those nutrients each autumn when the leaves fall on the forest floor. They draw water through their roots, but some of that water evaporates from the leaves, and some of it works with sunlight in the amazing process of photosynthesis. Trees provide shelter for other creatures – both woodland animals and the humans who build homes with lumber. Trees provide foot in many different forms, from fruit to bark to sap.

So I invite you to visit this tree, too, as part of our communion today. We have chosen to use an artificial tree here, but you may take a seedling after worship. As a sign of mending our relationship with trees, you may tie a ribbon around one of the branches, as you offer a prayer of reconciliation.

[Return to the pulpit]

Even as we offer our prayers of reconciliation, we need to confess that human choices about using and preserving the earth’s resources are not simple ones. Although we always hope that the answer to some conflict of interest can be “both/and” instead of “either/or,” the sad fact is that sometimes “either/or” choices must be made. Sometimes our consciences are torn by conflicting values – each of which is deeply held. For example, we wish to preserve the rain forest, and we also wish to grow more food for increasing populations. There will be times when we will make decisions that we do not want to make. For those times, we ask God’s mercy.

There are many factors that motivate us to care more prudently for the world around us. Some of those are economic, some are political, and some are philosophically ethical. Today, we highlight and celebrate the theological reason for caring for creation. Simply put: It is God’s world, not ours.

When I moved to Berkeley to go to seminary in 1988, a friend took several hours (and lots of bubble wrap and newspaper) to pack a painting of mine. Somewhat exasperated, I finally asked him why he was fussing so much. “Oh,” he said, “because you love this painting and I love you.” Let that be our sentiment, too: that we care for the earth because God loves creation – all of it, to the ends of the earth – and we love God.

Prayer for May 4, 2008

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of new creation, we offer you our prayers today about the coming of spring time and our love of the earth you have created.

We give you thanks, O Lord, for the beauty of the earth. We are heartened more by the springing up of bulbs and flowers than by any lesson in words. Help us, we pray, to grow in our understanding of your grace by our appreciation of the extravagance of your creation – which comes to us as a free and fragile gift, unearned and yet deeply longed for.

We give you thanks, too, for the many humans who act as stewards of the land, the water, and the air. Bless all of those who protect the landscape, the flora and fauna that are around us, and bless, too, all those who preserve it for us in painting, sculpture, poetry, and the other arts.

Yet we must also confess to you, God of all that is, that we have not always shared in this good stewardship. We have used the land for our own advantage, rather than sharing it with one another. We have taken more from the earth than we have given back. We have squandered and wasted treasures that you trusted us with. Forgive us, we pray, and transform our love for the land into actions of preservation, restoration, and reconciliation.

We do yearn, O Holy One, to see the healing of the earth – a task too great for us to undertake without your power and presence. And so we ask you to strengthen in us the virtues of patience, persistence, humility, selflessness, and to help us set aside self-centeredness, greediness, and laziness. Build up in us the strength to confront systems of economics that focus only on monetary gain, and to replace them with systems that value the health and well-being of all your creatures, even if that requires some sacrifice on our part.

All these things we pray in the name of the one who loved the good earth so dearly that he lived among us and savored its delights, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …