Back to Home Page

ABOUT US

MINISTRIES

TEACHINGS

NEWS

TEACHINGS TO VALLEY VIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH

God's Green Earth

04/27/2008 - Consuming God's Green Earth, Psalm 24:1-2

Anybody here know what this is? Of course you do. It's a water bottle. We drink from them all the time. But we didn't always drink our water this way. And I know some of you might find that hard to believe. But I can remember the day when we drank water out of the spigot or out of unfiltered water fountains or even out of garden hoses. Anybody else ever quench their thirst from a garden hose and live to tell about it? Do we have any other survivors here?

I know I'm dating myself, but last week I told you that I was old. I'm mean it took the world's population 18 centuries to go from the 250 million people living in Jesus' day to the one billion people living in 1776 when this nation was born. But just in my lifetime it's gone from 2.7 billion people to 6.6 billion! I've been around a long time.

So this is a water bottle and Americans like us drink them by the billions. And that's not a bad thing. Water is good for us. Last year we spent over $15 billion dollars on bottled water. We drink more bottled water than milk, coffee, or beer. The only beverage that we drink more of in this country is soda.

Bottled water has become big business and for some it's become the symbol of American consumerism because we live in a world where 1.1 billion people don't have reliable drinking water and 3,900 kids will die today from diseases caused by contaminated water.

The last time I was in Africa we didn't have access to clean drinking water or running water at all. In fact, in Liberia we took bucket showers with rationed well water. And we quenched our thirst in 95 degree heat and humidity with a bottle of lukewarm water. It was a real eye opener to me. Water is precious in most of the world.

But in our country we can find water anywhere and many argue that our tap water is just as healthy and just as safe as bottled water. Yet because most of us don't believe that anymore we pay big bucks each year for bottled water. In fact, if the water we used at home for bathing and laundry and washing our dishes and our cars cost the same as even the cheapest bottled water our water bills would be running about $9,000 a month.

It's not the water we're paying for as much as the advertising and the transporting and the packaging of the water. In fact, one article I read this week said that 24% of the bottled water we buy is just filtered tap water repackaged under a name brand. So is it really worth it?

And then of course there's the waste that follows. The trash cans filled with water bottles after a sporting event many of which end up in a landfill. Americans went through 50 billion water bottles last year which is an average of 167 per person and only 1 out of 4 of those bottles was recycled. 38 billion of them ended up in landfills.

I'm not saying don't buy bottled water. What I am saying is that in a consumer driven culture like ours these are things we need to think about if we're going to care for God's green earth, if we're going to help bring some justice and balance to this world. The gospel of the kingdom speaks to how we handle our resources, all of our resources. And it starts with understanding that all our resources belong to God.

David says in Psalm 24:1-2, The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it ²for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.

The earth is the Lord's it's not ours. God owns every speck of dirt, every drop of water, every barrel of oil on this planet. God owns every single molecule that's holding you together this morning. This is my Father's world. We're just living in it. And the Father wants us to enjoy his world, but he wants us to take good care of it too.

By the way just for the record this is the same water bottle I've had for about four months now. It's held up pretty well. And after I'm done with it today I'll refill it and use it again. It's not going to change the world, but at least it's a little something I can do to cut down on my needless consumption.

This morning I want to talk about Consuming God's Green Earth. Last week we talked about Caring for God's Green Earth. We have a mandate to care for this planet. We are connected to this planet, having been created by God from the dust of the earth. We have a stake in the future of this planet knowing that God's dream is to one day renew it and restore it and bring his kingdom to this earth. We are all environmentalists, conservationists charged with using the limited resources of this world wisely.

Last week we saw that God gave the first man and woman dominion over this earth not to abuse it and misuse it and certainly not to worship it, but to take care of it. We also saw how God advocated for the earth when it was being abused. He charged his people Israel with the responsibility to give the land a break every seventh year so that it could rest and get replenished. The land was to have a Sabbath rest just like God's people.

But they didn't listen to God's command and violated the sabbatical year seventy times until God finally said, "Enough" and took his people out of the land and into captivity in Babylon. And they were there for seventy years, one for each sabbatical year they had violated, so the land could finally get the rest that it deserved. The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. God loves this planet as well as every person on it and doesn't want any of it abused.

Unfortunately, in our drive for wealth and prosperity, especially over the last few hundred years of the industrial age we've lived like the earth is ours and everything in it belongs to us. We've lived like its resources are unlimited. But they're not. In our greed we've abused the planet and now we're starting to feel the affects of that. And if things don't change it will affect our children and our children's children. We cannot continue to live the way we've been living.

We live in a great country. And there are many things to be thankful for not the least of which is the freedom of worship and the freedom to express our faith and the freedom of choice. We've grown up in a world of plenty, but that's not the way it is everywhere.

I can remember the first time I went to a third world country. I was twenty five years old and I spent the summer in South America working with missionaries in a little country called Surinam just north of Brazil. And I was astonished by what I saw. At one point I flew back into the bush in a little four seat, single engine plane.

And when the plane landed on a grassy air strip carved out of the tropical jungle and the people of the village ran out to meet us I thought I had stepped 5,000 years back in time. I couldn't believe that people still walked around almost naked, lived in thatched huts, speared fish for food, cooked over open fires. I thought I was on a movie set. I didn't have any categories to process what I was seeing. I lived in that village for a few days and when I left the chief gave me a gift, a stuffed piranha with his mouth open. I didn't know what to say. I think he was sending me a message I just didn't know what it was!

But I can remember coming back home and going up to my room and looking into my closet at a rack full of clothes and thinking, "Why do I need all this stuff?" I feel that way every time I come back from Africa. And I'm not sure what to make of it all. But it does remind me that not everybody lives like us. We are rich compared to the rest of the world, but our wealth has come at a price. And part of that price has been paid by the environment, but things have got to change.

There's a lot of talk these days about global warming and I know it's a very controversial subject. You can read about it on your own. But the controversy is not over whether the earth is getting warmer. The data indicates that it is. 2005 was the hottest year on record. And since global temperatures started to be measured back in the 1860's, 20 of the 21 hottest years have occurred in the last 25 years. The globe is getting warmer. That's tough to argue. The controversy is over the cause of that warmth and what the consequences will be. On those questions good scientists are divided.

In his book An Inconvenient Truth, former vice president Al Gore, makes the case that we're the cause of global warming. The greenhouse gases that we emit by the burning of fossil fuels like gas, coal, and oil are getting trapped in the earth's atmosphere and causing the planet to heat up. The most common of those gases is carbon dioxide.

And so there's a lot of discussion about limiting the amount of carbon dioxide we produce. Our individual impact on the climate is called our "carbon footprint" and you can actually go on line to climatecrisis.net. and calculate your carbon footprint.

And of course because of our prosperity, the United States, a country with 5% of the world's population, produces over 30% of all the greenhouse gases in the world. The average American gives off five times more carbon dioxide than the world's average. Our consumption comes at a price. And we can't continue the live the way we've been living.

Many experts are saying that the most imminent crisis facing the planet is a water crisis. One out of every six people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. And that number keeps going up as the world's population grows along with industrialization and urbanization. And it's not just a problem out there some where it's affecting the United States.

This week's issue of Newsweek magazine had an article entitled "Rivers Running Dry." You may remember that last fall because of a summer drought the city of Atlanta was just weeks away from running out of water. And right now Lake Lanier the main water source for Georgia, Alabama, and Florida is still down 13 feet from where it normally is this time of year.

The article quotes Jeffery Sachs who wrote a new book called, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. And in it he says, "The worldwide water shortage is one of our most daunting challenges. Much of the world is already in a water crisis. And that crisis will only continue to grow."

I don't say these things to scare us. I don't think we need to be afraid. But we do need to be aware that we cannot continue to recklessly use up the renewable and nonrenewable resources of this world. And much of that consumption, at least in this country, has been driven by our greed for more.

Brian McLaren in his book Everything Must Change has this to say about consumption. "The word consumption is both fascinating and disturbing. It used to refer to a wasting disease we now call tuberculosis, but today wasting has become the moral duty of those known as consumers.

"When the crisis of human evil is introduced in Genesis 1 and 2, forms of the words "eat" and "food" are used about twenty times. Consumption is closely linked with human evil. Adam and Eve live in harmony with creation in a garden, surrounded by food-bearing trees. But to be a human being is to live within creaturely limits in God's good creation. If they break the limits represented by the fruit hanging on the tree of knowledge of good and evil they will taste death and decompose.

"But they exceed the limits and are drawn to consume the forbidden fruit and an avalanche of alienation crashes into the human story - alienation from God, alienation from one another, alienation from oneself, and alienation from creation.

"Genesis provides a genealogy for all the pain and evil in the whole social structure of humans on planet earth. And it all can be traced back to a problem of consumption beyond limits. And today it's as if the snake of Genesis 3 is still whispering to Adams and Eves everywhere, "Consume more! You will not die! One more bite and you will be wise, like gods, without limits!"

So what are we to do? Stop consuming. No. We can't stop consuming. But consumption itself isn't the problem. It's consumption without limits that's the problem. We all need to develop a mindset that thinks about the consequences of our consumption. And as more and more of us do that the resources of this world will be conserved for our children and our children's children.

And we need to dialogue as a community about ways that we can help each other be better stewards of this earth. There was a buzz after last week's teaching about things we can do around here to conserve energy like recycling batteries and using less paper and printing our E & O's on recycled paper or just putting the information on the website. Those are the kinds of discussions we need to be having.

And the good news is that there are plenty of ways that we can conserve resources, even without dramatically affecting our lifestyle. There are magazine and newspaper articles and websites you can go to for ideas.

The first place to start is in our homes. That's the easiest place to save energy and make a difference. If the water bottle is the symbol for American consumerism, the compact fluorescent light orCFL is becoming a symbol of conservation.

I read this week that lighting accounts for 1/5^th of all the electricity consumed in this country. And one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reduce energy is to replace incandescent light bulbs with CFL's. Did you know that in an ordinary light bulb only 10% of the energy actually generates light, 90% is lost in the form of heat?

But a CFL bulb is four times more efficient than that, lasts 10 times longer and uses 66% less energy than a conventional light bulb. Get this. If every household in the United States substituted just one conventional light bulb with a CFL bulb, it would reduce the level of pollution by the same amount as removing a million cars from our highways. So the next time a light bulb burns out in your house replace it with a CFL and over time you'll save money and help the environment too.

Of course there are other ways like replacing our appliances with energy efficient appliances. Last year, Jen and I decided to pay a little more to replace a 15 year-old washing machine with an energy efficient machine that saves both water and electric. We've tried to do a better job insulating our house. We're trying to pay more attention to our water usage and the length of our showers and running the dishwasher only when it's full. When we can we hang clothes up in the garage to dry instead of using the dryer. Again, we're talking about developing a mindset of conservation and not living like there is no end to the resources on this planet.

Heating and cooling our homes accounts for about 45% of our total household energy. Lowering the heat just a few degrees in the winter and raising the thermostat just a few degrees in the summer can make a huge difference over time. Programmable thermostats like the ones we've installed in this building can also maximize energy efficiency.

The next time you buy a car, buy one that gets better gas mileage. Compost. Buy local produce that doesn't need to be shipped. Reduce. Reuse. Recylce. Pre-cycle. One third of the waste that clogs our landfills is plastic wrap and other packaging materials. Buy products that use limited packaging or recycled packaging. Buy in bulk and look for things that use refillable glass. Take your own bags to the grocery store so when they say, "Paper or plastic" you can say, "Neither." Plastic grocery bags take centuries to decompose.

Paper manufacturing is the fourth most energy-intensive industry. It takes an entire forest, more than 500,000 trees, to give Americans their Sunday newspapers each week. In addition to recycling used paper we can cut back on our overall paper consumption. Use both sides of paper whenever possible and stop unwanted junk mail. Limit the use of paper towels and napkins. Use cloth rags instead.

Do you see the ideas are limit less? It's all about developing a mindset of not consuming God's green earth, but caring for God's green earth. And there's great hope that we can. In this upcoming presidential election pay attention to what the candidate's are saying about the environment and what their overall approach is, not just to the oil crisis, but to energy conservation in general.

There is so much room and so many ways that we can all cut back on our use of this world's resources without even putting a dent in our lifestyles.

Melanie Griffin, the national program director of the Sierra Club said recently, "In the past few years, we've seen a big increase in the number of Christians involved in actively protecting creation. They are leading stream cleanups, giving sermons about creation care, and jumping into the public policy arena. Christians bring a special energy and spirit to environmental work."

And we do because as Christ followers we of all people see this as an act of worship, not of the planet, but of the one who created it and loves it and owns it all. The earth is the Lord's and everything it, the world and all who live in it. Let's take good care of our Father's world.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.