Love of Creation - A Sermon
Earth Care Sermon written and given by Dan Polito, Youth Minister at North Decatur United Methodist Church, on March 3, 2024.
1 Then Job answered:
2 “No doubt you are the people,
and wisdom will die with you.
3 But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you.
Who does not know such things as these?
4 I am a laughingstock to my friends;
I, who called upon God and he answered me,
a just and blameless man, I am a laughingstock.
5 Those at ease have contempt for misfortune,
but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable.
6 The tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hands.7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
I’d like to thank my family and friends for being here to support me, especially my mom on her birthday. Each of your prayers and presence have encouraged me as I continue to try to live a life of faith and pursue my call to ministry. I love y’all.
I’d also like to thank North Decatur [United Methodist Church], this community of faith, for taking me in, pouring into me, and giving me opportunities to grow in my love of God and to grow as a minister. I’d also like to thank the Green Team for their participation in this morning’s liturgy. You all are doing such good work, and I pray that this morning we may learn of ways to join you in the work of loving and caring for creation.
Finally, I’d like to thank one person in particular: my grandpa. Papa, you have influenced me, our family, and so many people that you have come into contact with to have such a deep love and care for creation. Your love and care for creation is no abstract thing. It is seen in the life you have lived, the practices you have engaged in, the communities you’ve built, the family you’ve raised, the prayers you’ve prayed, and the people you’ve encouraged. I am eternally grateful for you and the ways you’ve shaped me as a Polito, a person of faith, and a citizen of Earth. I love you.
Join me in prayer.
Holy God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, oh Lord our Rock and our Redemption – So that, whether because of me, or in spite of me, your word would be faithfully proclaimed and your name be glorified. Amen.
Over these last few years, I’ve been on a journey in relation to my skill of listening. To be honest, I haven’t always been a good listener. I’ve had situations in which I would try to multitask. I’d turn my attention away from whoever is speaking to me and pick up my phone. I might look at social media, send a text, work on things for church, or work on homework for school. I’d turn my attention away and miss what is being shared with me. More often in my journey of listening, I’ve had situations in which I would jump to offering solutions and help with whatever problem my friend was sharing with me, rather than being present with and listening to them. I have really had times where I've struggled to listen.
Yet, as I’ve grown in my journey of listening, I’ve come to hold a deep conviction that to know someone well, you really must slow down and listen. Today, I want to call us to not just listen to the people we encounter, but to listen to all living things. If we slow down enough and listen carefully, I believe that we’ll learn quite a bit from the things around us. In fact, we might just learn more about how to navigate these things we call life and faith.
As we turn to this living text, we find that our passage for today leans upon the wisdom of creation to teach us about God. Verses 7-10 read:
7 But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of every human being.
This text, the animals, the birds, the plants, and the fish, these living things, are teaching and declaring to us that God has the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being in God’s own hands. As we slow down to listen to this living text and creation, we are taught and reminded of God’s great power and care that holds all of us close.
As we continue to listen to this text and turn to creation, like it prompts us to, I believe that we find creation has some wisdom to share of its own about how to navigate life and faith. Verses 7 and 8 read,
7 But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you,
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
If we take this seriously, we do have quite a bit of wisdom to glean. If we listen to the animals, there are many lessons we can learn.
If we listen to penguins, we may learn the importance of work and play. If we listen to bees and ants, we may learn of the importance of working together to build something bigger than ourselves. If we listen to bears, we may learn the importance of rhythms of rest. If we listen to caterpillars and butterflies, we may learn the importance of being open to change and the necessity of shedding our old skins and habits to become something new. If we listen to snails and turtles, we may learn the importance of being patient along our journeys of life and faith and even of listening.
If we listen to Nightingales, Canaries, and so many other birds, we may learn how to sing a new song. If we listen to Geese, we may learn to have the courage to sing even if we aren’t “good” at singing. And we may learn from the Geese as they migrate that there is both a time for leading and a time for following.
If we listen to plants, we may learn that growth and transformation take time and intentional nurturing, sometimes even from the help of others. If we listen to the trees and their roots, we may learn that we are all interconnected and bound up with one another.
If we listen to fish, we may be reminded that some water and food can go a long way in our day to day. We may also be reminded that sometimes the best thing we can do is, as Dory says, “just keep swimming.”
I believe that today, though, this passage isn’t prompting us to listen to creation only to learn about God’s omnipotence and to hear some lessons on how we might navigate life and faith. Rather, I believe that, today, this passage is prompting us to listen to creation so that we can learn how to love and care for it best, especially so that we may more faithfully live out Genesis 1’s call for humanity to care for all of creation.
My own journey of listening has taken major turns when I’ve recognized and held to the importance of listening and presence. Oftentimes, if I have enough patience and sense to slow down and truly listen, the people that I am in relationship with tell me how to care for them best. I believe this is also true of creation.
As we slow down and listen to creation, we not only hear the wisdom it has to offer, we also hear its cries. Cries of global warming and climate change. Cries of food waste. Cries of loss of biodiversity, devastation of ecosystems, and extinction of entire species. Cries of plastic pollution. Cries of deforestation. Cries of air pollution. Cries of melting ice caps and the rise of sea levels. Cries of overwhelmed landfills due to non-biodegradable waste. In the face of global warming, deforestation, pollution, extinction of entire species, and so much more, we must listen to the cries of creation. If we listen carefully and long enough, especially to its cries, we may learn how to care for creation best.
Yes, it is essential for us to listen to Scripture and creation to know God’s omnipotence, the vast wisdom and lessons that creation has to offer us, and how to love and care for creation best. But what are some practical ways for us to love and care for creation?
One way is the 5 R’s. The 5 R’s are: refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle. Refuse asks, “Do you need it?” Reduce asks, “Can you use less?” Reuse asks, “Could a used one work?” Repurpose asks, “Will it be repurposeable at its end of life?” Recycle asks, “Is it recyclable if not repurposeable?” The 5 R’s is a series of principles, questions, ways of thinking, and ways of doing that we can utilize in our daily lives.
There are also some particular practices that we take out of this space. We can limit our use of fossil fuels by carpooling, taking public transit, walking, and biking. We can compost our food waste and buy local produce. We can recycle properly, even when it may take an extra trip to a recycling center. We can donate and repurpose our clothes. We can buy secondhand and refurbished items. We can buy and use less plastics, choosing reusable over single-use straws, bottles, and bags. We can use fewer harsh and harmful chemicals by using chemical-free, natural, and organic cleaners. We can plant trees and go paperless. We can take shorter showers and capture rainwater to use in our gardens. We can conserve energy by unplugging unnecessary appliances, turning off lights in unoccupied rooms, and installing energy-efficient light bulbs. And like Papa, we can make art and crafts out of shredded paper, scrap metal, reclaimed wood, and unwanted items. We can volunteer for cleanups in our community and along our streets.
There are a lot of small practices, and even principles, that we can implement. Often, though, these take a lot of thought and intentionality. We resist them for the sake of comfort and convenience. These practices are costly. Yet, we ought to try to implement as many of these practices as often as we can. We ought to do these things even at the risk of being a laughingstock to our friends, just as verse 4 stated. We are at risk of being a laughingstock and it may feel like we aren’t helping, loving, or caring for creation. But I would like to leave you all with a tale called “The Story of the Starfish” that my grandpa once shared with me.
“While walking along a beach, an elderly gentleman saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young woman, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water. He came closer still and called out, ‘Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?’ The young woman paused, looked up, and replied, ‘I’m throwing starfish into the ocean.’ The old man smiled, and said, ‘I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?’ To this, the young woman replied, ‘The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.’ Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, ‘But, young lady, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!’ The young woman listened politely. Then she bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, ‘It made a difference for that one.’”
May we all go from this place, even at the risk of being a laughing stock, as we listen to the wisdom and cries of creation so that we may live a more faithful life as we tangibly love and care for creation. Amen.
