THE UNIVERSE IS MADE UP OF STORIES — NOT ATOMS

(Preached on Sunday, April 17, 2005)

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.                                                                                                   -Colossians 1:17

 

Yesterday, needing to prepare for my sermon this morning, instead of sitting at my desk and reading through resource books and magazines and then pounding it out on the computer, I went to Parrot Jungle Island with my wife and son.  We had a wonderful day.  We observed hundreds of beautifully colored birds; watched some of them perform amazing tricks and mimic human speech; stood in wonder and watched a 900 pound liger, the offspring of a lion father and tiger mother; gazed incredulously at a 2,000 pound crocosaurus; all in a lushly landscaped tropical setting, with a bright blue sky and a cooling breeze off Biscayne Bay.  It occurred to me, late in the day, that as I was preparing to celebrate Earth Sunday and engage in a Blessing of Pets ritual, that it was actually the most appropriate way to spend the day.

 

I say that because what that day did, even though it was spent in a somewhat artificially human engineered environment, was to reconnect me on a gut-level, sensory level, with nature, animals, and God’s creation.  We tend to be disconnected from that world today.

To illustrate, let me ask you this question.  What is your primary view of yourself?  Do you see yourself as living indoors — venturing outside now and again — or as living outdoors, with recourse to indoor shelter?

If you view yourself as living indoors, then human constructions are your home.  A fluorescent-lit office space, the house we own or rent, a car by which we travel from one to the other — these are were we dwell.  When need be, we are forced outside by the demands of an errand, maybe even enticed outside for a walk on an unusually fine day, but these remain journeys away from home, adventures into the outside world away from our air conditioning and heating, electric lights and computers, stereos and TVs.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not putting these down. 

I enjoy such amenities of twenty-first century life.

But when they become our primary reality they do not foster an awareness of the sacred.  Dwelling in a human-made world, we are surrounded by our material goods, our technological advances, which shelter us but also close us in.  The world that God breathed forth is something only glimpsed through a window.

 

How different it is to experience the outdoors as your true home.

For roof there is the blue sky, stretching unto infinity and presenting an ever-changing play of sun and cloud, dawn and dusk, thunderstorms and gentle breezes.  For floor — the moist earth, a firm foundation yet alive with trees, grass, and flowers, and the multitude of creatures that find there a home.  Who could ask for a better carpet than mottled green grasses and mosses?  For various rooms — the forest, ocean, meadow, mountain — the desert, swamp, and arctic ice.

What interior decorator could come up with such an array of colors and forms, such a variety of moods?  To see yourself as living outdoors is to realize you dwell in the house of God.  It is to be intimately, deeply connected to our original creation from dust and the breath of God.

 

We are creatures of the natural world.

It is in our genes and it is in our spirits.

Scientists, while not “proving it” nevertheless see evidence that we human creatures originated in and evolved on the open plains and savannas of Africa.  Among the evidence pointing that direction are studies conducted in the relatively new field of environmental psychology during the past thirty years that point consistently to the following conclusion: People prefer to be in natural environments, and especially in savanna or parklike habitats.  They like a long depth of view across a relatively smooth grassy surface dotted with trees.  They want to be near a body of water, whether ocean, lake, river or stream.  They try to place their habitations on a prominence, from which they can safely scan the savanna and watery environment. 

With nearly absolute consistency these landscapes are preferred over urban settings.

As I stated, this tendency suggests support for the idea that we did not evolve in caves or mountainous regions, nor in deep jungles or woodlands, but in the savannas and transitional forests of Africa.

 

The evidence in our spirits is there in many of our religious traditions, especially our Jewish and Christian traditions.

Genesis describes our creation and close connections with the natural world from the very beginning.  And not only that, but the visions of the future consummation of human history is of a renewed, transformed natural order and of human beings dwelling in close harmony with the natural world once again.

In Isaiah it is expressed in the vision of the peaceable kingdom where lion and lamb lie down together.

In Revelation we heard read the vision of a new creation, set in a new city, yes, but a very park-like city with a river flowing through the middle of it, flanked with lovely fruit trees that bring life and healing to people and the nations of the world.  It is important to notice and remember that the vision of the future that closes the Bible is not of a heavenly city with streets paved in gold but an earthly city closely linked with the natural order in harmony and wholeness.

The apostle Paul reminds us that the point of the resurrection and the work of Jesus was not just for our personal salvation, but for the renewal and salvation of all the created world.

In Colossians he states this beautifully when he writes: “He himself (Christ Jesus) is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

 

So, when Jesus calls us to mission through Peter by saying to him (and us) “Feed my sheep” we ought to understand that in the broadest possible sense — that we are to take care not only of one another, but of all the creation. 

To truly take care of creation, we need to embrace it in love.

Taking care of the creation in love is different from ruling the creation, striving to bend it to our will, shaping it into the design that we think is best.  To take care of the creation in love is to embrace it as part of myself, and to understand it as my partner.

Just like in a marriage.

 

A good example of our marriage to nature is our relationship to trees.  We exist in a most intimate relationship to trees.

You may remember something about this from high school biology, but probably not (who does remember much from high school biology?)  Oxygen is discarded at the end of a tree’s photosynthetic process.

To create tree-flesh — bark and branch, leaves and fruit — the tree combines energy from the sun and carbon dioxide, and gives off oxygen as a by-product.  We do something of the reverse — take the tree’s oxygen and combine it with our food to make our carbon-based flesh, then exhale the leftover carbon dioxide.  The tree’s out-breath is our in-breath, and vice-versa, in a ceaseless exchange of love.

 

We tend to forget our intimate connection to trees, though, and behave much too much like an abusive spouse who thinks his harsh treatment justified, his power ultimate and therefore correct.

We have clear-cut forests and poisoned them with acid rain.

As a result, though, both partners suffer.  As tree-breath fails, so does our own, choked with pollutants and global warming.

 

Jesus says to us, as he said to Peter, “feed my sheep” and “follow me.”

To follow Jesus is to follow him into the world, for all the universe was created by him and he is the glue which holds it all together.