Bearing Fruit

Right now, more than 25% of the world's species face extinction with that number rising to 50% by the end of the century.  Amazon rain forest is losing 10,000 acres a day. There are more than 400 dead zones in our oceans around the world, where the oxygen level is too low to support life, some occur naturally, most are created by agriculture and industrial chemicals poured into rivers that make their way to the oceans. We are now in a time where anyone can walk by our planet, our Mother Earth, and see that it has been robbed and it is still be assaulted. 

A poem by Amanda Gorman from her book, "Call Us What We Carry"

What have we done.

Currently our jaws are clamped down,

our shoulders nailed to our ears, bones braced for

brutal battle. By Think of the next generation we mean:

Every day this ground spoils beneath us, for we are bringing

to all the ends of the Earth the end of all the Earth. Please believe us

when we say we, too, ache to imagine something new. Reparation lies

not in the land we own, but the very land we owe, the soil & the toil we thieved 

in from the start. Nothing is grander summitry than this: water, drinkable;

our air, breathable; birds, built & blurred on the breeze; trees heaving huge sighs

into the heavens; our children, giggling & gilded in the grass. Earnest for the first 

time, we must earn this turned Earth back. Now we are begged to save it. We

screech with kids who must fix the world because braving it is no longer 

enough. The youth will save us, they say. But even that is its own release.

Our short lives now aimed at the oily-headed monsters that reared

their teeth before we even gave our first croak. Generations

of the past order, be our recruits, not our rescuers. Oh

we want our parents red & restless, as

wild & dying for the difference as

we are. 

Paul went out into the world in the first century to proclaim the good news of a God of love, a God who heals, reconciles, and forgives. A God who created all the world and all of humankind in love, for love, and through the love came here in flesh. Not only did Paul have to spar theologically with the other religions of the Romans and Greeks, but also engaged with the Jews to show that Jesus was their Messiah and Christ. AND, once these early Christian communities took off, he had to spar with the different factions within Christianity itself. It stands to reason, that the early Christians have never done it this way before, there was no Bible, no doctrines, and no history for them to pull from. Much of the struggle was how much to hang onto the Jewish roots, such as kosher laws and circumcision and how much were they freed from such practices and theologies. In Colossae, their church started bringing in beliefs and practices from the local religions, so Paul is writing to urge them to stay true to the gospel as they first heard it, not to dilute it and pollute it with spirits and beings from their local legends. 

As Paul does with almost all of his letters, he starts out with affirmation and praise. Reminding them of the love of God, their faith and goodness, and how they choose to be a part of the body of Christ with joy. He reminds them of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit which in them and through them, the church shares the mission of being proclaimers of good news, workers of Christ's mission, and bearers of fruit that blesses, feeds, and heals all. 

If Paul were to write a letter to the American church, he would remind us of God's love for us, of our love for Christ, and the strength we have through the Holy Spirit. He would praise our generosity of time and talent and resources that spreads throughout the world to feed, cloth, provide water wells and schools, and bring medicine and hope to those places where local resources are not enough. He would quickly jump in to remind us that Christianity started with slaves, the poor, and those whom the world deemed worthless. He would condemn the glorification of wealth and power that now echoes in too many of our churches in this country and our corruption of the gospel that denies the beauty and worth of the world and all life. Our greatest sins are the exploitation of people and planet for benefit of some people and not all. When writing to the Corinthians, Paul reminds that there must be a balance among all peoples and countries and it is our duty to help those in need, "That those who have much do not have too much, and those who have little do not have too little." 

The story of the Good Samaritan was that no matter the person's theology, religion, status, or power, what matters most is loving our neighbor through acts of mercy. As our Annishanabe brothers and sisters would say, we are all related to all that moves and breathes. It is brother bear and sister loon. Trees are called standing people. I am not going to list all the ways our world is dying more than I have. Thankfully, unfortunately we know those statistics too well. I am not a prophet who is going to proclaim doom. But I am going to add my voice in calling for us, our church, our community, county, state, and nation to repent. Not just in words, but in actions that bear real fruit. That we continue to base our electrical power system on renewable energy, that we divest from the fossil fuel industry as quickly as possible, that we learn how to live in the eco-systems as one part of the body, rather than dominating the trees, plants, animals, and waters to fit our wants and plans, not just needs. God's planet is not dead yet, there is still teeming life and we can and should do all we can to save as much life, species, rainforests, and breathable oceans as possible. 

Let us continue our work through our Rooted and Rising group, our local groups of Cook County Local Energy Project, Zero Waste, the local chapter of the Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, the Master Gardeners, the Lake Associations, our town's Environmental Plan, and all others who are creating a better future, a truer future that honors and respects God's creation, all life, and the wondrous, amazing world in which we live. Let us not wait for the youth to fix our mistakes and the heresy of profit above all else and riches for some beyond imagination. Let us weed out these things that hurt our planet, cultivating the morals and ideals of respect for all living things, plant the good things for generations to come, and bear the good fruit of loving our neighbor, loving all life, and healing what has been harmed. Amen.