1 Kings 12:1-20 James 5:7-12,19-20 Mark 15:33-39

In the first reading, Rehoboam is set to succeed his father Solomon. Jeroboam, whom a prophet had told would be king over most of the tribes of Israel, is nevertheless willing to cooperate with and serve Rehoboam. But Rehoboam is not interested in forgiving his father's enemies. Rather, he determines to treat them even more harshly. As a consequence, Rehoboam loses power over Jeroboam and Israel. We conclude is not interesed in building something new that belongs to both parties, but in perpetuating--even strengthening--the status quo. This is a costly strategy for Rehoboam and for his people.

James, in the second reading, holds up for us, not kings and their strategies, but the faithful patience of prophets. He points to a reality deeper than the annoyances and struggles of the present, placing us instead in the context of an invisible, but far more real, context: God.

The contrast between what is "real" to us, on the one hand, and the reality of God, on the other, is highlighted in Mark’s crucifixion account here. The bystanders expect Elijah, and interpret the meaning of Jesus' death in terms of their sacred tradition. Jesus himself faces the experience of abandonment with questions about his purpose and meaning. This is the human experience, the limit imposed on us by our very humanity itself. Yet, in the deepest moment of human un-knowing and complete powerlessness, God speaks the unimaginable.

How can these passages speak to today's environmental situation? I think it brings this message: In clinging to our version of what the future, we sometimes put that very future at risk. Rather than hanging on harder to our own way, to maintain the status quo (that benefits us), it might be a good idea to look at what it would mean to cooperate with the disenfranchised. In each of these readings, it is clear that God is not envisioning more of the same, but working a new thing.

1 Samuel 13 :19-14:15 Acts 8 :1-9 Luke 23:26-31 (NRSV)

What immediately strikes me from the reading of 1 Samuel is the imbalance of technological power coupled with the absence of fear on the part of these young people, Jonathon and his armor bearer. Of course, rather than bravery, we may be seeing merely the foolishness of young people. Then again, he Hebrew Bible isn’t shy about championing the weak over the strong: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, even Joseph’s foolish recounting his dreams to his envious brothers. In fact, in numerous stories Israel triumphs because of the brave (and foolish?) actions of people swimming against the current, people like Rahab, Judith, and David.

The Acts passage gives us a look at God’s call, shaping, and commissioning of just such a person. The zealous Saul is transformed (from an authority officially sanctioned by the religious hierarchy) into Paul. The encounter on the Road to Damascus moves Saul from the center of power to the fringes. Paul is a man first broken then re-formed by God. It is a transfiguration that does not build on his status and achievements; he disappears from the halls of power where he is respected, and appears as an unwelcome, distrusted outsider among the people he had despised. Neither does his transformation involve the erasure of all that he had been; Paul brings to service his remarkable genius and passion. Saul/Paul’s revolution costs him everything—and wins him everything.

Who are the heroes in this scene from Luke’s gospel? Are they representatives of the social, political, and religious establishment? Of course not. Typically for Luke, the heroes are a man impressed into service on behalf of a condemned criminal, and the criminal himself. Yet it is from this most powerless of positions that we are challenged to reevaluate our own understanding of what is important and what is not. Jesus is no victim; he pushes the women to a new take on reality: “Do not weep for me.” It is the world that condemns him, the order that executes him, a worldview that blinds to the significance of its actions that is the proper object of pity.

Where do we stand? Whom do we allow to shape our sense of good and bad, important and expendable? Whose voices do we listen to? How can we align our heart with God, that we may see through Divine Eyes?

1 Samuel 3:1-21 Acts 2:37-47 Luke 21:5-19

Is it not interesting that it takes a long time, many tries, to get our attention? Not only did God call Samuel multiple times before Eli recognized what was actually going on, but God had given warnings to Eli about his sons numerous times, as well. Eli, who was technically innocent, was not innocent because “he did not restrain” his sons’ behavior. Eli, to his credit, accepts the judgment of God. But I wonder if we don’t feel mistreated when we have to suffer for the actions of others, without recognizing that what we do not speak out against, we condone by our silence? We can see this clearly in those who did not speak out against the Nazi campaigns against the Jews, but can we see as clearly our complicity in social, economic, and environmental injustice in our own day? Will we accept the judgment of God with the grace of Eli?

We see in the Acts passage that the appropriate response to the truth about ourselves and our actions is repentance, a complete turnaround, revolution, in the way we live. Acts records the reorientation of those who have “heard” towards one another, towards the building of a new world through willing sacrifices involved in mutual care, that is, genuine community.

The cost of this revolution is everything, everything, that is, except one’s deepest being. All that is familiar to us—our preconceptions about the world, our notions of who we are, of what is important—are ultimate false and will return to chaos. The picture of disorder that Jesus gives us of the End Times images the implosion of all we had trusted in, and the images are theoretically feasible on many levels. We can read into them political disaster, economic collapse, or psychological breakdown. They can be seen as a symbol of the unstable inbetween-ness in the transition from one paradigmatic order to another.

On the other hand, reading these images through an environmental lens gives us an all too literal picture of climatic disruption. We are already feeling pressures from environmental degradation all over the world: water scarcity, food insecurity, competition for energy resources, insurrections, massive migrations.

Readings 6-10-11

Surely Ezekiel was speaking to the environmental crisis today! I have separated the Ezekiel reading into two parts. The first, which extends from verses 17 to 22, could not present a clearer picture of human history, and applies most clearly to the consequences for poor nations of how developed countries (particularly ours) have been dealing with world resources and the environment. It bears repetition here: “you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide.” Our decimation of the buffalo herds on which many Native Americans depended is only one example of an attitude and pattern of behavior we (western, developed nations) have repeated countless times all over the world. Even now, we cut denude land, flatten primal forests, and claim ownership of precious water resources.

Moreover, we not only rush to claim world resource for ourselves, but we pollute and defile in the process. God confronts us: “Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? 19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?” The fact that the toxic mining practices of multinational corporations not only displace tribal peoples in other countries, but poison landscapes with toxic chemicals that seep into soil and water supplies is only one illustration of countless practices that leave waste and poison behind for the poor and for future generations.

From verse 23, God sets up his shepherd to protect his sheep, and God addresses his sheep in the last verse as “you.” But lest we be too quick to claim that God is on our side, let us look at just who constitutes the flock that the shepherd protects from ravaging beasts and foreign armies. It is not us. Rather, it is those who suffer the consequences of our standard of living, our true values, our individualism.

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews distinguishes between the sanctuary raised by mortals and the sanctuary that God has set up, the pattern on earth with the divine truth of which it is “a sketch and shadow.” We can read this as a contrast between Judaism and Christianity, or one strain of faith versus another. But if we look with a wider lens, we might read this passage as pointing to the metaphysical fact that we know only a small slice of reality, but the truth is infinitely larger. Developments in science are a good metaphor for this contrast of a limited understanding versus the mystery of reality. Until relatively recently, modern science has proceeded by analysis, breaking things into smaller and smaller parts in order to attain true understanding of the world. However, we have been undergoing a revolution in scientific understanding (several, in fact) that has not only thrown this assumption into question, but is making the old model “obsolete.” The science of ecology illustrates this revolution: understanding of the part is embedded in understanding its place in the whole. My personal concerns, or the concerns of my group—more than that, my identity and that of my group—is not apart from that of others, but a part of others. My relationship with God is not a private affair; it is deeply involved in my relationship with others and with the world that is our common home.

In the gospel reading, we cannot help but identify with Mary, who has chosen the “better part,” but if we give the story more than a superficial reading, we realize that we actually identify with Martha. In Christ, The New has come, the Truth is among us, but we act according to our training, our habitual manner of relating. Rather than sit still and open up before reality, we busy ourselves maintaining the old order—all the while thinking that is the right thing to do. What is in fact asked of us, but a revolution?

Ezekiel 1:28-3:3 Hebrews 4:14-5:6 Luke 9:28-36 (NRSV)

How do these readings help us reflect on our relation to the natural environment? I notice that in both the Ezekiel and the Luke passage, the glory of God is pictured in terms of nature. But we must remember that “nature” is not merely the romanticism of rainbows, but also hold the potential for awe. In the Luke passage we encounter the frightening experience of suddenly being overtaken by cloud on a mountain. It is a disorienting experience; the senses one normally uses to orient oneself to the world are stilled. The inability to see gives a feeling of directionlessness; the only compass available to us is trust. Their senses stilled, the disciples hear the voice of God and are pointed to the true Compass of Christ.

What would it mean for Christ to be our compass for how we relate to the natural world? How do we usually orient ourselves? Convenience? Comfort? Economics? Politics? What would happen if we were to tune in to the voice of Christ as the primary compass by which we behaved with regard to the natural world today?

Wisdom 6:12-23 Col 3:1-11 Luke 7:1-17

I think it is clear from the first reading that, inasmuch as we seek God and the Wisdom of God, it will find us; we will be open to seeing in “at the gate.” Yet it is easy to think we desire to live within the wisdom of God, but not yet truly desire it. In the words of St. Augustine, “not yet.” But why not? Is it not because, as fallen creatures, we are still ruled by our own judgments, our own values, our own sense of inadequacy—our own envy? Indeed, what have we to lose if we live fully within the divine will? Our own way, the pursuit and reliance on those things we measure ourselves by. We are still caught up in a sense of inadequacy, a fear of losing what we have, a fear of losing the future as we envision it, and envy for those who have what we have not. We are not even teachable. Let us pray to be teachable, for “a sincere desire for instruction.”

I think we can put it in terms of Paul’s “seek[ing] the things that are above,” for the ways of God are not like our own. To truly seek God is to let go of our own ned to achieve and conrol and being willing to be led into a wisdom and a way of being greater than our own.

In the Gospel of Luke, the extraordinary springs from the divine into ordinary life. The sick is healed, the dead is raised, against all expectation of the natural course of things. And in the first story, Jesus’ healing power is unleashed by the faith of the must unexpected character, a member of the occupying Roman power. And the thing that made this man special was his sincere openness to the God of the Jews, even to the point of absolute faith in Jesus’ willingness and ability to heal his slave. Jesus is astonished at him, much as the townspeople are astonished—or rather frightened—at the raising of the dead man. The centurion expresses faith in the unlikely; the townspeople, whose very tradition spoke of a saving God, expressed fear. Perhaps the centurion illustrates a man seeking wisdom, “desiring instruction.” Do we identify with him? Or do we identify with the townspeople, who were frightened by that which violated their expectations. We must ask, then, is it enough to attend worship, read the scriptures, and observe religious rules? Or are we called to an open heart seeking instruction, trusting that God’s wisdom, though embracing us, still remains beyond us?

And how might this complex of ideas speak to being a Christian environmentalist today? First, I think we are cautioned not to settle for a status-quo, that is, not to resign ourselves to continuing to use fossil fuels because our energy needs are too high to meet without them. At the same time, we must not to stop further research. In fact, we must resist the temptation to believe that God will miraculously save us.

I believe that the Christian position lies between a cynical resignation to an increasingly impoverished natural world (and increasingly artificial living environment) and the childish trust that God will deliver us from our foolishness. Rather, it is a walk a constantly questioning and listening faith, as well as a willingness to surrender elements of our way of life (convenience and comfort) for the sake of something or someone greater than ourselves. Do we grit our teeth and persevere, or do we continually open our hearts and minds in the desire for instruction?

Dan. 4:28-37 1 John 4:721 Luke 4:31-37 (NRSV)

In the passage from Daniel, it seems that King Nebuchadnezzar, while prospering according to all our normal criteria, has lost his humanity. What is his sate of mind before we see him physically parted from human culture? His is praising the world that he has “built . . . by [his] mighty power and for [his] glorious majesty.” His humanity is restored not by his own efforts, but by the opening of his vision and his heart. He sees the ephemeral nature of all created things, and the majesty of God. Almost Job-like, it is recognizing the truth of things, the precarious of his own being in the scheme of things that allows—perhaps is—the restoration of his reason, and the return of his identity. But now he has a new identity, one in proper relationship to God. Where are we? Do we, like the king, confine ourselves to a small world of our own making? Does the world we make rob us of our full humanity?

In the First Letter, John insists that to love is to know God, to live in Christ, and for Christ to live through us. Indeed, we know God because the nature of God is love, and God has revealed Godself to us in Christ. However, confession of Christ consists not merely in words of affirmation or belief in certain propositions—that is to miss the point. Confession of Christ is lived out in the fruit born of union with him. We who are “in Christ” are in Christ inasmuch as we love, and that cannot be our own doing, but God’s.

Yet, as we see in the periscope from the Gospel of Luke, that we resist Christ; a large part of us wants him to “Let us alone!” Christ has the power to remove the forces within us that continually set ourselves against others, and thus against God.

Is there an environmental message in all this? Actually, what part of his is not an environmental message? The environment includes the complex web of relationships of which we are a part—form the elements and other living creatures to other members of the human family, and with them (as well as through them), God. When we turn in towards ourselves, self-congratulatory, empire-building, we forget our radical dependency, our mutual creatureliness, our own deepest identity; in short, we lose our humanity to the fragmentation of our imaginings. What is Eden but a return to the respect, mutuality, and love for all beings that God calls us to in Christ Jesus?