A Call to Action
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
The Rev. M. Fletcher Davis
One of the great sights around our island is the whales. Three families of Orcas live in Puget Sound, the J, K and L pods. Thanks to marine biologists who spend their lives studying them, we are learning more about them each year.
Here’s a mystery. Firstborn calves in our local pods die shortly after birth. Another fact: subsequent calves usually survive. A third curious fact: male Orcas live only half as long as females, usually dying before 40 rather than living into their 80’s as the females do. It turns out that all these observations result from the same cause. What is it?
Whales are at the top of the food chain, so they get all the toxic substances of those lower down the food chain. Toxins in the tiny phytoplankton are ingested by feeder fish like herring, smelt and sand lance. They are eaten by others that are then eaten by salmon, and salmon are the principle food of our resident Orcas.
All those toxins concentrate in the mothers’ milk and that kills firstborn calves. But lactation releases toxins and dilutes their milk enough for the next babies to nurse and live. Since males have no way to purge toxins, they die prematurely.
One result of this new understanding is that we altered public policy to save the Orcas. Only three decades ago Orcas were captured in Penn Cove and sent to water parks all around the country. It was easy to train such intelligent creatures to perform crowd-pleasing tricks. But the capture killed some and separated others from their families and their freedom.
Decades earlier we had yet another perception of Orcas. They were named killer whales because they were imagined to be dangerous sea monsters that would attack people.
Our understanding changed from viewing Orcas as threats to seeing them as entertainment, to regarding them as God’s magnificent creatures. Our behavior towards them changed from killing them to capturing them to protecting them.
Insight leads to understanding and understanding leads to changed behavior. The same progression happened to history’s most famous convert, St Paul, on the road to Damascus. His insight was a vision of the Risen Christ. His understanding was that the Jesus is the Messiah. His changed behavior was to stop persecuting Jesus’ disciples and become one himself.
But too often change does not happen. Too often we cling to old ways that no longer lead to an insight or epiphany. That’s what led to the stoning of Stephen, as we read in today’s first lesson. [Ac 7.58] That’s what led the crowd to reject the cornerstone of God’s spiritual temple, as Peter said in today’s epistle. [I Ptr 2.7] And that’s why Jesus said in today’s Gospel “no one comes to the Father except through me.” [Jn 14.6]
St Thomas Aquinas experienced an epiphany when he suddenly recognized that God’s self-disclosure comes not in one volume but in two: Scripture, of course, and nature. Aha!
During the 18th century Enlightenment, science was an epiphany for some Christians while others rejected it as a threat to the established order. That struggle continues to this day in the debate between Christians who accept the theory of evolution and those who do not.
The most urgent ethical issue of our day is global warming. Last weekend our diocese sponsored a conference led by notable theologians and scientists including and our Presiding Bishop - who earned a doctorate in marine biology and another in theology. They addressed our care of creation to inspire the Church to new insights, and action.
Theologian Sallie McFague, observed that it was easy to mobilize people for great sacrifice during World War II. Although the stakes are even higher with climate change, recruiting is discouraging because this time WE are the enemy.
Climate change is not just one issue among many, but one that threatens all life on this fragile earth our island home. To approach it, we need a new paradigm far bolder than those that moved us from seeing Orcas as a danger to understanding them as an at risk species that we can save.
Perhaps the greatest living scientist, E O Wilson, notes that the two most powerful forces in today’s world are science and religion.1 One of the scientists at the conference, Gary Chamberlain, observed that science analyzes and explains things, while religion provides us with meaning and motivation. Watch out when they team up!
What shall we do in the face of global warming? Seminary Dean and Bishop Steven Charleston noted that if we behave as usual, we will make it so complicated that no one can follow! So let’s not follow that precedent. He challenges every faith community to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in ten years.2 To do that we must change our model.
The old model comes from Genesis 1:28, where we read that God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and every living thing on the earth.”
The Presiding Bishop noted that the word translated “dominion” does not mean ruling over, controlling or even governing. It comes instead from the same root as house, “domus,” or dome over the earth. So it means caring for all the inhabitants of the earth, like a wise and godly householder, not ignoring the suffering of our fellow creatures.
The old model posits two realms, the human and the sub-human. The new model understands that we are all God’s creatures - phytoplankton, salmon, Orcas and humans. We are not lords over nature but we are all part of nature.
19th century naturalist John Muir was one of the first to grasp the amazing interrelationship of all living things. He summed it up this way: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” 3 Global warming threatens all life as we know it, even our own. Life is not going to be better for my grandchildren, Cole and Audrey, than it has been for us. That is no longer possible. But the kingdom of God offers a different way of living that Christ came to show us and invite us to live.
The parish’s new greening committee will help us gain insights for our challenges here at St Augustine’s. But pray for your own epiphany. You know that God is not calling you to greed, but rather to glorify Christ in your own life with your stewardship of the web of life of which you are a vital part.
A key epiphany for me came when I climbed a route that no one had ever before ascended on the north face of Mt St John in Grand Teton National Park. With my fingers wedged into a tiny fissure in the granite wall, I chinned myself, lifting my eyes to the level of that crack. Only then did I see the tiny blue Alpine forget-me-nots with their bright yellow centers.
In a flash I knew two things: first, that those particular flowers were not put there for me – they were just part of the absurd abundance of God. Second, that I was no lord over nature – instead I am a beloved part of God’s creation. Those insights changed me, and changed my behavior forever.
As you open yourself to your own epiphany, you will move from insight to action, from fresh understanding to changed behavior. Then you will want to do all you can to reduce the harmful human footprint on this magnificent planet and praise
Christ who gives us the power to do exactly that. Alleluia.
1 Edward O Wilson, The Creation, 2006, p 5
2 See Bishop Charleston’s proposal at genesis.eds.edu
3 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1911, p 326
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