CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS
SEPTEMBER 4, 2011
MATTHEW 18:15-20
ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.
This has been a sobering week here amid the beauties of Vermont as we have watched many of our fellow citizens incur great damage from Hurricane Irene. When we first heard of the storm coming up the coast few of us thought that Vermont would be one of the hardest places hit. But that happened. Our hearts go out to those whose lives have been turned upside down, not to mention those who have the overwhelming task of fixing the damage.
A few minutes ago we heard a teaching of Jesus from Matthew 18 about how to act in the face of offensive behavior. The advice Jesus gives is this: ‘if someone engages in inappropriate actions, go and point out the fault to that person. If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you. And if that person still refuses to listen, then bring it to the whole community and raise the issue there.’
This brief passage addresses a universal dilemma that is one of the most vexing parts of life: we humans often act unwisely and badly. We often do things that inflict hurt and harm. That inescapable fact leads to an equally inescapable question: how should we respond when bad behavior happens? That is the question Jesus is addressing here in Matthew 18. The first part of Jesus’ teaching counsels us to deal with the offensive behavior through direct confrontation. The second part counsels dealing with such behaviors in stages. We begin first, on an immediate and interpersonal level. But if the problem cannot be solved on that level, we need to seek help from others. And in some cases, the problem can be solved only by bringing it into the deliberations of the whole community.
I began this talk by acknowledging the damage done by Hurricane Irene. On the surface there might seem little relationship between the effects of last week’s storm, and Jesus’ teaching here in Matthew 18. On looking deeper, however, I have come to a growing sense that this text does offer us a wisdom that is, in fact, highly relevant to our potential thinking about the hurricane we have just experienced. This section of Matthew 18 is essentially a teaching about conflict resolution, and as such it speaks directly to the increasingly major dilemma we face from the growing severity of our weather.
If we cut to the core of it, what today’s passage tells us more than anything else, is that if something goes wrong in our lives; including in the larger affairs of society; and if what is going wrong is happening because of people engaging in damaging and dangerous actions, it is essential to address and confront that hurt or harm directly and quickly. Don’t sweep it under the rug. Don’t avoid or deny it.
Does this teaching have relevance to the recent weather damage here in Vermont and beyond? The answer to that question depends heavily on whether we view today’s weather changes as a purely natural phenomenon, or as something caused by human behaviors, either wholly or in part. Today I’d like to address that question, and invite us to begin a longer-term discussion of it.
One way to begin is to take note that for quite a number of years there has been a line of thinking about climate change that that runs like this: ‘no single weather event can be blamed on global climate patterns’; or, ‘global climate change must not be held responsible for any specific storm or drought or flood.’ Such an approach has become almost an article of faith in our culture. It has attained something approaching the status of a scientific and intellectual mantra.
Today, though, I would offer a different view. Even though such statements may be technically true, there is a larger and more important sense in which they are profoundly untrue. There is a larger sense in which when people say, ‘No one weather event can be blamed on climate change,’ what they are often doing is using that technical truism as a cover for an act of psychological denial. They are engaging in a process which is essentially an act of both cognitive blindness and spiritual avoidance.
Can it definitively be said that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming; or that global climate change is THE cause of the flooding in southern Vermont this week? No, of course, those things cannot be proved, because there have been many severe storms and floods throughout history. But even though it cannot be held that global warming caused this particular storm, there is now incontrovertible evidence of two emerging trends regarding climate that deal with long-terms weather patterns over and beyond any single, specific weather-event .
The first is this: that the bio-physical world we live in – and depend on – is today experiencing massive global distress because of weather patterns of a highly destructive and increasingly severe nature; and that these weather patterns are fundamentally new in comparison to what the human race has known in our recent climate history.
Secondly, there is now also equally clear evidence that these dangerous and disturbing weather patterns constitute a phenomenon that is caused by human beings, at the very least in part, if not, in fact primarily. I understand fully that this question of causation is both complex and controversial. I plan to address this question in more detail in a separate sermon within the next couple of months.
Having said that, however, it is an unambiguous fact of our current common life that the weather patterns around us are changing; that they are changing for the worse; that their effects are becoming increasingly destructive; and that the damages they inflict will almost certainly be becoming more frequent and more destructive, and likely devastatingly so –in the days and years to come.
In the face of this, I am here today to say that the time for you and me to be in denial and avoidance about the devastation of the climate crisis must come to an end. We need to summon from within us the courage and willingness to acknowledge and bear witness to the damage that is taking place around us. Expanded awareness of this kind is essential. But it is also essential to understand that expanded awareness itself will not solve this problem by itself. Expanded awareness will make a major difference only if it extends to real and substantial changes in how you and I, and all our fellow citizens act and live.
Those changes have to start in our own personal lives, of course. But we also need to be clear that mere individual action is not enough and cannot be enough; that the change required to heal our wounded climate must, ultimately, be society-wide and global in scope. This can happen only if we bring a sustained commitment to climate healing into the realm of our politics, and inescapably into a profound and deep restructuring of our economy itself.
The evidence for this climate crisis has now become overwhelming. It is manifesting around the globe in many ways, most especially the polarized cycles of oscillation between prolonged drought and massive flooding. These cycles of drought and flooding have, of course, provoked the immediate tragedies of lost homes and ravaged roads and farms. But beyond that, these same cycles have already had the effect of lowering global food production. This, in turn, has been pressing international food prices dangerously higher. That upward pressure on food prices, affected at least in part by climate factors, has also become a significant trigger of dangerous social unrest, one example of which can be seen in the wave of revolutions in northern Africa in the last six months.
The changes in our climate mean much more than a little more rain and a few more heat waves. To the contrary, those changes have the potential to bring a massive destabilization of the entire system of global civilization. To be in denial of those dangers; to engage in avoidance about them; to be passive about dealing with their causes and effects, is not just foolish. It is an act of spiritual irresponsibility. Denial, avoidance and irresponsibility, are qualities which we as Christian people need to claim the power to move beyond. We need to pursue a more life-honoring and sustainable way of being and acting in this increasingly small world. There are a lot of us needing to share this fragile planet, and we all need to take our portion of responsibility to preserve it. The truth of our time is that unless millions of us begin to take such responsibility, the human project has little chance of moving forward in a way that resembles a rising toward heaven. The path we are on today is aiming us, much more truthfully, on a descent toward a self-created hell.
In a few moments we will receive communion. This sacrament is a living, historic residue of the lasting effect of one man in history who refused the temptation to avoidance or denial. When Jesus saw hurt or harm being inflicted in his day, whether through active cooperation by religion or the state, through cruel and unloving practices of society, or through mere inertia, he stood resolutely for a better way. His better way was, first, to acknowledge injustice and wrongdoing when it took place; and, second, to both advocate and demonstrate a life based on the choice for love. Those of us who look to Jesus for spiritual guidance are called to follow a similar template. In the face of the temptation to deny climate change, or condone inaction about it — and our society is enthralled to both seductions –– the time has come to raise our voice and acknowledge our climate dilemma as the crisis it truly is. In truth and in fact, facing the climate crisis is the most crucial calling of our time.
In our reading for today from Matthew 18, Jesus taught his followers that if they were to come upon wrongdoing, they should confront and address it. They should do so, first, on a personal level; then in a small group, then in the larger community. These wise words of this great sage offer us a model by which to confront our culture’s unwise and unhealthy use of the God-given riches of earth. We must lovingly and courageously confront the forms of economic production and consumption that have toxified our physical surroundings. The core of this confrontation begins within our own selves and psyches. Each of us is a consumer. Each is deeply enmeshed in the wastefulness of society. Each of us is a co-creator of our environmental dilemma by the fact of our own patterns of acquisition and use. The first movement away from avoidance and denial must always begin with ourselves. But it cannot stop there. The truth-telling to which we are called must also include an educated and articulate advocacy. It is up to us to help shape the deeply necessary changes in the patterns and habits of our national and global societies.
Christ once said: ‘I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.’ May each of us come in increasing numbers and power to proclaim the same.
Amen.
CONFRONTING THE CLIMATE CRISIS
SEPTEMBER 4, 2011
MATTHEW 18:15-20
ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.
This has been a sobering week here amid the beauties of Vermont as we have watched many of our fellow citizens incur great damage from Hurricane Irene. When we first heard of the storm coming up the coast few of us thought that Vermont would be one of the hardest places hit. But that happened. Our hearts go out to those whose lives have been turned upside down, not to mention those who have the overwhelming task of fixing the damage.
A few minutes ago we heard a teaching of Jesus from Matthew 18 about how to act in the face of offensive behavior. The advice Jesus gives is this: ‘if someone engages in inappropriate actions, go and point out the fault to that person. If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you. And if that person still refuses to listen, then bring it to the whole community and raise the issue there.’
This brief passage addresses a universal dilemma that is one of the most vexing parts of life: we humans often act unwisely and badly. We often do things that inflict hurt and harm. That inescapable fact leads to an equally inescapable question: how should we respond when bad behavior happens? That is the question Jesus is addressing here in Matthew 18. The first part of Jesus’ teaching counsels us to deal with the offensive behavior through direct confrontation. The second part counsels dealing with such behaviors in stages. We begin first, on an immediate and interpersonal level. But if the problem cannot be solved on that level, we need to seek help from others. And in some cases, the problem can be solved only by bringing it into the deliberations of the whole community.
I began this talk by acknowledging the damage done by Hurricane Irene. On the surface there might seem little relationship between the effects of last week’s storm, and Jesus’ teaching here in Matthew 18. On looking deeper, however, I have come to a growing sense that this text does offer us a wisdom that is, in fact, highly relevant to our potential thinking about the hurricane we have just experienced. This section of Matthew 18 is essentially a teaching about conflict resolution, and as such it speaks directly to the increasingly major dilemma we face from the growing severity of our weather.
If we cut to the core of it, what today’s passage tells us more than anything else, is that if something goes wrong in our lives; including in the larger affairs of society; and if what is going wrong is happening because of people engaging in damaging and dangerous actions, it is essential to address and confront that hurt or harm directly and quickly. Don’t sweep it under the rug. Don’t avoid or deny it.
Does this teaching have relevance to the recent weather damage here in Vermont and beyond? The answer to that question depends heavily on whether we view today’s weather changes as a purely natural phenomenon, or as something caused by human behaviors, either wholly or in part. Today I’d like to address that question, and invite us to begin a longer-term discussion of it.
One way to begin is to take note that for quite a number of years there has been a line of thinking about climate change that that runs like this: ‘no single weather event can be blamed on global climate patterns’; or, ‘global climate change must not be held responsible for any specific storm or drought or flood.’ Such an approach has become almost an article of faith in our culture. It has attained something approaching the status of a scientific and intellectual mantra.
Today, though, I would offer a different view. Even though such statements may be technically true, there is a larger and more important sense in which they are profoundly untrue. There is a larger sense in which when people say, ‘No one weather event can be blamed on climate change,’ what they are often doing is using that technical truism as a cover for an act of psychological denial. They are engaging in a process which is essentially an act of both cognitive blindness and spiritual avoidance.
Can it definitively be said that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming; or that global climate change is THE cause of the flooding in southern Vermont this week? No, of course, those things cannot be proved, because there have been many severe storms and floods throughout history. But even though it cannot be held that global warming caused this particular storm, there is now incontrovertible evidence of two emerging trends regarding climate that deal with long-terms weather patterns over and beyond any single, specific weather-event .
The first is this: that the bio-physical world we live in - and depend on - is today experiencing massive global distress because of weather patterns of a highly destructive and increasingly severe nature; and that these weather patterns are fundamentally new in comparison to what the human race has known in our recent climate history.
Secondly, there is now also equally clear evidence that these dangerous and disturbing weather patterns constitute a phenomenon that is caused by human beings, at the very least in part, if not, in fact primarily. I understand fully that this question of causation is both complex and controversial. I plan to address this question in more detail in a separate sermon within the next couple of months.
Having said that, however, it is an unambiguous fact of our current common life that the weather patterns around us are changing; that they are changing for the worse; that their effects are becoming increasingly destructive; and that the damages they inflict will almost certainly be becoming more frequent and more destructive, and likely devastatingly so -in the days and years to come.
In the face of this, I am here today to say that the time for you and me to be in denial and avoidance about the devastation of the climate crisis must come to an end. We need to summon from within us the courage and willingness to acknowledge and bear witness to the damage that is taking place around us. Expanded awareness of this kind is essential. But it is also essential to understand that expanded awareness itself will not solve this problem by itself. Expanded awareness will make a major difference only if it extends to real and substantial changes in how you and I, and all our fellow citizens act and live.
Those changes have to start in our own personal lives, of course. But we also need to be clear that mere individual action is not enough and cannot be enough; that the change required to heal our wounded climate must, ultimately, be society-wide and global in scope. This can happen only if we bring a sustained commitment to climate healing into the realm of our politics, and inescapably into a profound and deep restructuring of our economy itself.
The evidence for this climate crisis has now become overwhelming. It is manifesting around the globe in many ways, most especially the polarized cycles of oscillation between prolonged drought and massive flooding. These cycles of drought and flooding have, of course, provoked the immediate tragedies of lost homes and ravaged roads and farms. But beyond that, these same cycles have already had the effect of lowering global food production. This, in turn, has been pressing international food prices dangerously higher. That upward pressure on food prices, affected at least in part by climate factors, has also become a significant trigger of dangerous social unrest, one example of which can be seen in the wave of revolutions in northern Africa in the last six months.
The changes in our climate mean much more than a little more rain and a few more heat waves. To the contrary, those changes have the potential to bring a massive destabilization of the entire system of global civilization. To be in denial of those dangers; to engage in avoidance about them; to be passive about dealing with their causes and effects, is not just foolish. It is an act of spiritual irresponsibility. Denial, avoidance and irresponsibility, are qualities which we as Christian people need to claim the power to move beyond. We need to pursue a more life-honoring and sustainable way of being and acting in this increasingly small world. There are a lot of us needing to share this fragile planet, and we all need to take our portion of responsibility to preserve it. The truth of our time is that unless millions of us begin to take such responsibility, the human project has little chance of moving forward in a way that resembles a rising toward heaven. The path we are on today is aiming us, much more truthfully, on a descent toward a self-created hell.
In a few moments we will receive communion. This sacrament is a living, historic residue of the lasting effect of one man in history who refused the temptation to avoidance or denial. When Jesus saw hurt or harm being inflicted in his day, whether through active cooperation by religion or the state, through cruel and unloving practices of society, or through mere inertia, he stood resolutely for a better way. His better way was, first, to acknowledge injustice and wrongdoing when it took place; and, second, to both advocate and demonstrate a life based on the choice for love. Those of us who look to Jesus for spiritual guidance are called to follow a similar template. In the face of the temptation to deny climate change, or condone inaction about it — and our society is enthralled to both seductions — the time has come to raise our voice and acknowledge our climate dilemma as the crisis it truly is. In truth and in fact, facing the climate crisis is the most crucial calling of our time.
In our reading for today from Matthew 18, Jesus taught his followers that if they were to come upon wrongdoing, they should confront and address it. They should do so, first, on a personal level; then in a small group, then in the larger community. These wise words of this great sage offer us a model by which to confront our culture’s unwise and unhealthy use of the God-given riches of earth. We must lovingly and courageously confront the forms of economic production and consumption that have toxified our physical surroundings. The core of this confrontation begins within our own selves and psyches. Each of us is a consumer. Each is deeply enmeshed in the wastefulness of society. Each of us is a co-creator of our environmental dilemma by the fact of our own patterns of acquisition and use. The first movement away from avoidance and denial must always begin with ourselves. But it cannot stop there. The truth-telling to which we are called must also include an educated and articulate advocacy. It is up to us to help shape the deeply necessary changes in the patterns and habits of our national and global societies.
Christ once said: ‘I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.’ May each of us come in increasing numbers and power to proclaim the same.
Amen.