Do You Hear the Cries of Both the Poor and the Earth?
Good Morning Friend’s,
The environment in which we live holds within it a message about life. I have seen it here in Southwest Florida…fish kills because of a lack of oxygen…rising seas…the challenges of the migrant farm laborer. It is a global problem and a local one. But here is the harsh reality: As people have grown increasingly self-obsessed with wealth and technology, ever more distant from nature, the islands in the South Pacific are disappearing. Places like Bangladesh may become so flooded that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced in our lifetime. It is a challenge for our faith and our future. Last week Pope Francis released a 200 page encyclical that draws a connection between social and environmental injustice. It is as if it was written for the people of Southwest Florida. It calls for a bold cultural revolution with a three pronged approach that simultaneously addresses the issues of the environment and economics and our faith. Reflecting on the causes of the problems Pope Francis shared that, “The pursuit of individual happiness has been made into an ideal in our time. Ecological sin is due to human greed, which blinds men and women to the point of ignoring and disregarding the basic truth that the happiness of the individual depends on its relationship with the rest of human beings.” So Friends, with this in mind we explore how poverty and the environment are both at the center of the Gospel. Do You Hear the Cries of Both the Poor and the Earth?
Scripture: “‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
Job 38:4-7 (NRSV)
18
You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely. 19The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely. 20Should you ask, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield a crop for three years. 22When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. 23The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. 24Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.
Leviticus 25:18-24 (NRSV)
9But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ 10Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’
Jonah 4:9-13 (NRSV)
3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3 (NRSV)
Message: Nineveh was a great world trading capital when Johan was sent to guide it to repentance. The message was one of repentance and amazingly they did repent and averted a crisis of destructive proportions.
To be sure, we face many crises today. But the most perilous crisis, the crisis we and our countries are causing, the one that carries the most perilous long-term consequences for billions of people, is how our health, the health of the communities in which we live and the health of this blue ball we call Earth relate. No law in scripture has been more ignored than today’s passage from Leviticus 25. It brings together themes that are basic to our human relationship with nature and the values that promote community. It lays out how we are to relate to the land that sustains us, to each other inside the community, and to those outside the community, in a way that reflects faithfully the over-riding and unforgettable fact that God is God and that God is our reason for being. Good stewardship of land, along with economic structures, just relationships, and obedience to God’s design, all come together in today’s text. But we have become blind to it. We have grown up to think we are the owners of the earth forgetting this blue ball in space belongs to God. The overall effect is that we have intentionally or unintentionally supported the maltreatment of the poor and the earth itself. We are on a dangerous course that must be abandoned. Our very survival depends on it. And I am challenged by how little our own society and churches fail to measure up to this yardstick. Such stewardship requires that we begin to view land and the rest of the natural world not primarily as commodities to be bought and sold for individual gain and profit, but as God’s creation—which, as such, bears intrinsic worth and integrity that we humans violate in disobedience to God and at our own risk. Look at the world’s financial and environmental challenges. They are one in the same. They both are caused by unethical behavior that is situationally justified. Our behavior matters. Environmental degradation and poverty are related as a cause and effect. Just ask the people of Haiti. Then let us not forget that Jesus became poor so that we might become rich. This is not about capitalism and communism but about how Christ in culture and creation can redeem us.
Pray we realize that spiritual and moral and economic and environmental and political realities are interwoven and that abuses in one show up in and effects the others. Pray that our human relationships guide your economic relationships in ways that honor God. Pray Christ’s love is brought into our lives so that God’s creation might be redeemed. Pray for discernment….the gift to make good decisions… to choose wisely…to distinguish in our work the disciplines that we must develop as Christians to be in His will. Pray we are enriched by the poverty of Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 