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The whole creation waits with eager longing… in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay…

Our God has made this world/O let us ne’er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong/God is the ruler yet

God trusts us with this world/to keep it clean and fair

All earth and trees, the skies and seas/God’s creatures everywhere.

Though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. These days, I need to hold on to this. It is obvious that “the wrong is strong.” Much of our world seems broken.  Political divisions. Climate change with storms, floods and fire. Global warming, or as climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe puts it, “Global Weirding.” People are using words like climate “catastrophe”  “poly-crisis” and  “apocalypse.” We are at a tipping point. Even though it is now official government policy that climate change is a hoax. The wrong is strong. Evidence of the Fall overshadows our memory of Eden. In Paul’s words, creation is in bondage to decay, and because of it, some of us despair.

We humans have fouled the nest of what the late Pope Francis called our common home, and we must clean house. We need to join in setting free God’s creation from its bondage to decay, acting as though we truly believe that “God is the ruler yet.” The challenges are enormous, but we need not fear, and it’s not all bad news. I am hopeful that we will emerge from this present bondage, free and with a healthier appreciation for our precious and fragile planet, our common home.

A New York Times essay by Liz Jensen last year compared this crisis to the loss of her own young child, Raphael. “We don’t have to drown in climate grief,” she wrote. A year before his death, Raphael said to his mother, then in despair about the challenges of climate change, “Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.” Yes, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, let’s do what we can, where we are, with what we have.

In this there is good news. Thus, there is hope. Yes, these are apocalyptic times but there is also, when viewed through the lens of resurrection faith, Apocalyptic Hope. Our faith is clear: though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. The creation waits with eager longing for redemption. Yes, the wrong is strong. But God is stronger. Good News. Hopeful News. This is Gospel. God is at work in this world, even in and around its decay, disruption and distress. And God calls each one of us to do what we can, wherever we are, with whatever we have.

There is a great cloud of witnesses round about to confirm this truth. As Job says, “ask the animals and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you…” An ancient Latin mass had these words worthy of retrieval and recovery for this Sunday of Eastertide: “The joy of the resurrection renews the whole earth.”

The resurrection is not just about a power of life after death for faithful individual human beings. The joy of the resurrection renews the whole earth. Trees, skies, seas, God’s creatures everywhere, here and now, Eternal Life that begins right now.

This is not just some annual Earth Day message. This is the heart of every weekly Lord’s Day. It is about a renewal taking place even now, even here, and in it we see the hand of God at work, and in it we may join hands with God and with one another, even now, even here. There is a rising Eastertide that lifts all boats as we do what we can, wherever we can, with whatever we have.

It is not my mission today to convince you that the Earth is at risk. It is not my mission today to decry fossil fuels and pronounce curses on what we as the church ought to be against. It is my mission to assure you that though the wrong is strong, the joy of the resurrection is stronger. I am here to underscore what we as the church are for.

God trusts us with this world/to keep it clean and fair
All earth and trees/the skies and seas/all creatures everywhere.

We are entrusted with the care of creation. God trusts us with this. This has always been true. This was our first assignment as human beings, according to Genesis: Take care of the garden. But we have not always done right by this garden world, our common home.  Instead of careful, nurturing stewardship, we have exercised ruthless dominion, abusing the soil, dumping our waste in the waters and air, cutting down the trees and acting like there was no tomorrow.

The wrong is strong. Yet we live in a special moment right now when it is not too late. As Greta Thunberg put it, “We are standing at a crossroads in history. We are failing but we have not yet failed. We can still fix this…” We have the fleeting opportunity to participate in the healing of the Earth. The window of this opportunity is closing. No time for further procrastination. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”

That is this very moment. The time we have been given is a sacred gift of redemption. As strong as is creation’s bondage to decay, the renewing joy of the resurrection is stronger yet, and now is the time to be swept up in it, lifted by those rising boats of Eastertide.

Five years ago, our Wisconsin Conference approved a Kairos Call to Action around the time of the Earth Day Jubilee. Our planet was enjoying its first Sabbath rest since before the Industrial Revolution. The COVID 19 pandemic forced us into a brief Sabbath rest from our hell-bent race to the cliff, as highways and skies were left momentarily open and free of traffic. Carbon emissions briefly dropped by a third in the US and by one fourth in China. It was an environmental pause worth celebrating. But it did not last. Yet during this pause our UCC in Wisconsin decided that this was the decade to do something about the climate apocalypse. We decided that a Jubilee Earth Day ought to be extended indefinitely. Now we are halfway through that decisive decade.

New Testament Greek distinguishes between time as chronos and time as Kairos. Chronos time is ordinary, clock ticking, chronologically passing time. The chronos climate clock is running down. That’s not good news. But the New Testament Good News Greek word for redemptive time, Kairos, is also with us. Kairos is the right time, the fiercely urgent time, the moment to take action. In the Kairos Call to Action are these words:

“Kairos moments are crisis time, full of danger and opportunity. They are God-charged moments. [MLK] described them as periods when ‘history is pregnant, ready to give birth to a great idea and a great movement.’ [King] surely had Paul’s letter to the Romans in mind: creation indeed groans in labor and is ready to give birth to something new, sustainable and life-giving.” But these are just words. Not actions.

Though the wrong is oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. The fierce urgency of now affirms that the right time, the Kairos time, has come, and the very Rule of God is near. We have this critical but fleeting moment to take action, to turn from our old ways and live. The church can decide today to reduce its carbon footprint and to be a more effective creation care witness in the world. We now have the opportunity, though fleeting, to assert that we are fully committed to our first calling as caregivers for God’s creation.

God trusts us with this world, to keep it clean and fair
All earth and trees, the skies and seas, all creatures everywhere.

Yes, our first calling, as those created in the image of God, is to be caregivers, gardeners, for a creation of which we are an inextricable part. One of the blessings of the creation care work that has defined my refirement over the last decade has been to learn what God is already doing among us. A growing number of congregations now have green teams, solar panels, rain and butterfly gardens, they mow less, and instead cultivate sustainable, native grasses and wildflowers, they have study and action groups that help the wider community, along with  congregant households to live more sustainably, divesting in fossil fuels, turning their backs on single-use plastic bags, bottles, drinking straws, cups and tableware, bicycling and walking more, driving more responsibly and less, ride sharing, advocating for public policy and investment strategies that reduce our reliance on the pollutants that become greenhouse gasses.

These and many other positive actions are helping to slow the rate of rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures. They are inspiring. They are making a difference. They are helping to set free a creation in bondage to decay. These are all good things. But they are not enough. We must do more. Or, perhaps it is better to say that we must do less.

When we find ourselves in a hole, we must first stop digging. Reduce consumption, not only of fossil fuels, but of foods and drugs and all manner of “goods” that our culture tells us will make our lives better. We must live more simply, that others may simply live. Reduce our overall footprint on this good earth. Instead of always grasping for more, we must let go. For the life of faith is not so much about acquisition as it is about relinquishment.

When Jesus announced that the right time had come and the Rule of God was near, he was confronting the world with the fierce urgency of now. But the message was not judgy, threatening condemnation, “Be afraid!” It was a “Fear not” message of hope. So too our mission today is not to scare people or to freeze them in helplessness or despair. We are not alarmists. Our mission is to offer to a fallen and broken world, frozen in fear and grief, a simple Gospel message of liberation. To announce and declare Good News. Gospel.

There IS urgency. Call it a gospel awakening of hope. A century ago, Swiss theologian Karl Barth was sounding a kind of alarm across Europe, calling for a rediscovery of scripture as the Word of God. Barth likened his project to that of the old church sexton who climbed the bell tower in the dark of night and stumbled. As he fell, he grabbed the bell rope for support. The bell rang out, awakening the slumbering villagers, even though the old sexton had merely stumbled and reached out in the darkness to catch his fall.

This is the Kairos moment that the church finds itself in now. God calls us to ring the church bell, even as we stumble in the dark. We are being called today, here, now, to sound this alarm of hope, not just of coming danger but of a pregnant opportunity to turn and face the light, where there is healing power and hope. We ring the bell of reassurance that God is ruler yet, and that the joy of the resurrection renews the whole earth.  Girded with that good news, we do what we can, wherever and whenever we can, with whatever we have.