The Good and Bad of Storms

This sermon can be listened to here
Gate Pa –  5th Sunday in Season of Creation - Year C - 2019
Readings:
Psalm -            Psalm 29                                                    
First Reading -   Job 28: 20-27                                    
Second Reading -  1 Corinthians 1:21-31           
Gospel -          Luke 8:22-25                                     

What I want to say: 
to explore storms our experience of as both good and bad
while are destructive are important for cooling and feeding world
-          teach us humility in face such force
but also explore what it is like being in the start of a climate change storm
more than just what happening to climate
symptomatic of bigger moral storm been engulfed in for decades if not longer
moral storm fed by greed and consumerism
è Pope Francis
o   integral theology
o   need to break with logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness
o   same mind-set that fuels climate change led impoverishment of millions if not billions around world
o   poorest are most at risk of our changing climate
o   Pope Francis reminds us that this is a moral and theological issue
-          how do we respond?
-          can feel like Jesus is once again asleep at back of boat while we drown
-          only this time we helped make the storm
-          -> Paul and new creation
-          -> in storm of cross – God is suffering with us
-          invited to pray incessantly and be well informed
Theme of wisdom – in Job 28
-          fear, reverence, respect for God and world God created

What I want to happen:
-          invited to pray incessantly and be well informed

The Sermon

      1.     Introduction: (storm)

2 years ago in Wellington
-         weather bomb
-         magnificent for me
-         others highly inconveniencing and some destructive
40 years ago at school no teachers
-         grumpy
-         day Wahine storm
-         -> dealing with classroom blowing down
range reactions to storms
tell neighbours about an experience – what made it good or bad experience

      2.     Plenary

a.     bad experience – what made them bad?
climate change means storms getting much bigger and more frequent

b.     good experiences
why need storms
-         bring rain ashore replenish water reservoirs
-         removes weak vegetation and makes room for new growth
-         lightening releases nitrogen from atmosphere so that mix with rain water and form much needed nitrates in soil
-         static electricity great plant growth
-         thunderstorms act like big air conditioner/air cleaner
o   burn pollution
o   cooling atmosphere

       3.     God Stuff

storms have spiritual element to it
Ü any talk about that?
Ü explore
hunkered down
drawn into self
still point
awesomeness about the whole thing
my smallness
God’s vastness
reminds me that this is God’s world
my relationship with this world is defined by being made in the image of God who is creating and giving live

       4.     Climate Change Storm

storms remind us that we are in gathering climate change storm
-         in part has origins in world God created
-         in part has been exacerbated by our actions
climate change storm is at its heart a moral issue
love this quote from Gus Speth – Feb 2015
“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
who does?
maybe we do
maybe we have something to offer this bigger conversation
in part that would involve confessing our part in providing a theolgial undergirding for this selfishness, greed and apathy
-         We in the West at least our way of life have forgotten or discarded notion that as people made In image of creating and life giving God our relationship with this world should be built on those notions
-         instead simply treated this world as a resource to create economic wealth
o   with little or no thought to consequence for world we live in
o   or as Pope Francis reminds us for consequences of poorest in world who have paid high price for our economic wellbeing

       5.     Pope Francis

In Laudate Si – or Praised be : On the Care of Our common Home (released in 2015)
Pople calls for an “integral ecology”
-         demonstrates that Scripture shows humans living in relationship not only to God and our neighbours but also the earth itself.
-         “nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves” (139).
-         The crisis we face is both environmental and social. They are not two separate crises, but one.
-         until we face that we will not make traction on storm we are increasingly finding ourselves in
-         need to break with the logic of violence, expoitation and selfishness
-         “Creation is not a property, which we can rule over at will; or, even less, is the property of only a few: Creation is a gift, it is a wonderful gift that God has given us, so that we care for it and we use it for the benefit of all, always with great respect and gratitude” (General Audience 5/21/14, No. 3).

      6.     Where is God in all this?

where is God in all this?
sometimes feel like Jesus is asleep once again in back of boat and some of us are begging him to wake up and save us
-         significant number of Christians who believe either
o   this is God’s world and we could not possibly be able to harm it
o   or that God will save us
-              also reminded that in storm of cross God promises never to abandon us
         -     will not miraculously still every storm 
         -     will not abandon us or leave us in our fears
others suggest that we are the ones asleep in the back of the boat

-         kingdom of God is life waking from sleep and confronting the storm

reminded by Paul that in Jesus the promise of the new creation begins to be fulfilled
-         creation built on justice, holiness, generosity, wholeness, shalom
Job brings us back to where I began
-         invitation to wisdom
-         fear of the Lord
-         or maybe a reverence of God and all that God has made
o   including creation
o   respecting all who created to live in this world
-         how might we start
-         being informed
-         living reverently towards all
-         praying incessantly


what stood out
what questions
what now?


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