April 24, 2022 ~ Second Sunday of Easter ~ Sermon & Zoom Worship Video Link

This is the Link for Worship:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/vLgSiiPVGjhWl_7T3ePMHJSAUvwIsVCmY5e2Q7Nhb-wCrC5CeDTyWXRAQheWEwU.I1O-6TfvHAXO26Fl

Earth Day Sunday                                                                   04/24/22—Highland—Meute

“Everything that Breathes”

Psalm 150; Revelation 1: 4-8; John 20: 19-31

Pearl: Earth care is as vital as every breath we take.

Function: To motivate listeners to welcome he urgent call to actively care for our precious planet as a way of serving Christ and to celebrate Highland’s signing the Pledge to Inter-Faith Partners of the Chesapeake.

On Friday, Earth Day, I went to the grocery store and at the check-out counter the clerk was cheerful and engaging. I enjoyed chatting with her. Along with checking us out she was handing each customer a Norwood Spruce sapling and asking us to plant them.

1. Amazingly, I had taken a break from working on this sermon about creation care with an emphasis on breathing clean air.
   1. The checkout clerk began preaching to this preacher about how we need to take care of our planet. And she started talking about breathing clean air and how precious it is to us, of course.
   1. She made the case for trees as important to producing oxygen which we all need so desperately.
   1. I simply responded with “oh, yesses and amens!” It was fun being preached to about the very sermon I was working on myself at that same moment.
2. Another way to read the scriptures is to pay attention to the non-human world that is thoroughly a part of God’s story. Just think of all the ways in which the non-human creation is involved in scripture:
   1. In the beginning there is the story of the earth’s creation.
   1. Later on seas were parted.
   1. The sun kept shining in the sky for a longer period of time one day.
   1. A donkey spoke.
   1. An ark preserved two of every kind of species of animal.
   1. A fish was a prison cell for Jonah.
   1. A star marked the location of the Christ-child.
   1. Storms were stilled.
   1. Stones cried out.
   1. Jesus talked about lilies of the field, mustard seeds, every sparrow being known to God, he asked for a specific donkey to ride into Jerusalem one last time, and Revelation provides an image of the Messiah returning to the earth, “riding on the clouds.”
      1. The notion of “riding on the clouds” made me contact my Meteorologist son, Caleb, for insight on what kind of clouds he imagined Jesus might use. He said:
         1. “Depends on the type of arrival.”
            1. “If it’s a loud and super-intense arrival I’d say on a cumulonimbus storm cloud.”
            1. “If a little softer arrival you could say a cumulus congestus cloud, even softer than that, cumulus humilis cloud.”
            1. Then he sent a picture of a “shelf cloud” and wrote, “Kind of cool to picture him arriving on a shelf cloud like this one.” He drew pictures!
            1. Finally he texted, “If he sneaks in out of nowhere he would show up shrouded in fog.”
         1. Well, since the scriptures suggest that all will know of his return then it must be riding on the leading shelf cloud of a cumulonimbus storm cloud!
3. I am saying all of this to emphasize that the non-human world of the creation is immensely involved with our Lord, just as much as with humanity.
   1. Our final Psalm in the bible, number 150, offers the wonderful last verse which states “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150: 6).
   1. Imagine all of the oxygen-breathing creatures praising God in their own voices!

Because of the way in which everything that breathes gives praise to God, Christ followers revere and care for creation with as much urgency as we take our next breath.

Let’s think about “everything that breathes” for a moment.

1. There are so many creatures which breathe oxygen. Imagine all of the various ways all of the oxygen-breathing creatures can praise God in their own voices and sounds!
   1. All of the unique sounds of the creatures, while being ways of communication within their species, also give praise to God, their Creator.
   1. Reminds me of the song “If I Could Talk to the Animals,” by Sammy Davis, Jr! YouTube that song; it’s a lot of fun.
2. Of course we know how vital breath is for life. We are so glad to hear a newborn baby cry out, filling those tiny lungs for the first time.
   1. Realize also that breath is the means by which the Holy Spirit is transmitted.
      1. While Jesus was with his disciples shortly before departing earth he said, “’As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22).
      1. When we come to the end of our earthly lives we breathe one final time. It is perhaps in that final breath that our spirit takes flight to heaven.
3. There is very great reason for us to take air quality seriously as it is vital to the survival of every species, animal and human, flora and fauna.
   1. I’ve heard it said that the earth’s rainforests, which are in great jeopardy, are the “lungs of the earth.” As our rainforests diminish, our breathing is affected.
   1. Sadly, one of the most devastating aspects of Covid-19 is how it makes breathing so difficult.
   1. One of the scariest things is to have to fight for our next breath. One panics in desperation for the next breath.
4. So Christ followers care for creation, so that every creature can take its next breath.

The physical creation, human and non-human, is precious to God. Created by God, all creation glorifies God in its own way.

1. We make a mistake if we elevate the spiritual over the physical. Neither is more elevated than the other. Both are vitally important to our world present and to our world in the future.
2. When Jesus was with his disciples after being raised from the dead, Thomas needed to be able to handle the body of Jesus to believe that he was resurrected from the dead.
   1. He needed to see Jesus in the flesh and then to touch Jesus’ hands and side to verify the wounds.
   1. What did Jesus do? He accommodated Thomas in his need for physicality.
      1. Physicality is how God made us. We are not only spirits but we are also physical, earthly creatures.
      1. Jesus allowed the physical to work its wonders.
   1. In the case of Thomas the physical led to belief, and faith.
3. We also look forward to a physical eternity. The bible seems to paint a picture of a renewed earth and heavens: redeemed, new earth, new heavens.
   1. So a spiritual, ethereal eternity in heaven is not quite all that there will be. It appears that when Christ returns and inaugurates the new earth and the new heaven, all will be raised from the dead in a physical way.
   1. We will have physical bodies united with the spiritual once again. This will be our eternal existence. It will be a physical existence, we believe.
   1. Just because the Lord will make all things new, does not mean that we should not work on it now. We should care greatly for our creation because eternity includes the present. It is not all about the future.
      1. Jesus was, is, and is to come! (Rev. 1:4b).
      1. We can join with God in making that new earth and that new heaven now in this lifetime, and we should. We should because eternity is also NOW!

Christ followers revere and care for creation with as much urgency as we seek our next breath.

Highland Presbyterian Church is serious about preserving our glorious earth.

1. We are one congregation among at least 100 in the region which are officially “partners of the Chesapeake.” We have a Green Team comprised so far by Claudia Scarborough, Martha Durand, and Adrienne DeRan. We will build it to include many others. We hope that many of our youth will join.
   1. We are looking for ways to make our campus a healthy habitat for the smallest of creatures, plants, and for the rain that makes its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
   1. At the Maundy Thursday supper I sat next to Dave Derickson who spoke of the massive flooding of the Susquehanna River during Hurricane Agnes back in the summer of 1972.
      1. He said the fishing in the Susquehanna has never recovered to its pre-Agnes levels. Why? All of the run-off of fertilizers and chemicals from the lands which flooded and washed downstream through the mighty Susquehanna River toward the Chesapeake.
      1. It is amazing to think that 50 years’ time have not restored the river.
   1. People of faith are among those who are leading the charge to cherish the earth and work on making it new…now! Because there is a profound theological basis for creation care.
2. Highland will come up with ways and means toward this end.
   1. St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Annapolis, MD has four acres behind the church which abuts Back Creek, a tributary of the Chesapeake. It used to be a tangled mess of brush. In 2012 the church was planning to clear the land and build a large sanctuary and convert the existing structure into an education building.
   1. But St. Luke had a Green Team which suggested that they keep their current sanctuary and use the five acres as a “sanctuary without walls.”
   1. In 2017 the 120-person congregation received a total of nearly $2 million in grants, largely from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Chesapeake Bay Trust, plus small grants and donations through the church. What did they do?
      1. Their goal was to restore wetlands and a buried stream on their property that drained into Back Creek.
      1. The project was a physical expression of their commitment to earth-keeping.
      1. With the help of an ecological restoration company, they coaxed back to the surface the stream that had been diverted through storm water pipes and built a cascading streambed, with step pools and weirs—low dams to slow water flow—to filter the water as it makes its way toward Back Creek.
      1. They named the restored stream Bowen’s Branch, after a late congregant who cared deeply about watershed stewardship in Annapolis.
   1. Highland has already completed an in-depth assessment by Interfaith Partners which gave ideas for how we might use our campus for earth care.
      1. Led by our Green Team we will find new and exciting ways in which to make the earth new right now!
      1. We will do it so that everything might continue to breathe, and so that everything that breathes may praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord! Breathe in deeply and say it with me now, “Praise the Lord!”