Eastertide Earth Day: Two Sermons 05/03/2012
 used with permission of the artist, Dana Gray (http://www.grayna.com); all rights reserved by Jessica Abell, at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley CA, April 23, 2012 Lessons: Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48 [Third week of Easter, Year B) Today is Easter three and while egg dying kits are 90% off at CVS, and Cadbury eggs are getting harder and harder to find again, while the rest of the world –in the northern hemisphere anyway- is looking towards summer, it is easy to forget that we celebrate Eastertide for seven weeks! 50 days! It’s longer than Lent. We forget that the Resurrection is still new. Luke’s Gospel passage today ends with this statement, You are witnesses of these things. The same call is echoed in Acts, in Peter’s proclamation to the Jews that they themselves are witnesses to the life and death of Jesus… and now these Christians, these new voices in the religious landscape, they stand as witness to the Resurrection of Jesus. We – you, me, everyone here preparing for ministry, those of us already out there, engaging with others…we are witnesses of these things. Witnesses to the risen Christ! Witnesses to the power of the Divine in our lives, to the abundance of Creation, to the power of the Holy Spirit to bind us together, to infuse all around us with the sacred. We are the witnesses of God but we forget the Resurrection is still new. That for these followers of Jesus in our Gospel this morning, for the Petrine and Pauline Christians of Acts, and even somewhat for the Johannine communities in 1st John, the Resurrection of Christ is a startling act –a new thing totally upending their concepts of reality, of God’s presence in their lives and of what true power, community and kingship of God might mean. It’s terrifying, really. To witness such things… Today is also Earth Day. Just over 40 years ago, this day of celebration and care for our earth was established and today, it is marked in nearly 200 countries around the planet. In 2009, the UN proclaimed April 22nd International Mother Earth Day –our global culture has been awakening to the need to care for –to honor the earth. But for some, Earth Day is tinged with fear, with sadness. There is often a veneer of panic and desperation in the eyes of environmentalists. A tragic kind of witness… Because for those of us who can see it, who believe climate science and public health data, who get the connection between exploiting and poisoning the resources of the developing world and justice for the poor and oppressed –for those of us who grieve the loss of species and fear for the stripping of the rain forests, we know that this awakening to care for the earth is crucial for our survival, for our thriving. Do you know about the Maldives? “The Island President” is a 2011 documentary about the President of the Maldives, an archipelago of 2000 islands in the Indian Ocean. There is no spot on any of the Maldives land that is taller than I am. Right now, me… nothing more above sea level than my head. 16 of these islands will need to be evacuated this year in order for their citizens to not be drowned. As waters rise, the very existence of this tiny country is in jeopardy. The Maldives are stunningly beautiful. And they may soon be wiped from existence. It’s terrifying, really. To witness such things… And so one of the dilemmas of looking at Creation, of the experiences of people of faith doing ecological work and with an environmental awareness is the fear, the grief, the despair that can be overwhelming. As Franciscan School of Theology professor Mary McGann says, “we are afraid to fall in love with the earth, for our hearts may be broken.” But sometimes, even more confusing and disorienting is our inability to articulate the connections between ecology and faith, the relationship between the Gospel and the Creation. But you know, we often have the same questions about our ministry itself. Are our churches dying? Do we have anything relevant to say anymore? We all know good and faithful people who never go to church, who do not believe in God. If good people can exist without the guidance and fellowship of the church, then what are we doing with our lives? Is it even necessary or needful? How can we justify spending millions of dollars on institutional functioning while humanity suffers? Fix a stained glass window while homeless starve in our doorways? Can we still preach about Jesus knowing how much damage has been wrought in His name? When these fears bind our decisions, haunt our dreams and paralyze our prayer lives. This can be a painful and often grief and despair filled place to live. But really. The first Christians at least had a good excuse for their grief, fear and shock. There were no instant communication devices proclaiming the Resurrection to the followers of Jesus, no shared messages of the risen Christ, at least not at first. It made sense to be afraid. As theologian Nancy Blakley writes in Feasting on the Word, Our fears hold us captive. It becomes difficult to give witness to the great joy that is ours—that the bonds of death could not hold Jesus. Jesus is alive. The power of the resurrection is the power to plant the seeds of transformation. We know the story, we know that this fear and death is not the end. We live in the Resurrection of Jesus, we are the witnesses to the risen Christ. Then He opened their minds to understand the scriptures. God knows how real fear is, how hard it is to put our faith, our lives, our survival into this resurrection reality. And the response of Jesus to this fear, to the doubts of the Christians cowering behind locked doors is to open up scriptures and to share a meal, To proclaim peace and a new life for those abiding in Him. The early Christian communities that produced our New Testament scriptures were still trying to work this out, what life in this resurrection reality might be like. But as the Johannine community reminds us in 1st John, What we will be has not yet been revealed. We could, I suppose, allow lawlessness and sinfulness to have the last word, without this Resurrection reality. But as Children of God, as members of the risen Christ, as those who do NOT act in ignorance but in full knowledge of our role in and for Creation, we can know –have faith- that something magnificent, something good is being made anew. And so for us today, despite our fears, all of those very reasonable questions about effectiveness and purpose and mission, and the myriad other interruptions of rationale and logic, we proclaim a new reality. As NT scholar & theologian NT Wright reminds us, “with Easter there has come to birth the new world, the redemption of Israel, the new creation.” For us as well, the Resurrection is still new. And in the Resurrection, we are shown that it is NOT the brokenness of the world that is normal. Life in God is rich and abundant. Creation is bursting with the presence of the Divine. And God heals, makes whole and reconciles. We are witnesses of these things. And this witness is terrible in the ancient sense of the word, that is, Awesome. Not a frivolous awesome but a deep resonating awe that shakes the foundations of our worlds. We are the witnesses of the Resurrection. And we can know the Resurrected Christ in Creation. We are invited to touch and see the Body of Christ not only in the faces of those we meet, in the words of our beloved communities, but also in the created world, in the streams feeding the rivers, and the rivers feeding the oceans, in the dust and earth and ground from which we were made. 1 john 3:3 says And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. We are called to purify ourselves, our communities and yes- to purify the air, the water, the earth on which we depend. For this purity is a Christian practice, a discipline that guards us against lawlessness, of sinfulness, of our exploitation of God’s own Creation, in which is found the Divine. We are the witnesses of the power of God the Creator to declare a good world into being, the power of God in Christ to transform the world, and the power of God in the Holy Spirit to infuse the world with the sacred. The rest of the story behind the documentary “The Island President” is that this is also a film about transformation. It is a story of how the Maldives’ president traveled to the most recent climate summit in Copenhagen and proclaimed the power of hope to bind us together, how the cooperative action between nations with resources and those in climate crisis can transform our planet. That the witness of this one man shifted the debate, changed the conversation. And so today I proclaim this great awakening in our own Resurrection life as Christians, as Children of God. Because Jesus DID rise from the dead, He did break the bonds of death and sin, he DID proclaim Peace and bid us not be afraid. Jesus was present at the beginning of Creation. He walked on this earth and was made human. Fully human, a man we could touch and see, even after His resurrection. And Jesus comes again. And again. And again. As witnesses, as the beloved community of Christ, it is our call, our joy, our vocation to work towards the healing of the earth, to end the lawlessness and sinfulness of our own lives and in our communities. Jesus, present through and in all Creation, walks through locked doors, breaks through locked minds and speaks through our fears to say “Peace be with you. Be not afraid. You are the ones to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in my name to all nations.” We are all witnesses of these things. Alleluia. And Happy Earth Day. by Therese B. DeLisio, at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, Woodstock IL, April 22, 2012 Lessons: Ezekiel 47:1-12; Psalm 104: 1-4; 10-13; Romans 8:18-23; Mark 16:14-16 (Earth Day/Easter 3) Happy Easter and Happy Earth Day! On April 23, 1992 – 20 years ago tomorrow – a group called Friends of the Chicago River recruited 25 volunteers to go down to the riverbank to begin cleaning it up. They called it Chicago River Day. The river was polluted with toxic waste. The banks were lined with all kinds of trash-- – not only plastic bags, bottles, boxes, and cans, but big things like shopping carts and mattresses. The volunteers rolled up their sleeves, put on their rubber gloves, and began hauling the junk out of the muck. Where others simply saw a smelly wet pit filled with a pile of refuse, these people saw the potential for the Chicago River to become a beautiful, clean and green refuge. They stood on the banks of the river and had a vision. Others started to catch the vision. Starting tomorrow, about 4,000 volunteers will begin a twenty-day celebration, kicked off by the 20th Chicago River Day. People from school groups, corporate teams, families, community organizations and some churches will participate. People young and old will be working side-by-side at 65 different locations along the river to collect garbage, sort trash for recycling, remove invasive vegetation, spruce up river-edge trails, and plant native seedlings. According to Friends of the River web site, twenty years -- and 43,375 volunteers after that first Chicago River Day -- “the Chicago River is no longer a forgotten alleyway filled with sewage and junk. It is vibrant and alive with people in canoes, kayaks and tour boats, with 70 species of fish, 60 species of birds, and all kinds of native animals including beavers, muskrats, and snapping turtles.” Due, in no small part, to the efforts of Friends of the River and other environmental advocacy groups, Governor Quinn, just ten days ago, announced that 10 million dollars in state funding will be used to help build the equipment that is needed to disinfect the river water so that people can someday even swim and fish in it. The good work that has been and will be done by Friends of the Chicago River is not motivated by religious conviction—although some of its members are very likely people of faith. But through my own Christian lens, I see in their project of raising this river back to life nothing less than Spirit of God at work. With the ears of a Christian, I can’t help but hear an Easter story. Now, you might be thinking that this is a sermon about all the good deeds we should be doing to care for creation. After all, I was invited here because I am a member of the Bishop’s Task Force on Sustainability. But that’s not the sermon you will hear from me – not today – not on this third Sunday of Easter that happens also to be Earth Day. I would like to invite you to think about the why question. Why should Christians -- as Christians and not simply as good earth-citizens—be committed to creation care and sustainability and make it a priority in ministries and decision-making? When people are working to change the status quo, the answer to the why question always emerges out of a vision. Some environmental advocates and activists operate out of a vision of scarcity and justifiable fear. They see our natural resources being plundered and dwindling. Others may operate out of an economic vision. They say we should use less energy because it will save us money. If they are church people, they might even say saving money will help us to do real ministry—as if tending to the earth is not a ministry in and of itself. Others envision clean parks and rivers that will be more beautiful and more safe to play in. These are all great reasons to care for the environment-- and they are all great by-products of good stewardship-- but how deeply grounded are they in Christian identity and mission? Consider this reason—we should not exploit or lay private claim to our natural resources or destroy the land for economic gain because it unjustly and disproportionately impacts people who are poor. Clean water and air, healthy food free of toxins, and equal access to earth’s resources are the God-given right of every human being. Loving and caring for creation is a way we can care for our neighbors. With this reason, we are getting closer to something more fundamentally biblical aren’t we? Yet, I think the Christian vision that supplies the why of sustainability goes even deeper and wider than concern for the needs and interest of humanity alone and the ways we use our planet. On this Eastertide Earth day, I will suggest to you that the big vision that ought to impel us is not our vision at all. It is God’s vision that answers the why. How do we know what God’s vision is? Well, that’s why we have prophets, isn’t it? Ezekiel was a Jewish priest who became a prophet when he was exiled from his home in Judah by Babylonian conquerors. He lived with his family and other exiles on the Chabar River, a man-made irrigation canal that diverted overflow from the Euphrates River to the Chaldean desert. So he knew something about the desert and about the life-giving properties of water. Over the course of 22 years, spanning the period before, during, and after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Ezekiel had seven visions from which he prophesied to his people. It was during their time of deepest despair that Ezekiel recounted his stunning vision-within-a-vision of an Angel that took him on a tour of a re-built Jerusalem temple and its environs. That’s the vision we heard about in today’s first reading. Imagine this with me once more. The angel shows Ezekiel fresh, clean, crystal clear water coming out from under the Temple sanctuary. It flows eastward toward the desert. They follow the flow. It’s not long before it becomes a stream. At first the water is ankle deep. Then the stream spreads and swells and becomes knee deep. As they walk further, the stream becomes a thigh-high river. Before they realize it, the flow that became the stream that became the river is so deep and so wide that it cannot be crossed! They climb up the river bank. Everything is lush green on both sides of the river.Everything will live where the river goes, the angel tells Ezekiel. The river flows into the salty, lifeless Dead Sea and turns it into fresh water. Fish of many kinds will swarm, people’s nets will be bursting, all kinds of fruit-bearing trees will grow; birds will sing and thrive in the trees; the leaves will provide healing; and there will be abundant food for the people and for every other creature, every day. What Ezekiel is describing here is an ecological resurrection! This is God’s vision—and God’s doing. The river is a symbol of the creative, redeeming, and sustaining life of God. According to scripture, the vision that God has for creation is simply but astonishly this: God’s promise of resurrection extends to the whole earth. The Risen Christ in today’s Gospel tells his followers—including us—to go into the world and proclaim this good news to the whole creation! How do we begin to do that? We treat the earth and every creature not as a commodity made solely for our use and enjoyment, but as our kin to which we are organically connected in this intricate web of life. The earth is not here for us, we are here for the earth as the hands and feet of the Risen Christ.More than ever in the history of humanity the words of the Apostle Paul ring true: creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God to set it free from the bondage of decay. We are the children of God commissioned to do God’s work in the world and for the world. Why should we, as Christians, be committed to sustainability? Because the work of sustainability is the work of the Sustainer, Redeemer, and Creator of Life into whose life we are plunged at the time of our baptisms and every time we renew our baptismal promises. I am told that sermons around here are usually about ten minutes and I want to honor that. So I will invite you to join me after church to talk more about the theological and liturgical connections we can make between our baptisms and creation care. Many of you here at St. Ann’s have caught the vision and are already doing great work with your garden, water and energy conservation initiatives, and your partnering with other organizations in the community and beyond to educate and advocate for sustainability. You are one of the first parishes in the Diocese to have done an energy audit! The Bishop and the Task Force are proud of you and grateful for the work of your green group and all of you who have participated in and supported their initiatives. Like Ezekiel, you have had a vision and the river of life is flowing from this place. Where will the Angel of God lead you next? How deep will you be willing to go? Add Comment Making Connections for the Common Good 12/08/2011
 Bruce, Jerry, and Lisa At the invitation of The White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Communities, Bruce Beavis and Lisa Rogers Lee of The Bishop’s Task Force on Sustainability attended and presented at the Connecting Communities for the Common Good event on December 6th, 2011 in Chicago. A group of forty people came to hear Bruce and Lisa talk about our diocese-wide energy audit initiative and the participation of our congregations in Energy Star Portfolio Manager for benchmarking and tracking energy usage. Jerry Lawson, National manager of ENERGY STAR Small Business & Congregations Network of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told those gathered that the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago is now an official Energy Star Partner and that “The Diocese of Chicago is the largest faith based group in the country to take on something of this scale.” Mayor Rahm Emmanuel also spoke saying, “The real work is that we [faith based organizations and government] know our missions are the same. I want the spirit of what you are doing to become the spirit of what we call home.” Go team! One-Stop Shopping for Energy Audit Help 12/01/2011
 SOMETHING NEW!! The BTFS is pleased to announce our new comprehensive web resource designed to inform, guide, and support churches, agencies and chaplaincies in the Diocese of Chicago through the energy audit process required by Resolution H-173-a. Check it out at http://energyauditchicago.weebly.com. Field Education: An Immersion Experience into the World of Advocacy by Jessica Abell One’s middler year at Church Divinity School of the Pacific (that is, year 2 of 3) is in part spent in Field Education. Generally, this is done in a parish setting. Because I had many years of parish leadership and church administration experience prior to seminary, the Bishop was open to my Field Education happening in an agency. And so I have recently completed an academic year learning from the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham and Rev. Chad Crawford, my Field Education supervisors, and serving on the staff of The Regeneration Project and Interfaith Power & Light. (IPL) Please look these groups up. The mission of The Regeneration Project is to be an interfaith ministry devoted to deepening the connection between ecology and faith. The mission of Interfaith Power & Light, a campaign of The Regeneration Project, is to be faithful stewards of Creation by responding to global warming through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Our Chicago region equivalent to these national organizations is Faith in Place, of which Illinois IPL is a campaign. Although my work in Field Education touched on all seven of our BTFS Pillars of Sustainability it primarily dealt with the Advocacy pillar.  The variety of the work done by staff is immense. Email alerts, online drives, petition signings, letter writing, telephone campaigns, resource packaging and distribution, op eds and media attention are managed along-side preaching events, liturgies and interfaith dialogues. The tasks of advocacy are usually small steps, gradual actions. By that, I mean that one email alert builds upon a previous one’s message and points to possible action steps. One resource packet, painstakingly developed by TRP & IPL staff, could be shared with hundreds of people. One sermon can plant an earworm that wiggles its way into thousands of conversations. Advocacy seems to have two primary purposes: To shift attitudes and perceptions and to affect behavior. To be an advocate and to engage in advocacy rarely includes grand gestures such as million person marches or chaining oneself to a soon-to-be-felled tree. The shifting of beliefs is generally gradual and not revelatory. Changes in the behavior of a community tend to happen in waves and not tsumanis. And so we need not feel overwhelmed by the work! We need simply to claim the title ‘advocate’ in order to become one. Some of you may ask “What can I do?” and this is a wonderful question. Some advocacy is being done right now on all of our behalves. The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago is now a member of Faith in Place through support of the BTFS and Canon Bingham was our keynote speaker at Diocesan Convention 2010. In this ever-connected world of social networks, high speed travel and instant communication, we can all easily do these actions of advocacy. We can attend to the language we use around Creation, sustainability, climate change, and the like in our own conversations. We can adapt small measures such as always carrying a permanent water bottle. We can pass on inspirational or informative messages. The BTFS has been providing guidance and technical assistance for the Diocese of Chicago as we move towards living more sustainabily, as we become true stewards of all God has given to our care. Perhaps we will want to focus our advocacy to a certain topic, such as making sure our waterways are clean and safe. Perhaps individual congregations would want to adopt an advocacy position and become the leaders in that area. Perhaps the youth of the Diocese would want to become advocates for the long-term sustainable growth of our cities. Who knows? Contact your parish representative to the BTFS and have a conversation. Subscribe to and share EcoConnect, the BTFS newsletter. Write a letter to the editor of the Sun-Times or the Tribune. Or to your school newspaper. Small actions are what create movements. Godspeed! Energy Star Update! 07/04/2011
 FOUR PARISHES SCORE ABOVE 75 in ENERGY STAR!! Saturday, June 5th, saw the fifth session of Energy Benchmarking Using Energy Star Portfolio Manager at St. Luke’s in Dixon. The seminar teaches parish energy teams how to analyze their utility bills and build an on-line benchmarking model to track their own energy improvement as well as compare their parish against a broad sample of churches of all denominations across the US. With more than thirty parishes having participated by attending the training or building the benchmarking model themselves, the Diocese now has four parishes with Energy Star scores above a 75. St. Martin, Chicago posted a score of 94, closely followed by St. Anskar, Rockford with a 93. Holy Trinity, Belvidere and St. Michael’s of Barrington scored 78 and 76 respectively to make up our most energy-efficient parishes. A score of 94 indicates that St. Martin’s is more energy efficient than 94% of the churches in the USA on a usage and weather adjusted basis. All of these parishes scored above 75 and are eligible to apply for recognition from US Environmental Protection Administration in the form of an Energy Star plaque, recognition on EPA’s website, and the use of EPA marketing materials and logo’s. Of some 300,000 house of worship in the US, only nineteen have earned this recognition from the Federal Government. We are on our way to becoming THE Green Diocese in the ECUSA. Congratulations to the high-scorers and to all who participated in the Energy Star initiative! Additional Portfolio Manager training workshops will be held starting in the Fall. Stay tuned for dates. ~ submitted by Bruce Beavis Walking on Heaven: An Eastertide Reflection 05/30/2011
Walking on Heaven: an Eastertide Reflection* | Who Are We?
The mission of the Bishop's Task Force on Sustainability (BTFS) is to help grow the church, form the faithful, and change the world by integrating sustainable practices throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Our vision is to be the 'Green' Diocese in the Episcopal Church U.S.A. We intend to achieve this vision by working collaboratively with and by being a resource for all parishes, agencies, and chaplaincies throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. Stay Connected!
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