“How eager is our God to share with us
the ways of eternal life.”
The year 2020 has been the warmest year on record for our country. We’ve had so many hurricanes people had to start using the Greek alphabet for their names. Wildfires have burned thousands of acres in the west, while flooding devastated the middle of our country, and there were droughts across the Great Plains. Animals in the artic and elsewhere around the world have begun to shift their patterns and ecosystems are changing. Scientists tell us the pandemic is a result of global changes. Winter is around the corner and we are waiting to find out what that will mean to us. We can now definitely say — climate change is here.
The earth is under threat from a careless humanity. God created the earth with a fantastic ecosystem, giving it the power to heal itself and the power to be an ever renewing source of life for gazillions of created beings. People, created to be stewards of Creation and co-creators, have instead plundered and pillaged the earth, leading to the extinction of many of God’s creatures and this climate change that is now happening. Habitat degradation is the leading cause of creatures going extinct. Increasing toxicity can kill off different species rapidly. Humanity also simply overhunts some creatures, a more direct route to extinction. This is not good stewardship.
Prophets have arisen to warn us of the coming climate change, but humanity for the most part has chosen to ignore them. Ignoring, ridiculing, and punishing prophets is a common pattern of humanity down through the ages. However, there are some who have awakened to protect our earth, to help earth recover, and to even stop the abuse. Perhaps more of us will awaken to the need for humanity to repent and change its ways. We can hope.
It is an uphill battle. Many people have narrow minds and cannot see past tomorrow, especially if their main concern is “The Economy.” As if “The Economy” were the source of life, and not the earth, they make decisions based on money, on the bottom line, and not on life. The majority of us are asked to sacrifice and bow down to “The Economy,” and so is the earth. Those who have created their high towers of profit refuse to come down from those towers and only seek to build them higher.
God’s intention for Creation is good and God’s way of doing things leads to a peaceful coexistence of all of Creation. People, created in the image of God, are part of God’s plan for Creation. In fact, the plan needs our cooperation, for we are one of the ways that the source of all life, an immaterial being, interacts with a material Creation.
Humanity was created for a purpose and that purpose is to share with God in the plan for Creation. We are caretakers and stewards. Being created in the image of God means there is that of God in each one of us. We are meant to be about God’s work here on this earth and to be doing things in God’s way. We are the way God touches the earth. God imagines every day that we will wake up to who we are and so God has been pursuing us down through history in an attempt to turn us around, away from our ways of death and destruction toward God’s way of life. God is not only love, God is hope.
As good stewards and partners with God we need to pay attention to what we are doing and consider what is good for all the earth and its creatures, not just ourselves. We should not be making sacrifices to “The Economy” as if it were the source of life. It is not. We have been created for the world, not the world for us. People have gotten that part of the creation story wrong for centuries. We are part of God’s plan for Creation, not the end point of Creation. God did not give us the earth to use it up and wear it out. We were given to the earth as its caretakers. In other words, we are supposed to be a gift to the earth as partners with God.
Sometimes I think like this — It would be a shame if God has to start over with some different creatures as co-creators because we fail to wake up and do our part. The earth will continue, but there is no guarantee that humanity must continue. But, on the other hand, I continue to believe in humanity and because of the coming of Christ into our world, we can cooperate with God and make things better.
My beloved ones, we can all play some little part in making this a better world.
Bishop Kedda
Bishop Kedda 