“Quieting the Roaring Heat”
Rev.
Dr. Douglas Olds
St.
Luke Presbyterian Church, San Rafael CA
August
29, 2021
The video of this sermon delivered is at http://www.stlukepres.org/worship/sermons/quieting-the-roaring-heat/
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 25: 1-10
Precis: The planet is on fire and our hope is not (and cannot be) grounded in technology. Hope comes from the adoption of the atmospheric virtues derived from the values of the Sermon on the Mount.
Preaching ancient scripture “must fade away centuries.” It must announce one decisive thing—“the very deep & essential relationship of the human being to God … the strivings of the living God with the human being, who is ever rebelling, & always creeping away.”
Reading the Bible is very
different than musing through a museum or archeological dig. The writings of prophets
like Isaiah present humanity’s relationship to God—what the human “does with
God & what God does with him, what place he takes in God's plan.”
Dragged through history, the
human has made a “home for himself in all sorts of cultural forms, but in his
deepest core within which the Bible addresses him, he is always the same. He
still follows the same sneaking paths, he still has the same refined methods to
push God away from himself quietly, under the pretense of seeking Him. The whole drama of God's coming to the human being &
the human's acting towards God” is reflected in stories of suffering and
redemption.
“As soon as I have really
listened to what God said centuries ago in that [prophetic] word, all the
centuries really fade away, & the same God immediately stands before me. I
must only [carefully] listen.”[1]
A dramatic
loop pictures the sequence of of the human story within the Biblical Prophets:
Human developments start with decline, accelerate, & then bottom
out in a retrograde moment of death or displacement.[5] Isaiah’s prophetic writings detail
the decline & decadence of Judah’s society & prophesies the brutal
siege & forced exile of God’s people to Babylon. Yet characteristic of a
prophet of the True God, Isaiah concludes the story with the people of God
anchored in God’s loving character & steadfast promises. The pit of death,
exile, & despair is not the last word in this loop, but is escaped by God’s
redeeming re-reversal, the upward trajectory that sets us right into eternity. Death
will be swallowed up by joy.
The end of the Book of Isaiah
has the Judahite exiles returning to the promised land accompanied by the Whole
Creation’s song: they return forth in peace
accompanied by the exultations of nature: the fields & the hills will clap their
hands in fellowship with the people’s enduring joy. Amen, &: Thanks be to God.
Yet now, present civilization
seems beset by its own dramatic and accelerating decline, threatening the
displacement and destruction of vast numbers of vulnerable people and other
species. Devastating us are the current invisible pandemic of COVID & materialism’s
psychic epidemic of global climate breakdown & injustice.
When I began studying Global
Warming in 1992, I quickly became convinced society couldn't simply wait for a technological
solution to arise from business as usual. I began proposing a substantial
carbon tax on consumption, progressively applied, to reduce combustion and
incentivize faster technological substitution of fossil fuels to transition to
renewable energy sources. Yet no regulatory price was put on carbon fuels to
internalize their social costs, and the technological solutions haven't
delivered.
If society had acted prudently
in 1990, the trajectory for keeping global heating within 1.5 degrees could
have been accomplished over 100 years with far less drastic intervention. But now:
“The brutal logic of this cumulative problem [is that] after 30 years of
failure [to meaningfully act], global CO2 emissions must now get to 0 within 20
years.”[2]
By 1992, society had entered its
“Calgon, Take me Away!” era. Staring into the abyss of the advancing disasters
of global heating, without any urgency of action,betrays a luxuriating and heedless
culture caught in the snares of death.
Yet contrary to many claims, the
Bible is NOT silent on the issue of global heating, nor should we expect it to
be. My doctoral work found dozens of applicable texts referring to God’s
displaced prerogatives to give shade & cooling--& of the misuse of
combustible resources in human consumerism’s pursuit of self-definition and material
pleasures. Global heating is Biblically attested as an injustice against God
& God’s favored who need rest & comfort—the agricultural and
environmental workers in these heating climes. Consider also God’s preferential
interest in the poor who live along rising coastlines, children affected by
changing vectors of climate-aggravated diseases, & women in rural
communities who bear the brunt of carrying water longer distances because of
increasing droughts.
In Isaiah chapter 44, the
people’s idolatry is explicitly linked with misapplied combustion of fuel. At the very least, high-consuming Christians
are called to exercise virtue and repentant self-denial in their material lifestyles—to
put forth a parachute to protect those most immediately vulnerable. Rather than
holding on to creature comforts, Jesus gave his life away. Simply wearing a
mask protects those most vulnerable to Coronavirus. Aren’t we called to do something
about our combustion-intensive lifestyles?
Our Scripture reading from
Isaiah this morning makes 3 crucial points: first, that God is a refuge for the
poor in shade & quietness that contrast with those Isaiah calls the
“ruthless” whose songs are noisy roars.
Second, heat & noise are linked
as similes in English, but the Hebrew preposition intends a more focused
correspondence than the English preposition “like.” Heat & noise are consequences
of the same human decadence.
Third, in verses 7 & 8, Isaiah
announces the end times promises of God—the ascending phase of the dramatic
prophetic loop—in the context of removing a covering—a mask, a “shroud or sheet”—that
suggests, like the eternal new dawn, the sky surrounding and above us: The
refuge for the poor will be realized in the shade & stillness that covers &
protects them.
We can either align ourselves
with this plan of God or continue rebelliously and heedlessly treating the atmosphere
as a cost-free carbon dump.
To return to the image of the
parachute mask, I want to extend that to a sea anchor. Some sea anchors look like a parachute, so I
hope to link in your mind’s eye the pandemic masks we wear for the protection
of others with that of a sea anchor we set out to slow our material appetites and stabilize our
collective journey. As the Church, our
souls have a winch anchor deeply secured in the rock of Ages: Which is the
character & the promises of God. Yet
I am calling for setting out the addition of a sea anchor in our household living
as history declines & storms take over—not only prudently reducing consumption
of fossil fuels for ourselves, but in neighbor-love for those most vulnerable.
Both when we wear a mask & when
we reduce fossil fuel combustion, we act in neighbor love & work for the
Creator’s enduring and resilient earth. Both
the Book of Ecclesiastes & the Psalms speak of the earth remaining “forever,”(Pss. 148.6; 37.29; Eccl. 1.4) so that humanity has not been granted “dominion” to deplete & degrade its
life-sustaining properties. Instead, humans are trustees for permanence and
justice.
Human trustees of the atmosphere exist in a spirit of perpendicularity—parachuting within God’s transcendent power above & prudently dragging a horizontal sea anchor to stabilize the community’s journey towards shalom and health amidst the storms of historical decline. Perpendicularity of aspect is loving God above and neighbors alongside which is realized in the awareness and practice of what I call the “atmospheric virtues.”
As an atmospheric virtue, combustion-avoiding
quietness practices peace, rest, & anchoring oneself in certain practices
& rhythms that help us to connect meaningfully with others & the Spirit
of God: Reading Scripture, embracing stillness & trust in the slow work of
God. Quietness is a way of perceiving, receiving, and absorbing God’s
strengthening presence. Quietness prepares
us to participate in God’s kingdom life.
Other virtues for the care of
the atmosphere include patience & “loyalty to place.” Patience counters our culture of combustion-fueled
speed and heat-generating haste.[3] Patience is moral courage
and constancy that preserves love and charity in the face of discouragement during
the long journey of faithful life. Loyalty to place means that humanity
recognizes the false promises of a destiny on another planet. Loyalty to planet
refuses to support the manned space program of atmosphere-degrading billionaires
singing of ruthlessness in roaring rocket temples to airless gods.
I’ve studied the irreversible
effects of aerospace travel on justice & ecological resilience, & as a
result, I’ve chosen to reimagine my retirement without exotic jet travel &
its combustion-intensive, noisy affectations. Like others, I have given up capitalism’s
fantasy of the travel bucket list. And So Now, I fly only for family.
Loyalty to place is the deep
contemplation of God’s will for the earthly situation in which God has placed
us—what the prophet Micah (4.4) details as the human goal of “living under our
own fig tree,”-- so that we find spiritual peace, provisions, & quiet close to home. Isaiah’s passage this morning concludes that
living with God is quiet rest.
Pursuing quiet, living patiently
and loyally, & committing politically as events devolve can be the most
poignant of human pursuits. As spiritual
disciplines, quietness, loyalty, & patience reveal to us the character of
our needs, our values, & our God-intended selves & make us receptive to
God’s healing presence. Quietness & patience combine moral courage with
gentleness & humility loyal to where God has placed us. These Sermon on the
Mount values are atmospheric virtues. They support community, the sustainability
of the atmosphere, & spread a great ‘Christ-like’ dignity over all.
Humanity is going over the
climate brink—it has already entered the vortex of global calamities. Intense heat
exposes our heart—when we are stressed, our true thoughts & character leak
out.
Time is short for human
civilization to turn back ecosystem and social collapse from Global Heating and
Climate Disruption, as well as diligently and sharply to focus its attention,
in light of God’s judgment, on the social injustices from destructive
political-economic systems. Perhaps it is too late for civilization, which does
not in any way negate the need to continue on living faithfully, for virtue
will be tested and refined in the crucible of an increasingly fevered planet:
The pursuit and embodiment of goodness and virtue knows no
expiration.
We’re not all in the same boat,
but we’re all in the same storm. No individual can turn back the Storm, but we can
align our lives with God’s purposes even inside the storm. Christians are
called to take real responsibility for the social order in light of the prophetic
& historical logic of God, including
our accountability for our failed accommodations with destructive and unjust practices
and systems.
Waiting for the light is not simply
sitting out the heat.
Instead let us wisely and fruitfully align ourselves with the
ascending trajectory of God’s historical plan by our atmospheric virtues of
conservation, prudence, & gentle living. If we find ourselves fallen into the historical
pits of descent, let us repent & look to the author & perfecter of our
faithful living— our Lord Jesus Christ.
The time to commit to his
presence in life renewed & sustaining is always now.
Yet “As long as our future drives other people to despair,
as long as our prosperity means poverty for others, as long as our 'growth'
destroys nature –
anxiety, not hope, will be our daily companion.” [4] By our practices no less
than our beliefs, Christians are hope’s guides for society’s return to earth’s
heavenward track.
May it be so for you & me.
[1] Johan
Herman Bavinck
[2] Lasse
Kummer @LasseClimate 8/25/2021 tweet.
[3]
Pacific cultures have the idea of “coconut time” since the coconut comes to fruition
without hurry or concern for haste. In this,” the coconut symbolizes Christ,
since it gives life to human beings, and when it is broken new life springs
forth” in the slow and patient work of God.”--Talia, Maina, “Give us the right
to dance: towards fatele theology in the context of a sinking mother land." Theologies
and Cultures 6 no. 2, 2009, 203-230 (207).
[5] "Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wilderness,
for I had wandered from the straight and true."
(Dante Alighieri, trans. Anthony Esolen)
