What an appropriate day for our third topic in our series of moral values issues - it is a beautiful Spring day in St. Louis, and our service feartures both of our sacraments which have at their center parts of the creation - water and the fruit of the earth. Now the environment does not usually make the list of "moral" issues. We tend to treat it either as an economic issue, a health issue, or as an issue of its own category. We want to know about a candidate's environmental record, but rarely when asking about a candidate's moral stands would we expect to hear anything about his or her votes on environmental issues. And yet, I believe that the we not only should treat the environment as a moral issue, but we must - our faith demands that we live out our relationship with God's creation in responsible and meaningful ways - which is at the heart of every moral issue.

So, to begin, my position. I have already indicated that I believe that the care and protection of the environment is a moral issue that deserves the same thoughtful and faithful action of any other moral issue. So how are we doing in this area? As a race, abysmally. We have so deforested, so polluted, so paved over, so poisoned, so overheated, so depleted, and so maimed the planet that we can no longer guarantee that human life as we know it can be sustained on a global scale for many more centuries. Oceans are warming up, ice caps are melting, fish populations are precipitously dropping, pollutants are killing. It is not a happy picture. And yet our government will not sign the Kyoto Treaty because it fears it will hurt our economic well-being. We know how to reduce air pollution through tax incentives and regulations, and yet we continue to subsidize gas guzzlers and look for more ways to get cheap oil. Well...I could go on and on. In short, both our country and the world needs an environmental policy that not only strengthens national security and maintains abundance for all of God's children, but one that has a reasonable chance for preserving this planet long after we are here. If it means a dollar or more a gallon tax on gas, so be it - in Norway, which is a net exporter of oil, gasoline costs over $6.00 a gallon - and guess what, they have a cleaner more livable environment than almost any where else in the world. If it means that we have a lower standard of living so that our children and grandchildren can live, so they have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe food to eat, so be it. What price is too high for that? For while every policy has a cost, every direction will have an economic impact, the beauty of a day like to day is priceless.

So what does scripture tell us about the environment and about its care? First of all, we need to remember that the Bible was written at a time when humans had little impact on the well-being of the planet. In fact, when these first stories of how God created the earth and placed us on it were being told, the earth was a scary awesome place - humans very much felt at the mercy of nature. The recent tsunami in South Asia reminded us that we can still be at nature's mercy, that the immense power of nature can in a moment overwhelm us, but it is also sobering to remember that through our lack of care for the environment, we kill far more people each year than the tsunami or ten tsunamis could do. So like our other issues that we have considered in this series, the Bible doesn't give us policy prescriptions, it does not lead us to single conclusions. Rather it tells us about ourselves and about the God who created us.

When God saw all that God had made, the stars and the nebulae, the planets and the moons, the mountains and the oceans, the trees and the grass, the salamanders and the elephants, the men and the women, God said it was good. So when we talk about the environment, about all of creation, we are talking of God's handiwork, handiwork that God called "good." Nature is not neutral, for as Psalm 19 proclaims: "The heavens are telling the gloryof God; and the firmament proclaims God's handiwork." So if nature represents some of God's best work, and we are the pinnacle of God's work, what then is our relationship to the rest of creation? That first chapter of Genesis points the way: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." So God made creation for our benefit and enjoyment - that's the subdue part; and God also put it in our care - that's the have dominion part. Sometimes we think of the word dominion as having control - as if the earth were our private property. But the earth is the Lord's and we are its caretakers - just as the kings of Israel were not absolute authorities, but were caretakers on God's behalf. For Christians, we must consider ourselves and behave as stewards of the earth because God has established it that way. To ignore the care of the earth, to say that this will just have to be another generation's problem, to wish away the problems that our lifestyle creates (which includes big cars driven by one driver (you would be appalled to know how many miles a week I drive in my car alone - it appalls me!); green lawns (did you realize our beautiful lawns are murder on the environment?); landfills clogged with poisonous metals (computers, which have a shelf life of just a couple of years are full of nasty metals that poison the water and soil) - to ignore our role in these issues is to ignore and scorn the God who created us.

So what do we do? How do we take on environmental care as a moral issue? The problem is so immense - it's not just my car that spews pollutants into the air - it's the millions of cars - not only in the U.S. but around the world. Sure we can recycle, we can try to take public transportation when it is convenient, but those efforts feel so miniscule. This is a global issue that has so many strands. I don't know exactly how we should act, but the first thing we can do is decide that we can act. God has given us "dominion" over the earth - which tells me that we have, not only the capacity to mess things us, but the capacity to fix it up as well. Too often we don't tackle large issues because they feel beyond us. Tsunamis are beyond us; pollution, however, is not. As a moral voice in this issue, the church can serve as a persistent reminder that we can make a difference - that the only thing that is inevitable is God's love and care for us and all of creation.

I hope that one day our descendants look back at the year 2005 and talk about us as early church history - you know, that was just at the end of the first two thousand years of church history. If early history covers that first 15% of a movement's history, then these descendents will be living sometime in the year 15000. It is my dream that they will look back to our time and rejoice that we treasured creation and them so much that we were willing to do what it took to make sure that they could experience a day like today - when the leaves were unfurling in a riotous combination of greens, when the breeze was fresh and cool, when new life and new birth made the spirit glad.