(Psalm 16:5-11; Job 38:1-11) J G White

2nd Sunday of Easter, April 23, 2017, UBC Digby

 
Here is love vast as an ocean,
Loving-kindness as a flood…
Grace and love like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above…

So sang the Choir.  The vastness of creation has always been the language of Faith.  The oceans and tides, rivers and mountains – all are great and speak of great things.

Yesterday was Earth Day.  Over the past month I have had visions of the ancient Acadian Forest of Nova Scotia fill my imagination.  What did these forests and coastlines look like, say, 600 years ago?  If I had a time machine at my disposal, that is one moment I would visit.  Under the overwhelming shade I would travel the province, peeking out at the landscape from the coastlines and wetlands.

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, 1847.  And this scene comes from but 260 years ago, when that forest primeval was being taken down.  It tells the tale of changing boundary lines.  The English took over and expelled the French.  Not to mention the First Peoples, being shoved into smaller spaces among us.  

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, says Psalm 16, I have a goodly heritage. (16:6)  

We like boundary lines.  We humans.  The Old Testament stories of the Hebrews tell us of the parcelling out of their Promised Land, which happened after they arrived, and from which they themselves would be taken.  And then return.  Again and again.  With too many wars and battles from century to century over that Holy Land.

We like good boundary lines for ourselves. And, in the grand scheme of things, we Nova Scotians can be grateful for the beautiful land that is ours, so to speak.  

The new Jewish Publication Society Version puts Psalm 16 verse 6b this way:
Delightful country has fallen to my lot;
lovely indeed is my estate.  

 The boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places, here in Nova Scotia.  Lovely indeed.
Yet the real boundary lines of Creation are beyond our control and fathoming.  Even when we have a part in shifting them, these days.  Moments of trouble and turmoil remind us that this world is bigger and more powerful and more unpredictable than we often admit to ourselves.
 
We visited a scripture scene today from the life of Job.  Way back in Hebrew history this man had lived well and lived right – and disaster strikes.  His estate, his family, his own health are all destroyed.  And apparently for no reason.  Job has four friends who visit, and when they start talking they never stop.  “All this trouble must be someone’s fault – yours, Job, we’re sorry to say.  Or God’s.”  

After all the talk, all the struggle of Job to figure out why God did this, allowed this… the Almighty One finally shows up.  In a great storm the Creator appears.  And the creator speak of what?  Job’s little problems?  His unstopped suffering?  No. The Creator speaks of creation, the ordering, the organizing of creation.  

Here is a sample from the Book of Job, chapters 38 & 39.  God asks questions – rhetorical questions.
Where were you when I created the earth?
   Tell me, since you know so much!
Who decided on its size? Certainly you’ll know that!
   Who came up with the blueprints and measurements?

Look at the marvels of physics:
“Do you know where Light comes from
   and where Darkness lives
So you can take them by the hand
   and lead them home when they get lost?

Look up to the vast distances of space:
    “Can you catch the eye of the beautiful Pleiades sisters,
   or distract Orion from his hunt?
Can you get Venus to look your way,
 or get the Great Bear & her cubs to come out & play?

Look to the real wild animals on earth:
“Can you teach the lioness to stalk her prey
   and satisfy the appetite of her cubs
As they crouch in their den,
   waiting hungrily in their cave?

Look to the incredible birds:
“Was it through your know-how that the hawk
learned to fly,
   soaring effortlessly on thermal updrafts?

This is the sort of answer the suffering man, Job, gets from his God.  Job is given the presence of God – a meeting with the Creator. Job is given perspective.  This world, and your life, is part of something far bigger than you can ever see or know.  You but catch a glimpse. And, you know Me, the Creator.

The work of science throughout the ages has sought out answers.  The size of the earth.  Two hundred years before the life of Jesus, Eratosthenes (276-195 BCE) calculated the circumference of the earth to be 25,000 miles.  It is actually 24,900 miles!  Eratosthenes did amazingly well, comparing the shadow of a stick at Alexandria at the same moment the sun was directly overhead at Syene, now called Aswan, Egypt.  

Ornithologists through the centuries have marveled at the flight of birds, and their amazing travel.  Right now, many species are migrating across the Americas, some flying from south of the equator, to their nesting sites in the Canadian Arctic.

There is no controlling such things, no changing of these amazing patterns, and their bounds.  

Well, almost no changing them.

I happened to be researching South Sudan the other day, where such famine and fighting is going on now.  I wandered in my reading to the Nile River, and then to the Aswan High Dam, that halts the Nile, far downstream from Sudan and South Sudan.  2,200 years after Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of this planet at Aswan, the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River was built.   

We humans have learned to change the landscape – creating land where there was none, or giant bodies of water.  We can do farming on a gigantic scale – of crops, or of trees, or of fish, or whatever we want.  We change the landscape, the atmosphere, the sea.  We change biology – what lives and grows where.  What species have died, never to be seen again.

The beautiful boundary lines described in the poetry of Job 38 and 39 have been eclipsed by another sense of how boundaries have ‘fallen.’  

Earth’s boundary lines have fallen – in the sense of being broken – by our human impact.  Earthworms did not live in the soil of Canada until humans brought them here a couple hundred years ago.  

Earth’s boundary lines have fallen… as we learn how we have broken boundaries and limits we now should keep.  We are challenged to understand our impact on the boundary lines of our atmosphere and our sea levels.  

Earth’s boundary lines have fallen… Some would say things are crashing now, thanks to our impact.  No animal or plant has had as many effects upon this creation in so short a period of years as we humans have.  

I believe we cannot simply wait for the New Heavens and the New Earth, and let this Earth fall.  It is still worth doing our part for the generations to come, that they may also say, The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, I have a goodly heritage. (Ps. 16:6)

When Earth Day approaches each year, April 22, I wonder what new step a faith community like Digby Baptist could take.  What could we declare in the spring of the year?  How shall we live better in this creation?

Paper does not grow on trees, I say.  And it doesn’t, unless you are just going to unravel a bit of birch bark when you need some.  As a user of paper with a computer printer and photocopier almost every day, I ignore the high cost to the health of the planet of making paper.  I wondered if a good goal for Digby Baptist would be to cut back – significantly – on the paper we use up.  You know me already, and how fanatical I am about using both sides of any sheet of paper!   

Alongside this, I think out loud with you about how we eat and drink together.  The dishes and cutlery and cups we use come in a variety of formats. Is cutting down on paper and plastic and styrofoam a good step to take?

Well, I don’t think we have a declaration to make this year, this Earth Day, as a congregation.  I don’t believe the leadership settled this, or came to a consensus.  Perhaps in a year’s time we can be decisive, and take one small step.  

There is a need for many small steps, and some very large ones.  Best practices of a Church within Creation will make a difference, and inspire our individual habits to improve.  

Sometimes it just comes down to habits.  Our good habits, our bad habits.  The bad ones we thought were good or OK. We get our own boundary lines changed.  How we get rid of our trash changes.  We change our shopping habits.  We alter our expectations when it comes to heat in the winter.  

Does not our Master inspire this?  Our personal troubles are one piece of the puzzle of the meaning of life.  In the grand scheme of things there is a Grand Scheme of Things.  This faced Job.  All the forces of Creation came crashing down upon him.  ‘Have you ever ordered the Morning to ‘get up?’  ‘Have you ever traveled to where snow is made?’  ‘Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you?’  And we look out upon the same amazing world.  Of which we are part.  Of which God proved to be a part in the life of Jesus. We are granted to much beautiful knowledge, thank God.

Perhaps one good ecological step for our Church to take this year is at the heart level.  What do we value?  Is this life on earth one of our values, as Christians here?  How do we love what God has given us?  And how then shall we put our money where our mouth is?

Oceans and waves and tides and rivers can inspire us, speak God’s word to us.  The word to live within our means as part of creation!  To learn our boundaries on this earth.  To be tiny co-creators in this world.  We can help the boundary lines to fall in pleasant places for others.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God… (Romans 8:19)