"An inescapable network of mutuality..."

Dr. Martin Luther King

This morning I read Dr. Martin Luther King’s last Sunday morning sermon, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”. Dr. King preached this at Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968, the Sunday before he was assassinated. His text, from Revelation 21: 4-5 was “Behold, I make all things new; former things are passed away."

Several parts of this sermon struck me by their timeliness for our world 43 years later. His main point, that God calls us to be aware of and responsive to the changes and needs of the world, is obviously relevant whenever there is significant change in the world. Even more, I noticed that several of Dr. King’s points about the civil rights movement, the war on poverty, and the Vietnam War could be applied to environmental advocacy.

The interrelatedness of all of creation is an important concept for religious environmental thought. The carbon emissions from our cars in Nebraska accumulate in the atmosphere with carbon emissions from all over the world, affecting the climate all over the world and acidifying the oceans. The effects of climate change and ocean acidification are experienced by other people and other species of living things. The fact that our actions have global consequences makes care of the environment part of loving our neighbors.

In this sermon, Dr. King talked about the need for people in his time to develop a global perspective. He said, “No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution.” He continued this point:

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

Talking about the challenge of fighting poverty, Dr. King discussed the story of the rich man (Dives) and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). “Jesus told a parable one day, and he reminded us that a man went to hell because he didn’t see the poor.” The problem, explained Dr. King, wasn’t that one man was rich and the other was poor; the problem was the rich man’s lack of awareness. Today we sometimes call such lack of awareness “willful ignorance”.

Dives didn’t go to hell because he was rich; Dives didn’t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. Dives went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He went to hell because he allowed his brother to become invisible.

When we fail to pay attention to impacts of pollution and climate change on some of the poorest people in the world, we allow our brothers and sisters to become invisible. Because it’s difficult for us to think about these things, we put the environmental problems and the people they affect first and worst out of mind. We never really see them.

The Millennium Development Goals include the goal of environmental stability as one of the essential ingredients of ending extreme poverty. Environmentalism in general, and especially religious environmentalism, requires an ongoing awareness of the relationship between a clean, sustainable environment and our ability to meet the basic needs of all of us who share this planet.

Something that separates environmental issues, especially issues of pollution and climate change, from other sorts of issues is that we do not have the luxury of time. Traditional political approaches that involve years of careful compromise and satisfaction with small successes and slow but steady progress are inadequate when feedback loops have already been established and tipping points loom on the immediate horizon.

Dr. King had heard people say that he and other civil rights advocates needed to slow down and quit pushing so hard. If they would “just be nice and patient and continue to pray”, then somewhere down the road things would eventually work out. Dr. King’s response was this, and it applies just as well to environmental advocacy today as it did to civil rights advocacy in the 1960’s:

There is an answer to that myth. It is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I am sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightists of our nation—the people on the wrong side—have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."

Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Dr. King ended the sermon talking about living in hope and not yielding to “a politic of despair”.

“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Water

Blog Action Day

Today bloggers around the world are participating in Blog Action Day, an annual occasion for bloggers to talk about a selected topic from each blog’s unique perspective. This year's topic for Blog Action Day is water.

Nebraskans know the importance of water. We are blessed with the Ogallala aquifer as a source of water for drinking and irrigation. We treasure our rivers and appreciate our lakes and ponds for fishing, boating, and watering livestock. Wetlands are an important element of our ecological system, and take on special importance when migrating birds, including the Sandhill cranes, come through along the central flyway.  Pollution and depletion of water resources is a constant concern for Nebraskans desiring a healthy, sustainable environment. The current controversy about a proposed TransCanada pipeline crossing the Nebraska Sandhills has highlighted the importance of these wetlands and of the Ogallala aquifer to our economy and our way of life.

Christians know the importance of water. The water of baptism is central to our liturgy. During the Thanksgiving over the Water in our baptismal liturgy, the celebrant recounts some of the events of the salvation story in which water was a central element: the creation story, the Exodus through the Red Sea, the baptism of Jesus.

The Episcopal Church is committed to the Millennium Development Goals, and our concern for the environment springs in part from that commitment. Along with being a piece of the goal of environmental sustainability, access to clean water is a key piece of the goals related to children’s health, maternal health, and preventing diseases.  If we care for the poor, we will care about having clean, sustainable water resources around the world. Jesus said, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:42)

If only we had known...

Coral Reefs, the Rich Man's Cry, and the MDGs

Luke 16:19-31

“Ensure environmental sustainability” is the seventh of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) . Ensuring environmental sustainability and the other goals are all pieces of addressing extreme poverty in our world. A sustainable, stable environment is key to the other goals: to ensuring access to clean water, to fighting diseases such as malaria, and to making it possible to grow food and have plentiful supplies of fish. Climate instability in the form of more extreme floods, droughts, and severe storms both exacerbates poverty and makes the effects of poverty even more severe.

Yesterday the UN concluded a summit on the MDGs, a summit that many in the Episcopal Church followed with interest because of our 2003 commitment  to endorse and support these goals.  Devon Anderson and Bishop Ian Douglas of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation released a statement exhorting us to prophetic action on behalf of the MDGs – on behalf of the people whose lives hang in the balance – pointing out that where secular leaders run into political problems at home if they push for the sort of effort it will take to reach the goals by the target year of 2015, the church is freer to act.

Against this backdrop and with this Sunday’s Gospel, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, in mind, news this week about the plight of coral reefs illustrates why Christians should be especially concerned about environmental issues and what unique perspective the church has in all of this.

On Monday, the New York Times under the headline Extreme Heat Bleaches Coral, and Threat Is Seen reported that the extreme heat so far this year is affecting coral in various locations “from Thailand to Texas”. The coral’s bleaching indicates that it is going into a sort of survival mode. If the stress continues long enough, the coral dies. A report yesterday from NOAA says that coral bleaching is also likely in the Caribbean this year.

Coral reefs are an essential part of ocean ecosystems; coral reefs provide habitat for other living things, including fish. The NOAA report explains that the decline and loss of coral reefs throughout the world “has significant social, cultural, economic and ecological impacts on people and communities.” As the New York Times article points out:  “In dozens of small island nations and on some coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines, people rely heavily on reef fish for food.”

As the atmosphere and oceans get warmer, people who rely on reef fish for food will have less to eat.  As governments and peoples fail to address climate change, there are real consequences for real people. Aid programs have long operated on the principal that it’s better to teach someone to fish than simply give someone a fish, but if there aren’t any fish to be caught, it’s an entirely different situation.  People who live in island nations and along coastal areas already know how to fish; a sustainable environment would continue to make fish available.

Some folks say that it’s difficult to care enough to act when we don’t actually see the people who suffer from our inaction.  Certainly most of us are more compelled to help someone suffering right in front of us than unknown people we don’t see or know. But this inclination doesn’t determine our actions; we have the ability to think and understand the ways our actions affect others. The fact that a gut reaction spurs us to action more quickly than does a reaction that originates in our understanding doesn’t excuse us from acting.

The rich man in the Gospel story begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his family of the consequences of living selfishly and ignoring the invisible poor. Jesus has Abraham give this reply: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  They already had the information they needed to do the right thing but found reasons not to act; more information would only generate more excuses.

This story suggests an image of us middle class Americans sometime in the not so distant future realizing what our inaction has done to the Earth and its inhabitants, wishing that someone from the future could have come to us in 2010 when every other issue – religious, political, or personal -- seemed more important than climate change. If only someone had told us what was happening, if only we had known…

But we do know. We have incredible access to news reports and scientific reports, to books and videos; we have lots and lots of information. We have Moses and the prophets and the Gospel; we have the leadership of the Episcopal Church encouraging us to act. Yes, it’s overwhelming sometimes; yes, it takes some effort to look beyond our own daily lives; but Jesus calls us to lay aside our excuses and act out of love.

Haiti

The devastating earthquake in Haiti last week has touched our hearts. People here are responding with generous donations and with prayers; the images we have seen from Haiti touch us deeply and raise the question of what we can do to help.

At times like this, some people – both those in Haiti who were directly affected by the earthquake and people who are watching from afar – ask theological questions: Where is God in all of this? Why do such terrible things happen? Where is Christ? When something like this earthquake results in such a huge amount of human suffering and loss of life, these questions are not asked in the abstract. The questions come from the heart, as part of the cries of the victims or the exclamations of the rest of us as we see the pictures and the estimates of the number of people killed or badly injured or homeless.

As we all know by now, the answers have run the gamut. Pat Robertson’s now infamous explanation that this suffering is the logical outcome of a “pact with the devil” made by the ancestors of the people who are suffering is only one example of many who think bad things happen because God punishes people. On Sunday evening, CNN showed a clip of a religious service held in Haiti that day, with the pastor telling the congregation that God was punishing Haitians for their sins.

Episcopalians for the most part reject such explanations; we think Christ is found the midst of people who are suffering; when we are suffering, Christ shares our pain and grief, comforts us and encourages us. Christ’s love and presence is made visible through the Church; our task is to provide food, water, shelter, healing, comfort, and hope. This report from the Episcopal News Service provides examples of particular responses to the earthquake from the Episcopal Church. Most importantly at this time, we can continue giving to Episcopal Relief and Development’s Haiti Fund. The Diocese of Haiti is numerically the largest diocese in the Episcopal Church; our network of churches, schools, and people has been badly damaged, but still gives us a way to get to the work at hand fairly quickly and well.

One of the most heartbreaking things about Haiti is that the earthquake is one of a history of tragedies in that country. There was great need there before the earthquake struck. When we talk about the Millennium Development Goals targeting the poorest people on Earth, we are talking about places like Haiti. Like most other countries where there is extreme poverty, one piece of the puzzle has to do with the environment. In Haiti’s case, deforestation has resulted in soil instability that makes hurricane rains take many more lives than in places like the Dominican Republic, which shares the island; with deforestation, topsoil for growing food is gone, and desertification makes it more difficult to grow food. (Pictures and links to animation showing satellite images of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic – made very clear because of the deforestation on the Haitian side of the border – is available here from the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.)

Most Americans don’t know about the deforestation of Haiti; before the earthquake, many were vaguely aware that Haiti was a poor country, but knew little about why Haiti is so poor. Yesterday evening there was a Prayer Service for Haiti at the Washington National Cathedral. Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori preached; I recommend taking a few minutes to watch the video of her sermon . One of the things she said was this: “May this terror shake us out of complacency and willful ignorance.”

We have chosen to remain ignorant of conditions in Haiti and many other places in the world where there is severe poverty. Knowing little history, we don’t know the causes of Haiti’s political and economic instability. Knowing little science, we don’t know about deforestation and pollution and the ways these intersect with economic and political forces to impact people’s lives every day. Many people choose to remain ignorant of the wider issues of pollution and climate change and how they affect every living thing on the Earth.

Bishop Jefferts Schori talked about planting seeds of hope in Haiti, and we are doing that now as we respond with aid. But she also reminded us that we must be constant in our caring: “Our remembering has to be long term. It must endure if it is to beat back the terror of this disaster.”

Her words apply not only to the current disaster in Haiti, but to all the work there is to do in our world to end extreme poverty. A big piece of that work is the seventh Millennium Development Goal, ensuring environmental stability so that people are less vulnerable to natural disasters and so that all of us can live in hope of a healthier, more secure future.

Please consider a generous donation to Episcopal Relief and Development’s Haiti Fund . As we reach out to help our sisters and brothers in Haiti, may we become more aware of the world around us, more willing to look at the realities of our world, and more able to serve as the Body of Christ.