Advent Hope 2015

Advent is about waiting in hope. This time of year, the days are short in the northern hemisphere. Along with the darkness from the longer nights, we have days like today in Nebraska when clouds and fog make even the daytime darker than usual. Some days, new snow or thick fog makes everything seem quieter than normal. Advent calls us to an inward spiritual observance of what we might be experiencing outwardly and physically; Advent calls us to look for signs of hope, pieces of light sparkling in the midst of spiritual darkness, and to enter into spiritual quiet so we can listen for the sound of good news. 

In the Advent I Green Sprouts post three years ago, Doing the math in hope, I told about hearing Bill McKibben speak in Omaha as part of his Do the Math tour. McKibben’s primary message that night was this:

It’s simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.

McKibben went on to talk about the then new campaign for institutions to divest from the fossil fuel industry as a way for people to help address what our political leaders had been unwilling to address with any significant action. Divesting was one way of doing everything we can to change the trajectory of climate change by keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Divestment wouldn’t solve the problem, but it might be enough of a push to make a difference. 

Bill McKibben also said our precarious situation, while very discouraging, was also exciting because we were getting “nearer to the heart of things”. In that 2012 Advent I post, this was my reflection on the idea of getting nearer to the heart of things:

And we are indeed down to what is essential to survival; we are down to questions of meaning and questions about our priorities; we are down to questions about where our hearts lie when we face the finitude not only of our own lives but of our biosphere, our planet, and the way of life it has supported. Our search for hope in this seemingly hopeless situation leads us to a place of repentance and conversion: Are we willing to do what it takes to make hope possible?

I left Bill McKibben’s presentation thinking that the Episcopal Church needed to divest from fossil fuels, and a few months later found that other Episcopalians were thinking the same thing. We did not expect divestment to come easily. We were going forward from a position of hope and faith, knowing that we were doing what we needed to do even if we failed in our efforts. In the end, everything came together at this year’s General Convention to make it happen. 

After the General Convention of the Episcopal Church voted to divest major funds from fossil fuels and reinvest in clean energy this summer, it seemed to me that choosing to divest “was both a sign of our hope and a catalyst for future hope”. 

As I think about hope this Advent, I wonder at how quickly our efforts bore fruit. I give thanks that this small piece of the work before us went well. And I go back to the Advent questions I asked three years ago in light of the discouraging facts about climate change and what it will take for us to ensure a sustainable future for humankind: Where do our hearts lie? How do we hope when everything seems dark? Can we set aside lesser priorities of personal convenience and comfort in order to do what needs to be done for the greater common good both close to home and in corners of the globe about which we know very little? 

These 21st century questions are timeless Advent questions; the journey of the heart we take to repent and turn ourselves and the world around is an Advent journey. 

The beginning of this Advent season brings us to the important climate talks in Paris. There are good reasons to think that the best we can realistically expect from these talks are promises to limit future greenhouse gas emissions significantly but not enough to do more than delay the catastrophe. In everyday terms, we might say this is “the best we can hope for”. 

But there is also genuine hope. Genuine hope sees the darkness for what it is, but looks and listens for light and good news. There is genuine hope that hearts and minds will change, that the voices of the activists outside the talks will be heard, that the voice of the poorest people in the world will somehow be heard among these leaders of the nations, and that the voices of the oceans and the birds and endangered plants and animals will count for something. And there is genuine hope that if our leaders fail us yet again, we will find other ways to ensure that fossil fuels stay in the ground.

Pray for those gathered in Paris, that may have wisdom and courage and the ability to understand deeply what they are doing this week. Pray for those of us not gathered there, that we continue to speak and act in ways that bring genuine hope. Pray for hope and in hope. 

Choosing Hope: Divestment from Fossil Fuels

But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled. (Mark 6:37-42)

Two weeks after the close of the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Sunday lectionary has us pondering Mark’s version of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. This story of Jesus taking what we can give and turning it into all that we need speaks to our situation today with regards to climate change. [See previous posts Loaves and Fishes and Environmental Impact Statements and New Questions for a New Time based on other John and Matthew's versions of the story.] 

All of us working to mitigate climate change and its effects know that what we can offer is not by itself enough to stop the catastrophe that seems to be slowly unfolding before us. Yet we offer what we can because our faith tells us that Jesus can use our efforts in ways that we cannot imagine; we offer what we can because hope is a Christian virtue. 

The vote for Resolution C045
in the House of Deputies

Two weeks after the close of General Convention, several of us who advocated for the Episcopal Church to divest from fossil fuels are still processing the success of Resolution C045 that calls on major funds of the Episcopal Church to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest in clean energy. Part of my own processing is realizing the success of our efforts against the discouraging background of the daily onslaught of news stories about climate change and its effects. Since General Convention ended, the rather discouraging State of the Climate 2014 report has been published, fires continue to burn in western Canada and California, homes and lives have been lost in floods in Kentucky and southern Ohio, and a new study says that we are already in the "worst case scenario" for sea level rise. What does our action mean when compared to the enormity of the situation?

In the greater scheme of things, the amount of money to be divested and reinvested is not great. And the moral reach of the Episcopal Church in 2015 is not as great as it was a few decades ago; the pronouncements of the Episcopal Church do not carry the weight among leaders of government and industry that they once did. None of this, though, makes the passage of Resolution C045 insignificant. In the midst of our General Convention, we managed to have a conversation of sorts about climate change. We acknowledged the big hot elephant in the room and talked, first in the Environmental Stewardship and Care of Creation committee hearings and then, briefly but clearly, in both Houses of General Convention about what is happening and how the church might respond. When presented with a proposal to change our investment policy to reflect the realities of today’s world and our concern for people now and in the future who are negatively affected by climate change, we voted in favor of divestment.

Along with divestment/reinvestment, another successful resolution that came out of the Environmental Stewardship committee was Resolution A030 that creates an Advisory Council on the Stewardship of Creation with work at the provincial level to develop theological resources and networks for practical application to help us respond to climate change. 

We offered what we could at General Convention, knowing that even when the challenge seems beyond our ability, Jesus can take what we freely give and use it to provide just what we need even when we can’t imagine what that provision might look like. Choosing to divest from fossil fuels was both a sign of our hope and a catalyst for future hope.

Given the challenges before us, we could easily have been cynical rather than hopeful. We could have ignored climate change completely. Opponents of divestment offered arguments that we should keep our “place at the table” in the fossil fuel industry even though the nature of the industry is the extraction and processing of the fossil fuels that are killing us. Following that advice, we could have clung to our current investment policy while telling ourselves that it was for the sake of advocating for something — for the fossil fuel industry to do something other than what it does? —and not because of our own fears. We could have looked at the enormity of the challenge of climate change and decided it was beyond our abilities to do anything at all, choosing to put our energies into the church’s internal concerns rather than into serving the world in Christ’s name. But we chose hope and we chose faith in Jesus. 

Hope during these challenging times looks like General Convention. In all sorts of areas, we chose to follow the Gospel as best we know how; we chose to give Jesus what we have in faithful expectation, in hope, that Jesus, working through us and through what we offer, “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 102). 

Part of the joy of participating in General Convention this year was the lack of cynicism and the spirit of hope grounded in faith in Jesus. I’m still processing all that we did in Salt Lake City, but I know that my hope for the church and for the world was shored up mightily by what we did there.

Abandoning Business as Usual?

A resolution calling on the Investment Committee of the Executive Council, the Episcopal Church Pension Fund, the Episcopal Church Endowment Fund, and the Episcopal Church Foundation to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in clean renewable energy is on today’s priority calendar in the House of Deputies at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention. The House of Bishops has already passed Resolution C045.

This has been an amazing General Convention so far, with signs of a sea change in the Episcopal Church. Many people have a deep desire to be the church in the world rather than simply hoping that the world might stop by some Sunday morning and see how pretty our buildings are. Getting serious about our response to climate change is a big piece of being the church in today’s world.

Yesterday I came across a post written two years ago, Discipleship and Abandoning Business as Usual. While the Sunday lectionary is not this year’s, and the specific examples of current effects of climate change and the political conversation are different, I’m sharing it because it still speaks to what we are about today at General Convention.

Please pray for the members of the House of Deputies as we continue our work on all sorts of resolutions, and especially pray for us to find the wisdom, courage, and love to end the practice of profiting from the destruction of life on this planet.

Discipleship and Abandoning Business as Usual

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9: 61-62)

As we prepare for our Sunday Gospel reading of Luke 9:51-62, we are hearing about record high temperatures and dangerous heat in the southwestern United States, the most recent widely publicized effect of global warming in the news in our part of the world. In India this week, there were mass cremations of hundreds of people who were killed in floods and landslides two weeks ago. Officials there predict that the final death toll will be more than 1000 people. In Canada, the city of Calgary is beginning what promises to be a long clean-up from flooding. According to this report from the CBC, “the province faces a potentially decade-long cleanup effort that could cost $5 billion by BMO Nesbitt Burns estimates.” President Obama gave a long-awaited major speech about climate change this week.

The reality of climate change is becoming clearer as both the increase in extreme weather events and the necessity of preparing for and mitigating its effects become more visible. “Business as usual” is not a realistic option any more.

Continue reading…

Fossil Fuel Divestment: God or Wealth?

Jesus talks about the uses and misuses of money throughout the Gospel. In the Gospel passage for today’s Daily Office (Luke 16:10-17), Jesus points out that a slave can’t serve two masters and then says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

When I read that passage this morning, I immediately thought of the post Divest from fossil fuels: An appeal to the Episcopal Church that The Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas posted on her Reviving Creation blog this week. This post displays and refutes the common arguments against the Episcopal Church divesting from the fossil fuel industry, and then sets out some the reasons why it is especially right for followers of Jesus to now let go of our investments in an industry whose very purpose is now understood to be at odds with the flourishing of life on our planet.

If you are an Episcopalian, I urge you to read this post to the end:

Divest from fossil fuels: An appeal to the Episcopal ChurchMay 25, 2015
Next month, leaders in the Episcopal Church will gather in Salt Lake City for our triennial General Convention.   Among the significant decisions that will be made is a decision about whether to divest from fossil fuels – that is, whether to sell off holdings of stocks and bonds from the world’s leading 200 fossil fuel companies as identified by the Carbon Underground and to re-invest in the clean energy sector. (Continue reading…)

If you aren't Episcopalian, it also is very worthwhile as food for reflection on the broader issues underlying fossil fuel divestment for various institutions.

While other important issues in the Episcopal Church will most probably get more attention before General Convention and will be considered the “big questions” for Deputies and Bishops to consider this year, climate change is the issue that will matter the most to us by the middle of this century and beyond. It is important for Deputies, Bishops, and all of us to understand what is involved in either acting or failing to act, and to understand why divestment from fossil fuels is morally and spiritually important to the Episcopal Church. 

The meditation on today’s Gospel passage in Forward Day by Day asks “What would America look like if we took Jesus seriously when he tells us that we can’t serve God and wealth?” As we prepare for General Convention, we might reflect on what the Episcopal Church would look like — and what we would be doing now — if we took Jesus seriously when he tells us we can’t serve God and wealth. And when he teaches us to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters who are hungry, thirsty, or otherwise in danger because we are failing to act meaningfully on climate change. Or when he simply tells us to love our neighbors, giving the Samaritan — the person from outside our immediate circle — as an example of our neighbor.

Earth Day 2015: The Church and the Writing on the Wall

You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know; but the God in whose power is your very breath, and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored. (Daniel 5:23)

Episcopalians read the story of Daniel interpreting the writing on the wall for King Belshazzar in our Daily Office readings for today and tomorrow (Daniel 5:1-12 and Daniel 5:13-30). These readings just happen to fall on Earth Day and the day after this year. For those wanting something chosen intentionally for Earth Day, our calendar provides a collect and lessons remembering John Muir, Naturalist and Writer, and Hudson Stuck, Priest and Environmentalist. But in many ways, I find the readings from Daniel more appropriate for Earth Day 2015.

Daniel names Belshazzar's sin: praising idols instead of the true God “whose power is your very breath”. Daniel notes that Belshazzar should have known better because he had seen his own father, Nebuchadnezzar, suffer the consequences of his pride. The writing on the wall spells out the consequence. God “has numbered the days” of Belshazzar’s kingdom. By the time Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall and understood the message, it was too late.

Our sin this Earth Day is that we have set idols of material and psychological comfort and comparatively short-term economic gain above following God’s commandment to care for God’s creation. Like King Belshazzar, we should know better. We have all of Scripture to tell us stories of people who set selfish goals ahead of obedience to God, and we have science to tell us what to expect to unfold from our failure to care for creation at least as much as we care for our temporary wealth and comfort. Scientists also tell us that this a critical point in our history. We know that we face worsening climate disruption under the best of circumstances, and if we don’t cut our greenhouse gas emissions very significantly and very soon, those disruptions will be more and more catastrophic. Our days may well be numbered.

Creation care is something that the church in the United States tends to tack on to our thinking, our prayers, and our budgets after other items considered more essential to our mission. Environmental stewardship is treated like something new instead of an essential piece of Christian spirituality that we are reclaiming and re-acknowledging. 

Repentance is in order this Earth Day. We repent certainly for the damage we have done to God’s creation and the effects of that damage on our sisters and brothers and other living things around the world, but we also need to repent for the damage we have done to our relationship with God through our failure to care for God’s beloved creation. Like Belshazzar, we have allowed our hubris to get in the way of a wholesome relationship with God. The Catechism teaches (p. 848, The Book of Common Prayer) that sin is “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Surely that is a sin to confess before God this Earth Day.

The Anglican Communion adopted the Five Marks of Mission several years ago. The Fifth Mark of Mission is “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”. A look at budgets at all levels and at where we put our energy, prayers, attention, and our investments show that environmental stewardship, considered essential to the church’s mission, is poorly funded and often neglected. By including creation care in the Marks of Mission, we demonstrate that on some level we know this is essential to the church’s work, but yet we fail to act as if this were an essential piece of the church’s work. 

Please pray with me this Earth Day for us to truly repent and to find the grace, wisdom, and love to heed the writing on the wall before it is too late.

A New Thing

At the 147th Annual Council of the Diocese of Nebraska in Scottsbluff last Saturday, we passed a resolution calling on the Episcopal Church Pension Fund and the Episcopal Church Endowment Fund to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest funds in the clean energy sector. Between now and General Convention, other dioceses are expected to offer resolutions about divestment from the fossil fuel industry.

The theme of our Annual Council was “Behold, I am doing a new thing!” The people of the Diocese of Nebraska showed that we are indeed open to something new. In response to a global warming crisis that is unlike anything humankind has ever faced, a crisis that makes the future of humankind itself uncertain, we are willing to imagine a different world. We are willing to imagine a world in which we no longer burn fossil fuels to create energy, a world in which we instead harness the energy of the wind and the sun. We are willing to imagine a world in which we mitigate climate change resulting from global warming rather than continuing to accelerate global warming. With faith and hope, the people of the 147th Annual Council were willing to think about the reality of global warming and do something in response. 

The resolution itself outlined two moral reasons and two financial reasons to divest from the fossil fuel industry and reinvest in the clean energy sector. In presenting the resolution, I reviewed the resolution and then shared some of my own some of my deeper personal reasons for working hard for the church to address climate change in a significant way. Here is an excerpt:

First are the justice issues arising from climate change and Jesus’ straightforward commandments to serve the poor. Some of the world’s poorest people are being affected first and worst by climate change — people in Pacific Island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands who are trying to figure out where they can go as their islands disappear; people in many places around the world who rely on traditional subsistence farming who no longer know when to plant and harvest because seasonal weather patterns have been disrupted by climate change; people in traditional Arctic villages built on permafrost — or what used to be permafrost — losing their homes and often their way of life, their culture and language; and all those affected by increasing tropical diseases, flooding, decreased water supplies as glaciers shrink or disappear, and so forth. 

Second is personal grief over the loss of familiar plants, birds, and trees. As a child, I first experienced the Holy in nature, and I still feel a special nearness to God when I feel close to God’s sacred creation. The loss of these things breaks my heart. 

Third is the knowledge that I can only begin to really comprehend of two things: first, what I know scientists tell us we will all face — us, our children, and whatever generations might come after — as global warming shoots beyond 2 degrees Celsius and goes on to 4 degrees or even 6 degrees warming, and what I know political and military analysts tell us about the breakdown of security around the world that would accompany these changes; and second, the knowledge that we — governments and industries and other institutions around the world — are failing to do much of anything right now to stop this. This isn’t hard to understand because the information isn’t there; it’s hard to understand because it is too terrible to contemplate. Somehow that has brought us to a point of inaction rather than action.

One reason we are reluctant to act significantly is that we are scared of facing the reality. Have you noticed how little we hear about global warming from politicians and pundits, or from pulpits, or even from one another in conversations? Talking about climate change is a big social taboo. One reason we sometimes get angry or annoyed with people like me who talk about such things is that we are all frightened of what is unfolding and perhaps a little ashamed at the things we have done or left undone that helped get us to this point. Along with that is that resistance to change that Mike Wagner talked about yesterday.

 At one point, Mike talked about the gap between the rate of cultural change and the rate of change most of us can readily accept. But what we needed to understand about Daniel’s ability to embrace change, he said, was that Daniel understood “You’ll be in Babylon in two weeks.” 

Graphs of carbon emissions and warming global temperatures show a similar shape to each other and a similar accelerated rate of change to those graphs of cultural change that Mike discussed. So far, the gap between those curves and a line showing our response to the global warming crisis has done nothing but increase. We won’t be in Babylon in two weeks, but we already see the beginnings of the change, and we will be in a whole new world by the middle of this century or perhaps as soon as 2030 — 16 years from now — if we continue to do too little too late. 

A church that leads in recognizing the moral issues involved in climate change and responding in a big way to this crisis — a crisis that is as much a spiritual crisis as a physical crisis — is a church that will continue to live and minister to God’s people in a changing world. I ask you to be that church and vote in favor of this resolution. 

I ask your prayers for other dioceses that will be looking at divestment and reinvestment between now and General Convention in 2015. Please pray for those of us working on this issue, that we might have the courage to work for a strong resolution at General Convention, the wisdom to do that work well, and hope to sustain us as we contemplate this issue.

Marching to Nineveh

In churches where yesterday’s Old Testament lesson was the last part of the Book of Jonah (Jonah 3:10-4:11), we heard about Jonah’s anger at God’s mercy to the Ninevites, who had listened to the message Jonah brought them from God and had repented. Jonah gets angry all over again when a bush God sent to give Jonah some shade dies after a day. God points out to Jonah that he is concerned about a single bush and yet begrudges God’s mercy to the people of Nineveh: “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and went thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” 

Yesterday was also the day of the huge People’s Climate March in New York City. Smaller marches and rallies gathered around the world in support. The People’s Climate March was timed to occur as participants began gathering for a UN Climate Summit, and a theme of the estimated 400,000 marchers was that inaction on climate change is unacceptable. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called world leaders to gather this week in order to build momentum toward a significant agreement at next year’s climate conference in Paris.

While the first part of the story of Jonah — his running away from God that results in his spending three days in the belly of a whale — is perhaps the most well-known part of the story, what happens when Jonah obeys God and goes to Nineveh to proclaim, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4) is a classic story about human nature. As I heard this read yesterday morning with the People’s Climate March and my many friends taking part in it on my mind and in my heart, I became aware of some places where the story of Jonah and the story of the climate march intersect. These intersections can help us as Christians formulate our response to climate change.

Proclaiming the truth

Many of the people marching yesterday have been speaking and writing about climate change for years. No matter how long they have been at it, though, a principal purpose of bringing together a large and diverse crowd of people around the issue was to raise awareness of climate change and its effects on people. The march had an environmental justice focus that brought together people from a variety of sectors — indigenous people, people of faith, union members, people who work for affordable housing, people from island nations, Appalachia, and our own Nebraska sandhills — who brought their own messages about the harmful effects of climate change on particular groups of people.

Jonah resisted telling the truth, and we as a society have been slow to tell the truth about climate change. Media Matters reported that the “Sunday news shows on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox failed to cover the People's Climate March”; coverage of climate change in general has been dismal in the mainstream American press. Unlike too many news reporters and political leaders, the people marching yesterday were there to proclaim the truth; they were there to be heard.

Repentance and reconciliation

When the Ninevites hear Jonah’s message and repent, Jonah is angry because he doesn’t think they deserve God’s grace. Given that God’s grace got Jonah out of the belly of the whale, his resentment of the Ninevites seems especially petty.

Last Friday, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori along with the heads for the Anglican Church of Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the  Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, issued a pastoral message on climate change. In it, the Bishops encourage us to leave behind our tendency to divide into factions and point fingers at one another, and instead to work toward reconciliation: 

Moreover, we need not surrender to political ideologies and other modern mythologies that would divide us into partisan factions — deserving and undeserving, powerless victims and godless oppressors. In Christ we have the promise of a life where God has reconciled the human community. In Christ God sets us free from the captivity of blaming and shaming. God liberates us for shared endeavors where we find each other at our best.

Encouraging reconciliation, and especially rejoicing as more and more people repent of our contributions to climate change and try to change our ways, is one of the gifts we Christians can offer the world at this time. Healing ourselves and learning to love one another is an essential piece of healing the planet. Politics as usual will not get us where we need to go.

Divestment and reinvestment

Divestment from the fossil fuel industry and reinvestment in clean energy would give the church an opportunity to practice repentance for our contributions to climate change and to lead the way to a better future for all living things. This weekend we learned that the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation — the philanthropic foundation for a family whose wealth originated with oil — is joining the divestment movement.

Resolutions will be introduced at several diocesan annual councils this fall calling on the Episcopal Church Pension Fund and the Episcopal Church Endowment Fund to divest from the fossil fuel industry. These resolutions lay the groundwork for an effort to bring the issue to General Convention in 2015. (I’ve proposed a divestment and reinvestment resolution for consideration at the Diocese of Nebraska’s Annual Council.)

God told Jonah that his concern about the death of one plant should extend to the entire population of Nineveh, both people and animals. When we Christians respond to climate change through truth-telling and acts of repentance and reconciliation, we will help save the lives of people and all other living things all over the world. 

Discipleship and Abandoning Business as Usual

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9: 61-62)

As we prepare for our Sunday Gospel reading of Luke 9:51-62, we are hearing about record high temperatures and dangerous heat in the southwestern United States, the most recent widely publicized effect of global warming in the news in our part of the world. In India this week, there were mass cremations of hundreds of people who were killed in floods and landslides two weeks ago. Officials there predict that the final death toll will be more than 1000 people. In Canada, the city of Calgary is beginning what promises to be a long clean-up from flooding. According to this report from the CBC, “the province faces a potentially decade-long cleanup effort that could cost $5 billion by BMO Nesbitt Burns estimates.” President Obama gave a long-awaited major speech about climate change this week.

The reality of climate change is becoming clearer as both the increase in extreme weather events and the necessity of preparing for and mitigating its effects become more visible. “Business as usual” is not a realistic option any more.

In our Sunday Gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus talks about the difficulty of discipleship. When we follow Jesus, we may find ourselves in a place that doesn't feel like home: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  Good and holy obligations, like burying the dead and saying a proper farewell to family members, are abandoned if they get in the way of discipleship. Following Jesus entails knowing that there are times when conventionally good things get in the way of the best things, the things toward which Jesus points us.

Our way of life as middle class Americans is in many ways the conventionally “good life”. We have secured many of the necessities of life in a way only dreamed of by most people in other times and places. We aren't bad people for living the way we live and enjoying our abundance, especially when we do so with thankful hearts. But knowing what we know now about the consequences of this way of life, especially our use of fossil fuels, helps us see that our conventionally good way of life is getting in the way of the greater good of caring for God’s creation and caring for the people in the world who are being affected first and worst by climate change.

Other Scripture lessons this past week have reminded us that clinging to customs and conventions, holding onto “business as usual”, is usually not the way to live in accordance with God’s will. The Eucharistic reading from Luke (Luke 1:57-80) for The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 24 tells the story of John’s father, Zechariah, breaking the conventions for naming a baby. When the temporarily mute Zechariah writes “His name is John”, everyone is “amazed” at his straying from the convention of naming a baby after a family member. When Zechariah then regains his speech, fear comes over the neighbors. Readings from Acts 6 and 7 later in the week, St. Stephen’s speech to the council, remind us of other times when people later counted among the most faithful followers of God’s will were persecuted for challenging customs and conventions.

Throughout Scripture, we find a willingness to challenge business as usual when necessary part of living faithfully. Being willing to question the ways we use our resources in our homes, businesses, and churches places us in the tradition of faithful disciples. We may very well need to choose between some traditions and customs that are dear to us in order to be faithful followers of Jesus. Our church buildings may need to be different in size and structure, or existing space may need to be used differently. The ways we prepare and serve food, the materials and activities we offer our children and youth, the ways in which we meet or communicate to do the work of the church are all areas that may require a change. And it’s time for the church to look prayerfully at our investments in the fossil fuel industry and consider whether those investments reflect faithful stewardship of our resources. Deciding to divest from fossil fuel companies and re-invest in companies creating new and less harmful ways of producing energy may necessitate some difficult conversations, but may well be one of the ways Christ is calling the church to lead in the 21^st century.