Going for Green Dedication Service |
We are gathered together in the heart of a City which has probably had as long an experience of serious pollution as anywhere else on earth. The first law directed against atmospheric pollution in London dates from the 14th century.
The challenge which we face now, however, is without parallel. The case is powerfully made in John McNeill's Environmental History of the 20th century, "Something New Under the Sun." Everybody here is familiar with statistics of environmental degradation which are intoned from conference to conference like some post modern malediction. The world used 10 times as much energy in the 20th century as it did in the preceding 1,000 years leading to increased pollution and the construction of a world in which there are ever more glaring disparities between the wealth and power of different groups. We live in a world in which the forty richest people dispose of wealth which exceeds the resources of the poorest 40% of the world's population.
You will have your own favourite examples of human exploitation of our common home which has led to deforestation, desertification, ozone depletion and global warming. You and many of your neighbours know that the consequences of these ecological changes falls disproportionately upon the poor. We and millions of others know these things but where is the social and political resolve to create a more sustainable way of life. How are we to move beyond the project of growth without limits with no end in view beyond the process itself?
The reality of this mystery has prompted some people to look to the faith communities as a source of hope and inspiration in creating the climate for change. The response has to date not been very impressive with a few honourable exceptions. Jonathan Porritt remarked, "I can't help be astonished at the sheer lack of urgency among church leaders today; ours is a world crying out for leadership, for some kind of spiritual guidance. And yet as the winds of change whistle up their richly caparisoned copes, where on earth are they? It seems to me so obvious that without some groundswell of spiritual concern, the transition to a more sustainable way of life remains utterly improbable." The Archbishop of Canterbury has also said that ecological challenges are "unlikely to be met satisfactorily without the moral and spiritual motivation of the churches while admitting that "our contributions to public debate about environmental responsibility have often been patchy and undistinguished."
We are of course as individuals, as members of Western churches, implicated in the ecological paralysis of analysis which does not generate change. We can sympathise with Paul's frustration in Romans VII. "I do not understand what I do. What I want to do, I do not do."
The gospel reading shines light on this puzzle. Jesus Christ is meditating on anxiety and faith. Anxiety and competition inevitably flow from a picture of the self as fulfilled by being an individual consumer of goods and having access to a range of commodities. That is how the self is encouraged to see itself by the propaganda which surrounds us and stimulates our cravings.
By contrast our soul is not something which just exists and whose appetites demand to be satisfied. The soul is formed in relationship with others. The soul develops to the extent that we are related to God the Beyond All and to his Creation. Part of the process is seeing the presence of God in our neighbours and in the groaning of the Holy Spirit within us.
There is no emancipation from the treadmill of the consuming self without hearing the invitation to grow as a soul and becoming a participant as St Peter says in "the divine nature" [IIPeter, I,4].
If there is to be any profound energy for change then it will not come from repeating the problems from one conference to another but from sober scientific analysis embodied in a community of soul making. We look for a real congregation, not a concealed aggregation where people seek spiritual commodities, but a society of mutual responsibility in which giving and sacrifice is understood to be the way in which we are in tune with God who gave himself in Jesus Christ for the life of the world.
The energy of such a rediscovered church could be awe-inspiring.
It is not enough to seek the lobbyist's option, valuable though that is. We must do more than point the finger at government and demand a revolution. Political leaders in a democracy cannot press too far ahead of the consensus and it is part of the churches task as has been demonstrated in the Jubilee 2000 campaign to enlarge the political room for manoeuvre by building up a constituency that cares deeply but that has also earned the right to speak by embarking on the revolution at home and in their local Christian fellowship.
The eco-congregation network is taking up many of these ideas and is finding imaginative ways of bringing the truth home. Thank God it is not operating alone and other organisations like the Conservation Foundation with its Parish Pumps initiative has already done a great deal of useful work. We hope and pray that this new network will embrace more and more of the Christian community country wide. As Benjamin Franklin said during the American Revolution, it is really is the case that we must hang together or hang separately.
But our profoundest motivation comes not from fear but from the gospel which we can only express and explore together. Be not anxious for your self what to consume or what commodity to have next, rather pay attention to your soul which forms as we relate to God and neighbour and which comes as a gift from Jesus Christ who has brought us home to God.
