Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

“A Theology of Earth Day”

Co-Pastor Lon Weaver

I am writing these words on Earth Day, an event whose principal founder was the late Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. Established thirty-nine years ago, it is an event inspired by—among others—the legendary Aldo Leopold who also would make his home in Wisconsin. Leopold wrote that “we abuse land [when] we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Precisely the same Spirit inspired these words of Psalm 24:

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,

the world and those who dwell therein;

for he has founded it upon the seas,

and established it upon the rivers.” (24:1, 2)

In my Rush Limbaugh-listening days (the mid-1990s, to keep in touch with what some of my family and congregational members at the time were listening to), I would tune to another station whenever he ranted against “environmental wackos”. I had to grit my teeth most of the rest of the time I listened, but when Limbaugh aimed his abusive criticism at lovers of the creation, he became fully intolerable.

What does it mean for us to spurn the gracious and faithful stewardship of this marvelous planet with which we’ve been blessed? It means deep ingratitude for the blessing of inhabiting this amazing dimension of our relationship to God. Instead, we’re called to embrace the fullness of creation. We’re to reject the temptation to escape into the “merely” spiritual. Creation is fully enmeshed in the Spirit: it is the handiwork of God. It is where we experience the possibility for deep communion with the Divine. It is the realm in which we experience our first possibility for a relationship with the Savior and Healer, Jesus Christ. It is where we “do” the faith. It is where spirit and body meet. It is where a fully-embodied relationship with God can take place.

But Psalm 24 and an annual event like Earth Day can remind us that it is also about the even greater broadness of God’s communion with creation. We human beings can be truly self-centered, assuming that it is upon us alone that God offers the blessing of relationship. But David reminds us that the earth and its fullness—everything within it—are God’s. If they are God’s, then they are loved and cherished and savored by God. Therefore, how can we do less? As we enjoy spring 2009, may we embrace and love and savor the earth and the fullness thereof, a profound gift of God to us!