My Sermon on Climate Change and the Parable of the Lost Coin

This is a Sermon I gave at Seattle Mennonite Church on Sunday June 23rd.

In the Parable of the lost coin, Luke 15.8-10, the woman has lost one 10^th of the coins she has and yet exerts effort to find that which is lost and asks others to celebrate when she finds it.  For me this parable is about whether we value what is lost and whether we are willing to put forth effort to prevent its loss.

Humanity at this point, potentially faces the loss of a liveable planet, and yet for decades we have turned our attention from the potential loss, hoping it will not be true, disbelieving it is true, or even intentionally lying about whether it is true.  Sadly, while we have always had and do now have the knowledge of the actions needed to stop climate change, we have lacked the political will to make it happen.  Individually and collectively we have not made the changes.

To make this choice we must value even the loss of a small percentage of what we have.   We must stop having acceptable sacrifice zones (as the oil companies have called areas that have been decimated by strip mining) and treat everything that the Creator made as precious. 

One small example of this is the Monarch Butterfly.  At this time there are only 20% of the butterflies worldwide that existed in my childhood.  Because of an amazing experience I had in my teen years in a field with Monarch’s I have always considered them to be a sign of the presence of God.  So the threat to their existence is even more poignant to me.  We have known for decades that this is because of pesticides we use that kill them, but we have been unable to pass laws that would limit the use of those pesticides.  Bees also are threatened by these same pesticides.  Yet bees pollinate every third bite of food we eat, so as all life is bound up in the web of life, their fate is intimately connected to our own.

As a Quaker I share with you the distinction of belonging to historic peace churches, and churches that affirm a call for simplicity and social justice.  Climate change brings all of these precious values into the for front, because as it turns out the solutions to climate change are solutions that call us into right relationship with the earth, and require a more equitable society and in fact cannot be effected unless we adopt a new paradigm – one that you and I would recognize as the values of the Peaceable Kingdom.

As a Quaker I do not really believe in the concept of sin so the call to repent in the parable I struggle with.  However, if there is anything I could define as sin, it would be the destruction of the life on earth.  I cannot think of a more profound turning away from God.  When I heard that Exxon, and it turns out several other oil companies also, knew in the 70’s of climate change, predicted in fact the exact outcomes that we are now experiencing and deliberately spread misinformation and doubt rather than sounding the alarm and changing their business practicees…yes that to me is sin.

Mennonites chose many, many decades ago to forgo a focus on politics as belonging to the realm of Caesar and to focus instead on creating God’s kingdom.   In my more than a decade of climate activism I find that many people feel helpless in the face of climate change.  They feel the problem is too big and that only politicans can solve it.  I believe that mindset both disempowers us and also creates despair.   So I have taken a Mennonite position, in that I look for the answers outside of national politics and find that there are indeed things we can all do.

So back to the Monarchs & the bees – there has been a national campaign to boycott different places like Lowe’s and Home Depot till they stopped carrying Round up.  And it worked.  We have the power of the pocket book with corporations that despoil the earth.  Turns out that trees and certain regenerative agriculture practices have the ability to pull significant amounts of carbon out of the air.  The Plant for the Planet kids have calculated that each of us in WA need to plant a 150 trees in your life time (although ASAP would be best).  These are examples of actions people can take that ripple out and have a bigger impact than just individual action. 

People ask me how I find the hope to do this work, of fighting climate change?  I have felt called to fight for God’s creation, for all of life, and for a better society for our off spring.  In so doing I have been brought into a community of beautiful souls that gives reality to the song we will soon sing, “We shall be known by the company we keep.” I have seen that the way out is the way towards the Peaceable Kingdom which I was already striving for before climate change.  I also have become crystal clear that it is not knowing the outcome which must direct my action, because even on a sinking ship I would want to strive for treating each of us with love, with kindness, with justice and mercy.  This to me is what it means to live faithfully, and I invite you to join us in living our faith’s in the face of climate crisis.