What are future Generations going to say of us?

 Sermon by Christopher Jage-Bowler

from 28 June

What are future generations going to say of us? We know today what our 21st century Western lifestyle is doing to earth – and yet we still carry on living more or less just as we have done.

What are future generations going to say of us? Every week in the papers we read somewhere – (often an inside back column) – that the glaciers in Switzerland have melted by 1/6 in the last 15 years, the amount  of plastic in the oceans is increasing, that the Amazon River forest is still being felled, that droughts and plagues of locusts have ravaged the fields of Kenya and torrential floods in Uganda! We read that 55 million pigs are slaughtered each year alone in Germany to feed our appetite for cheap meat, and East European factory workers are made to work under appalling conditions; that our fields are being sprayed with so many chemicals that it is endangering our ground water; that apples are now so chemically treated, they are releasing allergies in adults  they have never had, not to speak of what our food is doing to our children. I could go on, you know the story.

What are future generations going to say of us?

That we sacrificed future generations on the altar of our own stable economic growth? My brothers and sisters, we can put men on the moon but we can’t stop ourselves deliberately destroying our planet? Scientists now say, we have 6 month not to restart the economy but to reverse the trends of recent years by not restarting where we were pre-corona. Year on year we break temperature records, which growing up in Britain used to be fun, but now is very alarming.

Year on year we have the “driest summer since records begun”, the most extreme weather. And we don’t know what to do about it? Of course we know! We have been told for years what to do.

When the Pope says, we need to make the economy work for people not people for the economy, he is written off as other-worldly, unrealistic, not facing facts, and people leave the churches.

Ok let’s take a deep breath. corona has stopped us in our tracks, has given us breathing space. Time to stop to reflect, think clearly if we will.

Who is going to make the change? School children with Fridays for future? Students with extinction rebellion? Or you and me: everyone taking their part.

Christians have a part to play in honouring God’s creation; the earth, nature, is God’s original self-revelation, we see the beauty and wonder of our creator when we look at creation.

And not to be sentimental, it is spectacular! But the world we see around us begins inside of us, in the things we believe in and value. We live from the inside to the outside. We are in Christ made into temples of the Holy Spirit; God himself dwells in us.

Let us look at our imagination as holy ground; let us devote it to the energies of life: - not what we can own, but what we can love; not what we can exploit but what we can nurture; not what we need but what needs us, will enrich our lives, enrich our world; not what we can grasp but what exceeds our grasp; not what we can manipulate but what still moves us; not what we have stored away, but what makes us alive will be the timeless treasure inside of us (what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.)

Is there enough faith, enough life left in us to share with those whose world is slowly being destroyed? the people at the bottom, with no clean water, no healthy food; the countless insects and other species in our ecosystems being rendered extinct each year (which we so desperately need to keep the ecosystem of our world intact.) Do we have fervour in us to start a fire inside of those who have not felt warm for decades? Is there enough appetite for justice to share the lives of those unjustly treated? Is there a table that everyone is welcome to that is not guarded by white men’s privileges that we cling to like ancients possessions?

You and I – we – are called to be temples of God’s Holy Spirit, with God’s love and compassion dwelling richly in our hearts and lives. It is the greatest thing life has to offer – to have God the creator of the Universe in your life. Sin is where we take this for granted; act as if life is about becoming rich, successful, more comfortable, having treats, being spoiled, spoiling others.

My brothers and sisters, it is time to live the convictions that have been in our inner life for a long time. It is time to take back the night, the day, the year, our entire life, that we gave into the hands of others. It is time to walk away from the helplessness (what difference can I make?), the powerlessness we have cultivated like a garden in which everything must stay small, modest, not upset anyone, not rock the boat.

It is time to leave the counsel of the foolish; to no longer be weakened by those who despise the truth and cheapen hope, love, faith with their cynicism and bitterness; those who have not seen the sacredness of the world for a long time and who betray their inner life and the world for short term gain.

What are future generations going to say of us? Let’s live as temples of God’s Holy Spirit, as those who dare invest  ourselves in the world, to love God’s creation and our fellow humans and animals – all that is in us.

Let’s recommit ourselves to live a Christian life worthy of the name, opposed to all manner of exploitation and destruction, to energize the world with our creativity and care.

We will never develop a machine that will make the work of love easier; nor a vaccination against neglect nor a pill to help us say no to more consumption, more gadgets, more travel, which we know to damage our world.

That is why all we learn of love now, you and I on this wonderful, desperate, movable earth God has entrusted to us, all we learn of love now, is more important than everything else – for love is the very heart of our creator und God’s creation. What are future generations going to say of us?