Preaching text: Genesis 1:20-28
About three, maybe four, months ago, I had to say goodbye to my good friend Pammy. Pammy was my border collie. When I first moved out on my own after graduating from seminary, I knew the first thing I was going to do was buy a dog. A friend of mine hooked me up with a little Spitz mix named Binksy. But Binksy had some unexpected health issues and died very suddenly about six months after I got her.
I was pretty torn up so I shared with my congregation what had happened. One of my members, Don Gnegy (who I've spoken of in these sermons before), came up to me after worship and told me his daughter bred BCs and there might be a dog available. Well, fast forward a month, and I got to meet Pammy. She was this beautiful all-white-except-for-her-head dog. Lean, fast, and loving. It was love at first sight. We were meant to be together. She was my best friend for many years.
Pammy loved everybody and everybody loved her. In fact, I owe it partly to Pammy that I have Sarah and Emily in my life. When Sarah and I were dating, Emily came to love Pammy. “Where’s my Pammy puppy?” she would ask me. Her puppy? Well, that came along soon enough.
Pammy was Emily’s age, so they grew up together. When I had to move to PA, Pammy couldn’t come along, so she went to live with my parents. I got regular updates on how she was doing and I’d still get to see her when I would come visit. And sadly, this summer I had to learn that Pammy had died at the ripe old age of 14.
And even though she’s gone, Pammy is very much still with me. After Sarah and I got married, we added two other dogs to our menagerie, Lucy and Sadie, two puppies that Pammy helped raise into the ornery and rotten dogs that we still have today. (In fact, I’m writing this sermon with both of them lying at my feet.)
Pammy with Sadie...the beginning.
The "puppies" now.
Every pet owner has a story like that, a tale of a dog or cat or some other animal that made an impact on our lives. They are truly part of our family, they love us and care for us as much as we do them. I never doubted that I was loved when Pammy was around, because she would always remind me with a wet nose and an insistence on being petted RIGHT NOW. There’s an old joke about how there’s a reason why dog is God spelled backwards, because both love us unconditionally.
I think perhaps that St. Francis understood that. The famous founder of the Franciscan order of monks in the middle ages was known for many things, but we remember chiefly today in both Protestant and Catholic circles as a man who saw the innate and intrinsic connection between God and the natural world. He understood, in way perhaps that most Christians have not, just what it means when God declared creation “good.”
But who of us have not been enraptured by a sunrise, delighted by a rainbow, and awe-stuck by the stars? Who has not found peace and tranquility in the sound of a bubbling brook or a singing bird? Who has not been thrilled by a beautiful summer day or the beauty of the changing leaves of autumn or the pleasant crunch of snow under your boot? And, of course, who has not met love in the warm affection of a beloved pet?
These are God’s gifts to us. Things in which he meant for us to enjoy, to delight in, as he delighted in him. God is, at his core, an artist. He has painted a wondrous and amazing tableau in the whole of creation and, like any good artist, wants others to enjoy and appreciate his work. Look at the stars, the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the birds, the animals. All this, he says, I did for you.
And our response to that wondrous gift is akin to the thug who marches into the Louvre and sprays graffiti all over the face of the Mona Lisa. The human race has taken God’s instruction to “have dominion” over creation as license to bully, abuse, and exploit it for our own selfish gain.
One of the other things St. Francis was famous for was his noteworthy renunciation of wealth. In fact, the story goes that he was confronted by his wealthy father one day for having abandoned his family fortunes and obligations. Francis is said to have responded to his father’s chastisement by stripping naked in the town square and shaming his father by handing him his clothes. I do not want even these to get between me and my God, he likely said. Francis knew something that we so often miss. Greed is dangerous.
In fact, pretty much every human abuse of nature can be laid at the feet of our greed. Michael Vick, the star football player out of Virginia Tech (my alma mater), got himself in a bit a trouble some years ago after he was caught running a dogfighting ring. Why would he do such a thing with animals many of us treat as family? Simple. Money.
I grew up in West Virginia, where it is now common practice to rip the top of a mountain off to get at the coal beneath. Rocks, trees, everything just gone, just so we can sell that coal. Poison dumped into the rivers and streams. We clear thousands of acres of rainforest every day. We dump tons upon tons of greenhouse gases into the air and now the effects of climate change are becoming more and more apparent. But our leaders turn a blind eye to it all. Captains of industry do not care. Why? Money.
I’m reminded of two memes I see periodically on the Internet. One is a political cartoon from the New Yorker, shows four people sitting around a fire in presumably some post-apocalyptic dystopia and one of them says “Well, the planet got destroyed but in a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”
The second is said to be an old Native American saying, “When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that you can't eat money.” That, my friends, may be our future.
But is it really right for us, as followers of Jesus, to treat the world as such? The creation from which we breathe, drink, and eat? The animals that provide us such companionship and love? The astounding beauty that so often takes our breath away? This is an immense gift of God, but we treat it so poorly.
Our hearts are torn asunder when we see on those ASPCA commercials all the pictures of abused, neglected, and abandoned animals. But that’s how we treat God’s creation, by abusing it and neglecting it. So we are confronted yet again by that eternal question. What are we going to do about it?
You know, when I’m speaking out against all the hate and bigotry in our world, I like to remind us that Christ died even for those we hate. That he loves them. That he seeks to redeem them and claim them for his kingdom. In truth, that love and desire is even broader still. John 3:16 reminds us that “God so loved the world,” not just people, but everything, “that he sent his only son.” Christ loved Pammy and all of our furry friends. He loved the rainbow and the stars, the mountain and the river, the birds of the air, the fish of the stream. And he came for them, to set all of creation right. We have, as his disciples, to be a part of that. And yes, we certainly focus on evangelizing people, telling them the good news of Jesus. But what are we going to do for the natural world? What are we going to do for that other part of creation that God loves? That creation that so often reveals his love for us? Amen.
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