April 22, 2009 + “The Earth Is The Lord’s” Genesis 1:1, 27-30; Luke 19:11-27 + Hayward Fong

Today has been designated as “Earth Day.” The first Earth Day took place April 22, 1970, thirty nine years ago. In 1970 the world’s human population was just under 3.7 billion. It had taken nearly 2,000 years to plump that number up from a mere 200 million that populated the earth in Biblical times. In merely 39 years the 3.7 billion has been inflated by another 3 billion.

In 1970, gas was 34 cents a gallon and few people pondered what the lead in it was doing to the environment, except those in the DuPont board room which had covered up lead’s downside for decades. Our oceans were still teeming with fish, and they weren’t anywhere near full of mercury yet. Delaware-sized chunks of Arctic and Antarctic ice shelf weren’t yet crumbling into the sea.

Back then, the weather extremes, species die-offs and oceanic dead zones of today were still within realms of conjecture between science and science fiction. Some events have come to pass that even the writers of science fiction could not have imagined, such as in 2004, when Australia’s epic drought drove thirst-crazed kangaroos
into the urban areas where they attacked humans.

In 1970, our dichotomy regarding the earth as both our oyster and our toilet hadn’t taken so obvious a toll on the planet, nothing like what is happening now. But it was enough to get people thinking and organizing. Earth Day was a huge event in which 20 million Americans took part…from teachers taking school children to tide pools to experience touching sea creatures to participants fostering substantive legislative, scientific and academic change.

Earth Day has since gone global, observed in 174 languages. But here at home it slowly demonstrated our political inertia, particularly over the past eight years of environmental rollback. But there is hope with the change of administration in the White House. After eight years of anti-environmental policies, changes have already been made at the Environmental Protection Agency under new leadership.

It is ironic that the Agency owes it existence to the first Earth Day. President Nixon, being politically astute, saw how he could bolster falling public support of his administration by giving lip service to what he saw represented by the 20 million people that first Earth Day. By combining various elements of existing cabinet departments, tying a bow around it, and calling it the Environmental Protection Agency, he gave away nothing and gained support from both sides of the Congressional aisle but most importantly outflanked his chief rivals in both political parties for re-election in 1972.

When my children were growing up, some of their favorite books were those written by Dr. Suess. People think of Dr. Suess as a writer of children’s books, which he was. But he was a political writer. Whether we realize it or not, his stories have imbedded political ideas in the brains of children and adults alike. One such book is Dr. Suess’s, The Lorax, based on environmental issues. He wanted people to see and understand what happens if the environment exploited.

The Lorax was a typical Dr. Suess creature who lived in the Truffula trees, and claimed to speak for them, to be their advocate, their voice in the human world for living creatures that had no voice. The main character, the narrator of this story, is a pioneer who moves around the land in hopes of striking it rich. He tells this tale to a young boy after all the trees in the land have been cut down. He describes, in almost a confessional way, his greed in cutting down the trees so that they could be processed into just about anything and everything. The richer he gets, the greedier he becomes. When the Lorax comes around to try to put a stop to the destruction of the trees and the animals that occupy them, this main character ignores his wishes and builds factories that pollute the area killing off the remaining animals. In Dr. Suess fashion, the narrator invents all sorts of fantastic machines to chop down the trees at an amazing rate and chuck them into his factories.

The narrator continually ignores the pleas of the Lorax. Only at the end does he realize that all the trees are gone. Not only has he lost in a strictly economic sense, but everyone has lost the trees. The Lorax, having predicted this outcome forlornly lifts himself into the air and goes to another land. The narrator ends his tale by pointing to a collection of stones in the ground. The stones bear a single word “unless.” He gives the boy who had been hearing the story the last sapling. He urges the boy, in an act of ecological redemption, to plant the tree and rejuvenate the trees. Perhaps then the Lorax will return.

In this simple straight forward, but emotionally powerful story the Lorax is very much like the Old Testament prophets. He is able to see the outcome of events, not because he is omnipotent, but because of his compassion and wisdom for all life. Thus he can proclaim with some authority that “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.” He almost sounds like “Thus saith the Lord.” The purpose of a prophet, the ones in the Bible, our childhood stories, or even our real life, is to wake us up. This also accounts for their unpopularity. Prophets have a popularity rating perhaps ahead of the Wall Street bankers and corporate America who have caused our world economic crisis. No one likes to be reminded of the harsh reality that they have successfully been denying. In the story, the Lorax is continually ignored by the narrator with catastrophic results. We need prophets like the Lorax. With the global and local environmental degradation nearing the point of no return, we need more forceful modern day prophets to make our elected leaders mindful of what is happening.

The definition of mindfulness is to wake up to the reality of the world as it is and not the way we wish it to be or hope that it would be. In some ways those prophetic writings of ancient Judaism are a form of mindfulness. They were saying to the people, “Pay attention to the way you are living. There can be severe long term consequences to your actions.” This is the message of the Lorax. That is what the Lorax’s stones warn us “unless.”

So often we hear the warnings and understand the problem of global warming and deforestation and pollution and so forth. However inspired or depressed we may be after hearing the words of the prophets we need to translate that feeling into action. Good intentions and regret do little to close the hole in the ozone layer.

Practice mindfulness by paying attention and being aware of the world around us, educate yourself to the issues, let this knowledge penetrate who we are as people, and really focus in increasing compassion and concern for Mother Earth. When we move beyond our ideas and thoughts and into our feelings and passions for how we want the world to be, then we have bridged an important gap in healing the world. It is a spiritual gap that is as wide as heaven and earth itself, but as important as any other for the soul.

Dr, Suess choice of the name LORAX has some interesting religious connotations. Let us break the word down to the letters AO, RX, and L. The AO in the Greek is Alpha and Omega, could symbolize Christ who once said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” The symbol RX commonly means prescription as we know it today. But if you look at the Greek you will find that R is Rho and X is Chi. The first two letters in Christos , or Christ are Chi and Rho, often used in Christian symbols. The letter L is Greek for Lambda, another representation of Christ since in the Greek alphabet Lambda is associated with a higher level.
The Bible tells us that we have a Creator God, that He does care about the environment, and shows us what our responsibilities toward nature and family are from His point of view. We do not own the earth. The earth is God’s. We are merely stewards, called to look after and take care of that which is His. Humanity’s job was - and is - to manage what God has entrusted to our care. Amen.

PRAYER: O God, we thank you for this earth-our home, for the wide sky and the blessed sun, for the ocean and streams, for the towering hills and the whispering wind, for the trees and the green grass.

We thank you for our senses by which we hear the songs of birds, and see the splendor of fields of golden wheat, and taste autumn fruit, and rejoice in the feel of snow, and smell the breath of spring flowers.

Grant us a heart opened wide to all this beauty; and save us from being so blind that we pass unseeing when even the common thorn bush is aflame with your glory.

Amen.