In 1968 US astronaut William Anders took this photo of the earth from space. It is called Earthrise. It was the first color photo of the Earth taken from space and as Anders noted it was the only color in the universe. According to the BBC, the photo is credited with raising the profile of the global environmental movement and led to the creation of Earth Day in 1970.
“Earthrise”‘s philosophical significance sunk in over years, after NASA put it on a stamp, and Time and Life magazine highlighted it as an era-defining image. “It gained this iconic status,” Anders said. “People realized that we lived on this fragile planet and that we needed to take care of it.”
Even Anders, who calls himself “an arch cold war warrior”, felt it held a message for humanity. “This is the only home we have and yet we’re busy shooting at each other, threatening nuclear war, and wearing suicide vests,” he said. “It amazes me.”
How do we treat this blue marble located in a deep cosmos? We know that our earth is fragile, beset by the unthinking actions of humanity. How can our readings this week help us reflect on our relationship with God’s creation and this planet.
The reading from Song of Solomon 2:8-13 (tract 1) is about two people taking delight in each other. It has also been interpreted by the church as being the delight that the Church and Christ take in each other.
We could also read it as God and creation delighting in each other – and God asking us to also care for and delight in God’s creation. We note the flowers which bloom, the call of the doves, the fruits and blossoms of the trees… it is as if the whole Earth joins in this love song. The humans are set within the landscape, a part of it. All caught up in the greatest love of all – the love of the Creator for this beautiful blue-green marble floating in space, and all that it contains.
The scene has been set: a beautiful world, created out of love; a God who cares about justice and equity, and now we come to the deep challenge of this passage from James. James states up front that we represent “the first fruits of Creation” a direct connection to God.
In James we hear, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” But what do our actions say? Are we paying more attention to the outside – the appearance of caring for the earth – then the actions that show caring for the earth ?
There is a gap between knowledge and wisdom. It’s one thing to know about God, and to see what God’s love steers us towards (to be hearers of the word), but it’s quite another to go and do something about it (to be doers of the word). Head knowledge is simply not enough. We must allow God’s wisdom to inhabit and shape us, and then enable us, with God, to re-shape the world. This takes courage and perseverance but also tack “bridle their tongues”, “rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness.” In the case of our environment we have a limited time correct our handling of the environment after years of misuse.
The readings from Mark 7:1-23 also focus on actions but often they are not the right ones. In our time we tend to let every issue come ahead of our effort to rectify the environment and to connect us with the environmental plight in the larger world. We focus on our needs and wants, our desire for more and more stuff to satisfy our greed, pride and foolishness, right at the heart of our existence. It is this, above all else, which disconnects us from the world around us. Not only from our sisters and brothers across the world, but also from the rest of creation. We act as if everything revolves around us, just as once we believed that the universe revolved around the Earth.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus considers the Pharisees who obscure what it is important. Every issue comes in front of what is important. They narrow the issue to hygiene and lack of ritual. . They may be offended by this carelessness; (and indeed they may even get sick if they eat from dirty dishes), but the greater sickness by far is the sickness of the heart.
Here is link to “The Chosen” where Jesus has a heated argument with the Pharisees.