What is the language of Creation? Psalm 19:1-4 proclaims,

The heavens are declaring the glory of God,
And the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork,
day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
Their voice is not heard;
Yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the word.

The psalm I read speaks paradoxically of the no speech of creation yet also mentions the voice and words of creation. I raise this point today because I want to ask what really happened to Jesus at his baptism and in the wilderness? Did Jesus hear the voice and words of Creation? I want to suggest to you this morning that Jesus learned three significant insights:

1) First, he sought to understand his relationship to Abba God and developed an intimate and loving experience of Abba God.

2) Abba God was compassionate. In Luke 6:36, Jesus states, “Be compassionate as Abba God is compassionate.”

3) Jesus also learned the wild grace of God. God’s grace is wild. God’s Spirit colors outside the lines. She is trickster and ensouls herself in creation, the Earth and all life. All creation is beloved.

There have been some alternative interpretations of Jesus’ baptism and 40 days in the wilderness. Native American Christians understand that Jesus, at his baptism, had a visionary experience with God’s Spirit, who in the form of the dove becomes a spirit guide for the ensuing vision quest of understanding who Jesus was and his call. I would suggest a novel understanding that the Spirit under the elements of water and in the form of a mother dove shapes a pivotal experience of revelation at the baptism, but I also point out that Jesus was shaped by the land, atmospheric winds, and the fire of sun in the wilderness. He was accompanied by the beasts: the Greek word indicates dangerous animals in the wilderness. The Spirit, as theologian Mark Wallace notes. ensouls Herself in the Earth, its elements and processes. Traditionally, Christianity understood the Holy Spirit as the sustainer of life and involved in the dawn of creation in the big bang.

The late Jesus scholar Marcus Borg describes Jesus as a Jewish Spirit-led prophet. There has been a movement of biblical scholars, grounded in anthropological research, to comprehend Jesus as a shaman. This acknowledges the scriptural evidence of Jesus’ altered states of consciousness at his baptism and his meditative experiences during the forty days in the wilderness. As a comparative historian of religions, shamanic experience, ritual with auditory and visionary experiences, evolves into the meditational practices of Buddhist mindfulness, Christian centering prayer, and many popular forms of meditation.

My first point: Jesus received an auditory and visionary experience of God’s Spirit at his baptism as he emerged from the waters of the Jordan: he heard that that he was a beloved child in whom God was pleased as the Spirit descended upon him in the form of the dove. It was an experience of God’s gracious care and love. Unless there is a foundation of loving yourself, you cannot love others. But Abba God’s love does not stop with Jesus, for he realized that God’s providential love extended to all human beings, especially, the suffering, the disadvantaged, and the poor. But God loves nonhuman animals, and all creation is beloved as well.

Most biblical scholars look to the temptations of Jesus, but Jesus is with the wild animals. This is an image of God’s hope for the peaceable kin-dom in Isaiah 11:6-9, where predators and domestic animals live in harmony. Nonhuman animals are with Jesus in the cave he was born, on the mule he rode into Jerusalem as the anti-violent Messiah, and his death as the lambs were slaughtered in the Temple for Passover.

The word most used by Jesus to identify God’s quality is compassion. Compassion in Hebrew comes from the word for “womb.” Compassion is a feminine image in the Hebrew world-view Compassion is God’s womb-like love. But Jesus is revolutionary in calling for disciples to imitate God’s compassion. “Be compassionate as God is compassionate.” (Lk. 6:36) Compassion means literally to “suffer with.” It is just not a feeling moved to care; it is that and more. The Dalai Lama argues, “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.” Compassion is a spiritual practice, cultivated and intentional, and with what Buddhists call mindfulness or Christian describing as centering prayer as foundational for the practice of compassion. Jesus promotes the social dynamics of compassion, and this message of compassion becomes a dangerous message to the religious establishment and the Roman Empire

I grew up with Latin American liberation theology’s prime notion of God’s preferential option and care or the poor, the outcast, the sick and ill, the widow and the orphan. One of my favorite liberation theologians, Leonardo Boff, extends the notion of God’s preferential option for the poor to include the preferential option for the vulnerable Earth. Pope Francis’ recent climate change letter, Laudato Si, picks up this theme of God’s preferential love for the poor and the vulnerable Earth. He notes that as climate change develops the poor are disproportionately harmed. This is a dangerous memory of God’s compassion in the biblical tradition. It is so dangerous that the Koch brothers sent their executive director of Heartland Foundation, their political pact for fossil fuels, to offer Pope Francis  fifty million dollars to the Vatican if he would not release his climate change letter. The Koch brothers did not even get to first base with Pope Francis, for he well understand that God finds creation and all life as beloved.

Are we listening to the voice and words of theEearth and vulnerable species? If so, do you hear their cries and their sufferings? Do you hear the groaning of the Spirit suffering with the Earth and all life threatened? Compassion is a key meditative method for listening to Earth, our waters, our air, and our children. Our Children’s Trust –21 youth—have sued the Trump administration for the right to breath clean air—air without carbon—and to live in a world without the ravages of climate change. The UCC Environmental Justice Council is sponsoring a youth preach-in to support this legal action with interfaith and ecumenical participation. We had Daniel a college student who grew up in the UCC Petaluma congregation preach in January. He had worked on the church garden, participated in confirmation class, and Christian education. His words moved the hearts of the congregation. He became the voice of every child and youth, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews of the congregation. It seems that that Sunday Daniel spoke for every child, grandchildren, niece and nephew..

Compassion—being with suffering, whether it is for the poor and homeless in San Francisco or listening to the wildlife –the trees, wildlife, and human beings in the fire storms of Northbay or Southern California. Compassion turns to passionate care for life—both human animals and non-human life. All life is beloved as God’s Spirit reveals to Jesus in the waters of the Jordan and the Judean wilderness.

Finally, Jesus breaks off from the John the Baptist and his message of coming judgement in the wilderness. Jesus discovered God’s wildness—God’s wild unconditional grace and love for the suffering, the disadvantaged, the outsider. Combining the mountain Zen Buddhism and Native American spirituality, the poet Gary Snyder writes,

Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings, flourishing according to their own sorts of order…. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness.

Jesus named the wildness of the wildersness, the Spirit, as he experienced his intimate and compassionate Abba God as the “kin-dom of God.” It was God’s dream of wholeness, flourishing, and well-being. Jesus learned God’s wild grace in the wilderness, and the wilderness shaped and shaped his dangerous ministry of God’s compassion for all. He broke from John the Baptism and his message, and Jesus created a new ritual of table-fellowship, where men and women of all sorts of purity status, sinners and prostitutes, men and women in a discipleship of equality were welcomed at God’s table.  He dared to symbolize God’s dream for us—God’s reign, or living with God’s intimate presence, imitating God’s compassion translated in sharing resources together, and fighting injustice, healing and flourishing. Learn about Jesus as God’s dangerous memory. Read one of my favorite author Diarmuid O’Murchu’s book, Christianity’s Dangerous Memories.

What I am attempting to leave with you is that Jesus invites us to listen to the voices and words of human creatures and the Earth and the community of life. They are crying at Parkland High School in Florida but also in Miami as high tide floods the streets.  Watch and listen to Al Gore’s Inconvenient Sequel, I hear the voice of the Spirit groaning at her suffering with life and inspiring a wild grace to care for Earth.

Jesus also invites us to imitate God’s compassion and incarnate them in concrete actions. Take some time during this week and listen to the voice and words of created life.  Compassion is an intentional practie that allows you to empathetically listen but also respond. This is what the Dalai Lama understands clearly, “compassion is the radicalism of our time.”

I leave you a story from last summer. I attended an Environmental Justice Council retreat just before the General Synod. At the retreat, there was a presenter, the head clergy from the Island nation, Tuvalu, eight islands with 28 square miles, with 3 to 4 feet above sea level, and an indigenous population of 10,000. This population became Christian in the 19th century. The nation has signed the Paris Climate Agreement and looked to the United States for leadership in fighting climate change. Tuvalu is a nation at risk from sea level rise. They already lost one island to sea level rise. But today’s first reading is pertinent.

God says, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. This rainbow is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations.” The head clergy shared the question asked him numerous times. “If God promised not to destroy humanity with a flood, why is God is doing this?” He responded, “God is not doing this, humanity is responsible.”

Humanity is killing the Earth, but if you fall in love with God’s Earth, you will fight to save Her.