I start this four week Season of Creation when as we explore themes on God’s Creation. We insert this into our church calendar of ordinary time and will end on Sunday October 4th with the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and the blessing of animals. Today we will celebrate the Planet Earth.

James Lovelock, a NASA scientist, proposed the Gaia hypothesis, a compelling new way of understanding the Earth. It argues that we are far more than just the “Third Rock from the Sun,” situated precariously between freezing and burning up. His theory asserts that living organisms and their inorganic surroundings have evolved together as a single living system that greatly affects the chemistry and conditions of Earth’s surface. Lovelock proposes that living and non-living parts of the Earth form an interacting and complex system and that the Earth could be considered as single whole organism. He takes the name for Earth from the Greek goddess of the Earth, Gaia.

Earth’s living system appears to keep conditions on our planet just right for life to persist! Many other scientists are skeptical of Lovelock’s Gaia theory and dismiss it as religion, but many environmentalists take the Gaia hypothesis seriously, for his model appears ecologically sound because he sees that every Earth process and life are intimately interconnected. Over the years, Lovelock has written a number of books, making conflicting claims on the rates of climate change.

For Lovelock, Gaia, the Earth, is a single living system. Earth is alive in some sense, and we are part of the Earth. Ecologists favor Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis because it has the individual interrelated with larger bio-systems and, in turn, related to even greater biosphere, the Earth. The Gaia theory provides a metaphorical model or a deeper ecological understanding what is happening to the Earth from the perspective of biodiversity and bio-systems. There is an interaction between inanimate processes with animate aspects of nature. And they are mutually interdependent producing a stable climate and environment for life to flourish.

The Earth is viewed as life-forming and life-sustaining system, and humanity is dependent upon this complex system of processes and animate life. What is meant by inanimate process is such elements as weather systems of the Earth, the ocean currents, the atmosphere, soil, water, mountains, and sky.

Some evangelical Christians are uncomfortable with the Gaia hypothesis and quickly charge it as form of “scientific paganism.” That indicates how far some Christians are scared of environmentalists. They are pagans, worshiping the Earth as a god. But the sad fact is that these Christians have created an apartheid with nature and the Earth. And this is a major deficit in their spirituality when an incarnate God directs our attention to what God loves. I often wonder how these Christians can so often quote John 3:16: For God so loved the world that “God sent God’s only begotten child…” God loves and values all creatures, human and other life, and the Earth herself.

Just because we envision the Earth as a living entity, we do not comprehend the Earth as divine. It mediates God’s presence, and we can discover God within nature. The Earth, all of its processes, and bio-diversity can be sacramental means for connecting to God. I have claimed consistently that God incarnates Godself in human flesh, and that means God is communicated in and through the planet Earth. The words from the Book of Job ring so true me,

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you, ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea, will declare to you. (Job 12:7-8)

We experience God in and through all of nature and the Earth.
Whether the Gaia theory is hypothesis, science, or metaphor, it gives us, nonetheless, a model to comprehend the processes of the Earth and how they impact our environment, ourselves, and other life. It points out that there is one Earth in which all life originates from her processes and in which all life is interdependent. All life, including ourselves, is interconnected with each other and the planet Earth. Earth is our home and mother.

A second point, the Gaia theory insists that they we belong to a larger whole. It becomes clear that our lives are dependent upon what we do to the Earth. The poet and former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel writes,

What could change the direction today’s civilization? It is my deep conviction that the only option is a change in spirit, in the sphere of human conscience.… We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on this Earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behavior and a new set of values for the planet.

Havel calls for a fundamental shift in our relationship, it is a conversion from the way we view and relate to Earth and other life.

Rachel Carson, one of my heroines–a great ecologist and fighter for the environment and life– described the ancient world of the Eastern Atlantic shore as “the intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and ach with its surroundings.” Carson witnessed such a marvelous vision of the interconnections lie within the Earth. She was a great spiritual prophet. Listen to her words: “But I believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the world around us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

Spirituality begins in wonder as we become attentive to the complex processes of the Earth: the winds, weather, mountains and trees, the oceans, so much more. The gift of the Earth is also the gift of God. Some Christian ecologists consider the Earth as “God’s House.” We are living in God’s House.

But humanity is trashing God’s House. Some ecologists are saying, because of our reckless behaviors to the Earth, we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. 30% of other life species may become extinct by 2050. They point to the human assault on the Earth and other life, and they point to HIPPO, anagram for: Habitat destruction, Invasive species, Pollution, over Population, Overconsumption of resources. (Dyck and Ehrman) We recklessly pursue these actions without much restraint of government regulation.

When humanity separates itself from nature spiritually, we lose our capacity for wonder and being part of a larger biotic community. Our connection to the Earth expands our spiritual awareness of our connectedness to the community of life; it fosters listening, interrelatedness, and compassion. When we lose our sense of interrelatedness with nature and life, we make ourselves lords of the Earth. We harm the Earth without compassion and care for God’s creation. The prophet Jeremiah describes what happens when we separate ourselves from the Earth:

I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void, and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled, I looked, and lo, the fruitful

land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins (Jer. 4:23-26)
This seems to be a prophetic warning of coming devastation of climate change, perhaps the sixth massive extinction.

The Gaia theory is not dissimilar to what we have done to comprehend the Earth as a whole, a living organism, and we made the living Earth, a member of our congregation. Why make the Earth a member of the Valley Church? It keeps our awareness how we are part of the web of life of the Earth. It encourages to live differently with the Earth. We see the Earth as intimately interwoven in our lives and our church. We cannot love God if we ignore our neighbor and fellow congregant the Earth. We owe the same care and pastoral attentiveness to a congregant who is suffering, oppressed, and vulnerable.

Here is a description by the by the African American pastor and human rights activist in the 20th century—Howard Thurman,

The earth beneath my feet is the great womb of which the life upon which my body depends comes in utter abundance. There is at work in the soil a mystery by which the death of one seed is reborn a thousand fold in newness in life… (It) is order, and more than order—there is brooding tenderness out of which all comes. In the contemplation of the earth I am surrounded by the love of God.

For Thurman, Earth is place we discover God’s tenderness and love as we connect t the earthiness of bodies and become re-connected to the Earth. Let me remind you that in Genesis, the poet writes “Then YHWH formed an earth creature from clods of the soil and breathed into its nostrils the breadth of the life, and the earthling became a living being.” We are metaphorically born from the Earth, and there is as Thurman so beautifully describes as a “brooding tenderness” from all life comes. As we contemplate the Earth, we are “surrounded by the love of God.”
The Earth is full of creatures, and it is important to remind ourselves that other life forms are our siblings. As I said earlier, we cannot claim to love God and ignore God’s Earth. As humans we do not own the resources of the Earth, we ideally share them responsibly and sustainably.

There is an image that I like described by Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff. Let me read part of his Advent meditation:

Each human being is a homo viator, a walker through the paths of life. As Argentinean Native poet and singer Atahualpa Yupanqui says: “the human being is the Earth who walks.” We do not receive our existence ready-made. We must build it. And to that end, we must open the path, starting with and going beyond the paths that preceded ours, and have already been walked. Even so, our personal path is never completely given. It must be built with creativity and without fear. As the Spanish poet Antonio Machado says: “walker, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”

The poet Atahualpa Yupanqui describes us as the human being as the Earth walking. It connects to our origins as an earthling, from the soil of the Earth, and we are given life by God’s breadth of life. As the Earth walking, we have responsibilities to the Earth and the community of life.

Boff claims our real nature born from the earth as the Earth Walking enlarges our vision of the Earth and all life. It moves beyond our human tendency towards individualism, replacing it with a new vision that we live on the Earth interrelated and interrelated to a bio-diverse world and interrelated to God triune community of love. We recognize our survival and the survival of species are dependent on living responsibly and with ecological care for the entire world.
Boff’s description of us the Earth Walking recognizes that we humans are not own. We are so interconnected to Earth in our bodies and our interconnectedness to other life and the Earth. Nothing is alone, everything is part of interconnected community. Humanity apartheid from this interconnected community leads to violence, disrespect, and reckless polices of exploitation.
Through prayer we discover our compassion is rooted in the heart of God, and it becomes rooted simultaneously in meditating on the presence of God in the world. Where do we find the presence of God? It is within us and surrounds us: in our brothers and sisters and all other life, and even with the Earth. Prayer ultimately leads us to make connections with God and life. We realize that the mystery how much our incarnate God loves the Earth.
The famous astronomer Carl Sagan and Nobel Laureate in physics, Hans Bethe, wrote together to religious leaders in the 1990s:
As scientists, many of us have had profound experiences of awe and reverence before the universe. We understand what is sacred is more likely to be treated with care and respect. Our planetary home should be so treated. Efforts to safeguard and cherish the environment need to be infused with a sense of the sacred.
Scientists felt the need to remind religious folks around the sacredness of the Earth and care and reverence for the universe. We had separated ourselves into an apartheid relationship with the Earth community.

Remember: “God so loved the Earth that God sent God’s only begotten Child…”