Finding What Was Lost

Based on Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Luke 15:1-10
First delivered Sept. 15, 2019
Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr


            I have a friend who posted something on Facebook that made me chuckle. She wrote about how when she was young, she was afraid of bees. But now when she sees a bee, she wants to make sure they are comfortable and offer them a drink if they are thirsty. She has come to understand how critical bees are in the process of pollination, and how if bees are decimated it will significantly harm our capacity to feed ourselves. There have been some scares about the collapse of bee colonies that has come to the attention of lots of people. It even inspired an animated film back in 2007 called The Bee Movie. It was a cute film that dealt with the serious topic of the importance of bees in agriculture. Whether it’s the use of certain pesticides or some other factor, bees need protected because if we lose bees that would make a catastrophic impact on agriculture. I have heard that the collapse of bee colonies lately has not been as bad as it was a few years ago, so that’s good news. Still, it is concerning if bees are not thriving.

            When we were kids, we spent a lot of time outside playing. And we caught all kinds of critters: fire flies, crickets, lizards, frogs, toads, garter snakes, turtles, grass hoppers, crawdads, tadpoles. Where I grew up the biggest catch was a horny toad. They are technically called horned lizards that live in the western U.S. and down into Mexico. They look like toads and they have little horns all over their bodies. They are the coolest. They look like tiny Stegosaurs. We would catch all these creatures we found in our back yards and put them in shoe boxes with a piece of carrot or something for food and see how long we could keep them alive, or until mom or dad told us to let them free, or they got loose on their own when we weren’t looking. And the rolly polly’s. We had so many at our house.

            But what about now? I’ll admit, I’m not outside as much as I used to. But I don’t remember the last time I saw a snake. There just doesn’t seem to be as many critters in the back yard anymore. Maybe they are there and I’m just not seeing them. In fact, it’s a little unsettling sometimes to be outside, even in a park, and not see any animals. What’s the cause of it? Why does it seem there is less wildlife these days?

            Back in 1962 came out a book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring. It was inspired by a friend of hers who wrote a letter to the editor about how she had dead birds in her yard which she traced back to the use of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT to kill mosquitos. Carson presented her argument that the use of  synthetic pesticides was having adverse effects on the environment. She invited her readers to imagine the coming of spring, as everything is supposed to come back to life, but instead all the fish were dead. There were no birds singing. It was a silent spring. Of course, the chemical companies put up fierce resistance to her scientific findings. But her book helped kick off the environmental movement that eventually led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Nixon. DDT was banned throughout the nation for agricultural use. Her vision of what it would be like without living things, and the scientific basis of her research, was enough to trigger people to action. The argument can be made that since the 60s we have cleaner air and water and more responsible use of pesticides and herbicides. But still, it seems like spring is quieter than it used to be. And we didn’t have so many people with nut allergies and lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance like we do now. Some blame the increase of gluten sensitivity and even celiac disease with the use of Roundup. It makes you wonder if in some ways the environment isn’t as good as it seems.

            We hear in Jeremiah this morning a poetic representation of a silent spring. God is looking over the land that God gave to Israel. And what does God see? It’s a reversal of the creation story. The earth is formless and void. There is no light in the heavens. The mountains and hills are shaky. All the birds have flown away. The fruitful land is now desert. There are no people. All the cities are razed to the ground. What is described is a wasteland, an environment that is on the brink of total collapse. A silent spring to be sure, with the exception of the howling and scorching wind.

            This poetic description of the apocalypse portrays God’s judgment on the people for their inability to do good, their rejection of God and their worship of false gods. God had warned them that they would be destroyed if they did not turn from their wicked ways. And they did not turn back. So, they are destroyed as well as the land they lived on.

            But this destruction was not the consequence of environmental degradation. It was the result of a foreign army invading the land and wiping everyone out, destroying everything in sight. The foreign invasion was the means God used to punish Israel for their ongoing failure to repent and turn back to God. It was a technique used by armies in those days, if the goal was to do maximum damage, to go in and not only destroy the towns and villages and to plunder everything that was valuable but even to pour salt on the fields so that the soil would no longer be able to produce crops. It was the scorched earth policy of those days. And this was the image Jeremiah expressed to Israel, to get them to wake up and turn back toward God or this would be their future.

            This image of apocalyptic destruction may bring to mind the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when our country dropped nuclear bombs over those cities. The photos of those wiped out cities can’t do justice to what it must have been like to go there after all the radioactive dust settled. I can only imagine all you would have heard was the wind as you looked all around you and saw nothing but devastation: no buildings, no people, no birds, no nothing. Yes, Japan surrendered days later. World War II came to an end. And the threat of nuclear annihilation was upon us. The mad foolishness of war can now lead to the destruction of the planet.

            In 1945, there was a group of atomic scientists from the University of Chicago who participated in the Manhattan Project, the super-secret program that constructed the atomic bomb. They began to meet and discuss the ramifications of nuclear power as a weapon. And in 1947 they made up a symbolic clock which they call the Doomsday Clock. They set the time based on what they believed were the conditions in the world that could lead to total annihilation. Midnight marks the destruction of the planet. Every year since they put out a bulletin that expresses their concerns, not only about nuclear destruction but now they have added the threat of climate change to human civilization. As of this year, as it has been for the past few years, the clock is set at two minutes to midnight. To these scientists, as the message God spoke through Jeremiah, the threats to our survival is real and the need to change course is critical.

            So, what are we to do with this? We would all agree that God’s message for Jeremiah was for the people to respond, to give up their foolish ways, learn to do good, and be faithful to God alone. The consequences for not repenting and living right were truly perilous. But what about now? I am not going to make the claim that God is speaking through the scientists who warn us about the dire consequences if we don’t end the spread of nuclear weapons or take the steps necessary to adapt to climate change. Whether the warnings come from God through the scientists or not, the threats are there and the threats are real. As Christians, as children of God, as those who are called to bear witness to the love of God made known in Jesus, are we not to respond to these threats to human civilization? Don’t we want to do what we can to turn the world away from the brink of destruction?

            I suppose some would say that as Christians the state of the world is not our concern. All we have to worry about is getting saved so we can go to heaven and avoid hell. This world is passing away. So why should we be concerned about nuclear war or a warming climate that threatens to displace millions and millions of people, bring about widespread famine and perhaps bring about a widespread extinction not seen since the days of the dinosaurs?

            It seems to me that love requires another response. And if you think about it, if we are guided by the Spirit of God, following the teachings of Jesus, and respond with love and creativity to the challenges in front of us, whatever they be, that this will surely move the world away from nuclear annihilation and climate catastrophe, if even by a little bit. It seems to me that, as followers of Jesus, our best response to the challenges that threaten our planet today is to live in ways that are opposite to the precursors of war and environmental destruction. We would want to live our lives that would contribute to peace and to stewardship of this beautiful and life- giving earth that God made.

            The good news is that there is always hope with God. Even in this apocalyptic warning that God speaks through Jeremiah to the people, God says in 4:27, “The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely.” Just like God didn’t completely destroy the earth in the Great Flood, so God will not destroy the land when the foreign army comes in to invade Israel. Our hope is that in the face of nuclear war and climate chaos that somehow God will prevent the earth from being destroyed. We can’t join with those who despair of the future of the earth and who instead have their eyes set on the life to come in heaven. God hasn’t given up on us. God has not given up on God’s wonderful creation that we call earth. God is a savior and redeemer, not a destroyer. As God’s children and as stewards of God’s creation, our responsibility is clearly to do everything we can to care for the earth we now call home. And we can live our lives responsibly, doing good and being faithful to God, day by day, one small act at a time, with the confident hope in God’s saving and amazing grace.

            I also can’t help but think of the woman searching her house for the missing silver coin. When she discovered she was missing a coin, she didn’t just shrug her shoulders and think to herself, “What can I do? I still have nine. No big deal.” No, she wanted that missing coin. Was she greedy? No, it seems to me that her motivation was one of stewardship. There was a coin laying around somewhere and it was worth something. It did no good being lost. It had purpose. It needed to be found. So, she set about to find it.

            And when she was looking all through her house for that coin, I can imagine she was busy tidying things up along the way. She probably cleared off her desk. Put the pile of clothes away. Got out the broom and started sweeping under the furniture in hopes of pulling that coin out from underneath the couch. She was restoring order to her house while looking for that coin. She found the coin and, as a bonus, had a nice, tidy and clean house. Easy to invite friends over to celebrate now that the house is all picked up!

            We know what God’s desires are for the world. God desires harmony, beauty, and life. God is the source of all these things. And God longs for the world to reflect back who God is as the creator of the world. So, we know what we need to be about in our lives as children of God. We want to contribute to the grand project of creating harmony and beauty and life. This is what we create when we follow the teachings of Jesus and stay in love with God and one another. This is what discipleship produces.

            And we live in a world that is a mess, with a lot of lost people who need to be found. The mess is daunting. Where to begin? With what is in front of you. What can you do today as a steward of God’s creation? Who do you know to be lost? I am talking about people who don’t know Jesus. But I’m also talking about people who are disconnected from society, who feel like they don’t belong or don’t have a purpose. They are lost too.

            But I wonder if finding what has been lost is not just about finding people. I wonder if we can cooperate with God in the work of restoring harmony, beauty and life in our lives, our communities, our world, that along the way we will find what has been lost: playfulness, adventure, wonder, humility, generosity, compassion, joy, innocence.