St. Paul’s United Church
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Wild and the Wonderful – Rev. David Mundy
Joel 1:8-10, 17-20 Psalm 18 Romans 8:18-27 Matthew 3:13-4:2
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When we lived in the lovely city of Halifax, Nova
Scotia, there was a family in the congregation which had emigrated from Germany
not long before we arrived. We got to
know them well and came to realize that they struggled with the transition to a
new land, largely because we Canadians just weren’t efficient and motivated
enough for their Teutonic sensibilities. They were master carpenters and they
discovered that when other tradespeople in Nova
Scotia said they would come on Tuesday they wouldn’t promise which Tuesday!
They did love the great out-of-doors, which is the case
with many Germans who spend time in Canada. They went for hikes whenever
possible, and after one outing, the mother excitedly told us that they had seen
a Stunk! I explained that it was actually a Skunk, but afterward it hit me that
her name was actually more accurate.
Eventually, the family moved back to their beloved,
precise homeland, but the next summer, they returned their two children to Nova
Scotia so they could spend a couple of weeks at summer camp. We picked up Gregor and Anna at the airport, along with two of their
friends who had never been to Canada. They stayed overnight with us before we
got them to the camp bus. As soon as they arrived at our home, the four of them
went out into our backyard, took off their shoes and socks, and walked barefoot
around the lawn. Even most well-to-do Germans don’t have yards and green grass,
so this was a unique experience.
That evening, we drove the few blocks to Point Pleasant
Par: that wonderful, urban park in Halifax which is surrounded on three sides
by the ocean. At that time, it hadn’t been badly damaged by Hurricane Juan, so
we walked along the water’s edge and then on paths through the trees. We were
there with hundreds of other people in the heart of the city, but at one point
young Gregor sighed and said “I miss the WILD-erness.” Not the wilderness, but the WILD-erness. Again, the supposed difficulties with language
brought a different meaning to the word.
God has created places on this planet that are wild and are meant to be
wild, even if in some people’s perception “wild” might be a patch of grass
behind a family home or an urban park or a summer camp. What would the world we
inhabit be like without the wild and the wonderful?
Our passages of scripture this morning invite us to
consider the wild places, and what happens when creation “groans.” And whether
the God we worship as Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer is in the wilderness
through volcanoes and hailstorms and lightning. At the beginning of Jesus’
ministry, he heads out into an unpopulated place by the Jordan river, where his wild and wooly cousin John baptizes him,
and the Holy Spirit comes upon him.
Today’s readings aren’t
just randomly chosen passages. In recent years a group of eco-Christians, if we
can call them that, have called for a season to be added or inserted into the
ecumenical lectionary, which is the table of lessons we follow through the
Christian year. In September of 2008 – this month – there are alternative
readings offered for all four Sundays to form a Season of Creation with themes
of Forest and Land and Wilderness and Rivers, so this is wilderness Sunday.
Does the bible see the world as “wild and wonderful?”
The answer is, yes and no. Wilderness is
an important theme in the bible and Susan Power Bratton explains, wilderness
refers to the desert, but also mountains, forests, grasslands, caves, cliffs,
rivers, lakes, open ocean, and isolated places. She also notes in her book, Christianity,
Wilderness, and Wildlife, that
the wild places are both filled with the presence of God and fraught with
danger.
You might recall that Hagar, Abraham’s mistress, and
their son Ishmael, were exiled to the wilderness and what appeared to be
certain death until God intervened.
Moses experienced his call from God while a shepherd in the wild country
and when he led the Israelites out of Egypt they spent years in the wilderness.
The traditional rabbis of Judaism argued that the Hebrew text of the exodus
from Egypt tells us that God chose the difficult route for the Israelites in
their quest for the Promised Land.
Not only was Jesus baptized in a remote place he went
out to the wilderness for forty days of testing, echoing those forty years of
wandering for God’s people. It was amidst the scorpions and the snakes and in
the heat and the cold of the desert that Jesus realized his sense of call to
ministry.
So, on the one hand the wilderness is a fierce and
sometimes frightening place. On the other hand the wilderness can be a place of
great beauty where God is revealed.
We all know this. In this great country we can go whale
watching or climb a mountain, or happen upon a doe and fawn during a hike and
our spirits are lifted by the experience.
Still we have our reservations and even our fears that
the WILD-erness may be too wild. In wild places
critters eat critters and some of those critters are humans. And if you have
been out on the water or the golf course in a thunderstorm, you may have
experienced first-hand the terror of exposure to the harsher forces of nature.
When people perish in snowstorms or tsunamis or earthquakes we question the
character or existence of a benevolent and loving God.
It is the combination of danger and discovery that
humbles and enlivens us and it is all connected to being people of faith. This
summer my wife Ruth and I were fortunate to spend time in a spot remote enough
that wolves or coyotes – both are found in the area – howled the first night we
were there. A few nights later I persuaded Ruth that we should go outside and
howl ourselves, to see if we would get a response. We did. An owl hooted, which
told us we needed to sharpen up our act.
We tried again and this time we got an
eerie, haunting response from the canines who were in
at least three different locations and not all that far away. It was hair-raising, and
Ruth immediately suggested we go back inside in case they came to check out the
new
neighbours! I
need to tell you that Ruth became so skilled at calling them that I now call
here the Wolf Whisperer. If you meet her on the street just ask her to
demonstrate her skill, and I’m sure she would be glad to comply. We did some
research on wolves and coyotes and discovered that when they howl they are
communicating about a hunt or whereabouts, but they may also be doing it for
the sheer pleasure. It was wonderful to be part of this canine choir.
This is all fine, but why would we bother with a
Wilderness Sunday?
The future of our planet and the human species may
depend on our ability to be awe-inspired by and to love the places that are
still wild, even if that WILD-erness is the urban
path where we go for a walk or the birdfeeder outside our kitchen window.
Because we are aware that we are degrading the last
remaining wilderness areas of the world we tend to use scientific terms such as
loss of habitat, and endangered species, or we refer to oceans and forests as
“carbon sinks.” These are all important realities, but I have never been on a
walk with someone through a forest and heard them exclaim “this is a
magnificent carbon sink!”
We have to be stewards not only of our ecosystems.
There is the spiritual ecology of wonder and awe in the natural world. And as many scientists are realizing,
including our David Suzuki, these spiritual qualities need to be encouraged
from the very beginning.
It has been observed often that we protect what we
love, and we can learn to love the wild world around us. I have mentioned
before the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from
Nature-Deficit Disorder written by Richard Louv. Louv argues that we are raising a generation of children
who have limited experience of nature and are impoverished as a result. Too
many kids are more comfortable in front of a computer screen than at the edge
of a pond. Louv devotes a chapter to what he calls
the spiritual necessity of nature for the young and he tells the story of his
own four-year old son who asked “are God and Mother
Nature married, or are they just good friends?” This little guy made the intuitive connection
between the natural world and the One who created it. We have the privilege to
nurture what is probably a God-given response in children to the wild and the
wonderful.
What about those of us who aren’t kids anymore? It’s a
tall order for many of us to regain our childlike wonder but it is not
impossible. We are aware that humans have made a mess of things when it comes
to the air we breathe and the water we drink, and the land that provides our
food and so much more. We can become so burdened by the bad news that we feel
overwhelmed and helpless. We need to affirm the good news that this is God’s
wondrous world and that nature does sing a song of hope.
Mary Oliver is an award-winning American poet who for
years has been writing deeply spiritual poems about the wild and wonderful
world around us. Recently she has become a Christian, but it seems that faith
has always been embedded in her work. In
her poem, The Summer Day Oliver asks:
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself
out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar
out of my had,
who is moving her jaws back
and forth instead of up and down.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and
thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and
floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to
fall down
into the grass, how to kneel
down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing
all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and
too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious
life?
Thanks be to God for the WILD-erness!