St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, September 19, 2010

Season of Creation –Oceans

God Who Created the Seas – Rev. David Mundy

Job 38:1-8 Psalm 104 Luke 5:1-11

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Many of us turned on the evening news in April of this year to see an offshore oil rig engulfed in flames. At that point all we knew was that a catastrophic fire was destroying the platform but in that first newscast we learned that it was in the Gulf of Mexico, well away from the shoreline of the United States – or so we thought. For the next three months it was almost impossible to escape images of the rig called the Deepwater Horizon, owned by the oil company known as BP, formerly British Petroleum. They were on the television, and the internet, and on the front pages of newspapers.

We learned that eleven rig workers died in the initial explosion and many more were injured. Then we were told that the supposed “fail safe” systems to close off the oil flow had in fact failed and that oil was seeping into the sea. Despite BP’s efforts to minimize the problem we began to realize that oil was in fact gushing from the rupture at an average of 50,000 barrels a day. We all know what a single barrel of oil looks like and the thought of thousands of barrels of crude oil dumping into the ocean minute by minute and hour by hour was sickening. To make it worse, the source of this toxic mess was more than a kilometre below the surface. And while the rig was seventy kilometres from the American coast the oil made its way relentlessly toward environmentally sensitive marshes and beautiful beaches. It settled into fishing grounds abundant in shrimp and crab and many species of fish. Some of the bleak photos were of the sea turtles and birds and other marine creatures which were victims of the suffocating oil.

We were disbelieving and shocked but we were also angered. How was it that an oil company could be drilling at such a depth without adequate safeguards? BP promised that it would “make good” on cleanup and compensation for those whose livelihoods were affected. The US government pressured the company into a 20 billion dollar escrow fund to ensure that this would happen. But this still didn’t seem adequate, and it doesn’t to this day. Many of us asked why the extraction of natural resources seems to trump every other concern, including protection of the environment. It was Oscar Wilde who offered a century ago that “we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” If anything this quip seems more meaningful today.

For me one of the most touching images in those three months before the oil leak was capped came when a priest led a worship service at the water’s edge which was meant to be a blessing but was more of a lament, as though he was conducting a funeral for the creatures of the sea and shore, and for a way of life. It was at the time of the year when he would have usually blessed the fishing fleet as they headed out to harvest the abundance of the waters. But the only fishing boats leaving port were being used to scoop the oily sludge from the surface of the water.

This morning and for the next two weeks we will take what I hope will be a meaningful look at different aspects of this marvelous, complex, planet on which we live, believing that it is God the Creator who brought all things into being. This first Sunday the theme is Oceans.You might think that there wouldn’t be much in the bible about seas and oceans because of our image of the arid, desert environment in which the people of Israel lived.

Yet there are many passages of scripture which speak of the oceans as evidence of God’s magnificent, creative work. In the first passage today it is God who speaks to us through the suffering Job, asking “who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?” This sounds as though the ocean is a birthplace, doesn’t it?

Then the psalmist speaks to God, exclaiming in admiration and praise O Lord, how manifold are your works!...Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things are innumerable there, living things both great small and great . . .

Strictly speaking our gospel passage is not “on message” because the Sea of Galilee is actually a freshwater lake. But it reminds us that Jesus’ first four disciples made a living from fishing, and that what moved them to follow Jesus was an incident where they went from scarcity to abundance in their catch.

So we do have a watery faith, even with the themes of the desert. And we as a human species are absolutely dependent on water for our existence. We have named our planet Earth but it has been pointed out that it is more accurately planet Water because more than 70 percent of the surface of our world is H2O, and most of it is salt water. As humans we are water as well. While the name Adam, the first person mentioned in Genesis, means Earthling, or Earth Person, a newborn baby is 75% liquid and even though we dry up through the years we remain about 60% water. We can only drink fresh water, but on the inside we are actually salty. In fact, our blood has roughly the same salinity as the oceans did at the time they were forming billions of years ago.

It’s hard to understand why we become so disconnected from our dependence on water in all its forms, and why we are so abusive of the waters of the earth. This said, our oceans and seas are still stunningly beautiful and remarkably complex. Despite our relentless human assault on the oceans they are still abundant in diverse life which can be almost literally breathtaking.

A few summers ago I went with Ruth, my wife, to Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy has been nominated as one of the seven natural wonders of the world for a number of reasons including the highest tides on the planet and the amazing variety of creatures which thrive in its waters. During the week we were there we saw whales from virtually every vista on land, but we also went out on a whale-watching tour. We were entertained by a North Atlantic right whale and her calf, among the rarest whales in the world.

But the most remarkable experience was coming upon an area which is known as an upwelling. As the tides and currents of the bay meet, they push nutrients up from the lower levels and suddenly it is dinner time for a variety of creatures. The water was churning with fish feeding on plankton, and there were thousands of seabirds swimming and diving after those fish. Porpoises and small whales were also surfacing and then plunging back into the schools of fish in a feeding frenzy. This amazing display of death and life brought home to me the incredible diversity and interconnectedness of our oceans and seas. The people on the boat were excited by all this action, pointing and exclaiming. For me it was literally a religious experience. In this swirling circle, only a couple of hundred metres across I had a sense of the fullness of life that God gives.

As people of God the creator of all the creatures of the seas and as the people of Christ who called disciples who harvested the waters we must frame our environmental concerns within the context of our faith.

There are times when we do need to lament or mourn, to express our profound sadness for the ways in which we have violated our planetary home. The way we begin that lament is by caring enough about what is happening around us that we pay attention. It is not always easy to listen to the bleak news about what is happening to the environment, but if we choose to ignore it we are not only

Some of you may know the work of David Blackwood, one of Canada’s pre-eminent artists, a recipient of the Order of Canada. Blackwood is a Newfoundlander who now lives in Ontario, and his creations reflect his roots. One of his etchings from years ago called the Master Mariner is a depiction of his elderly father sitting by a fishing chart with a wistful look on his face. There is a biblical reference from Isaiah tucked down below which says “those who fish will mourn; all who cast hooks will lament, and those who spread nets on the water will languish.”

As faithful people we can’t stop with the lament because that would be unfaithful. We can’t fall into cynicism or despair because we are meant to live with hope. We can repent, which means acknowledging our sins, our greedy and destructive ways, and find a new way forward which is based on respect and humility. True repentance involves learning a lesson and beginning again. The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico reminds us that as humans we are not nearly as wise or clever as we think we are.

The story of our Christian faith includes Good Friday, the death of Jesus, the Christ, for the sake of humanity and for all of our groaning creation, according to the apostle Paul.

The crucifixion is essential to our salvation story, but it is not the “punch line.” We are people of resurrection hope in Christ, raised to new and abundant life. In this time when we are capable of doing both great harm and great good to our planet home, we can ask how our resurrection faith can inform our care for the waters of creation.

Even though we are “landlubbers” who live far from the oceans we can keep our eyes and ears open for all the hopeful examples of restored and renewed life. The shrimp fleet in the Gulf of Mexico did leave ports late in August in search of a catch.

A few weeks ago experts were astonished when the run of salmon in the Fraser river in British Columbia went from a record low last year to a record high this year. The nets of fishermen were literally not numerous enough to respond to the teeming life which made its way from the Pacific Ocean into the Fraser.

Earlier this week fisheries officials in Newfoundland, at the other end of our country informed us that the cod stocks which had been all but destroyed are making a modest recovery. We are learning, slowly and sometimes painfully, that when we simply step back this world which God has brought into being can begin the process of healing and restoration.

I will leave you with a prayer which asks God to teach us to pay attention and to live humbly:

God our creator, as we reflect on the mysteries of the ocean depths, we celebrate the wondrous design of the seas that surround us. Teach us to know your presence in the tides and the currents of the seven seas. Teach us to care for the oceans and all our waterways. We ask this in the name of Christ who is your companion in all designs and governs creation. Amen.