Every week during our church service, we explore a different spiritual discipline intended to help us grow to become more like Jesus in our everyday lives. (Because going to church isn’t the point – becoming like Jesus is!) And during this particular church season of Ordinary Time, we’re exploring practices that line up with the Social Justice/Compassionate stream of Christian tradition. One of the ways we can live out the compassion of Jesus is in how we care for the earth.
Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor writes
This land that gives us our food, our water; these trees that clean the air for us to breathe; all these green and growing things that bless our bodies with their beauty – these are not resources. They are fellow creatures, with their own rights and responsibilities before God. They have their own sacred duties to perform, if only we will let them.
Do you believe that? It might sound kind of extreme, but I think it’s completely in line with the mission of Jesus. If we’re following Jesus and actually joining Him in building his Kingdom by bringing God’s healing and wholeness to the world, then a huge part of our world is this physical land on which we live. The way we care for the earth and all the gifts it offers us says a lot about how we love God and how we love others.
How many things do we do throughout the day without even thinking about it? Leaving the water running while we brush our teeth? Throwing out the plastic cups after we finish our Starbucks? Using paper instead of cloth napkins? Throwing another trash bag into the dumpster? What if we switched from disposable diapers to cloth diapers? (Yes, they’re still a thing and they’re super cute now too.) What about investing in a compost bin instead of bagging all the trash? What if we picked up the trash along our street or biked to work instead of driving? (Ladies, what about using a menstrual cup instead of disposable hygiene products?)
I know, it’s overwhelming sometimes to think about the impact we have on the earth each day. But I promise it’s worth it to just start thinking, “What alternative way could use this resource or tend to this need?”
So this week let’s start small. Let’s begin by noticing the resources we use and appreciate how it came to be used by you. Let’s pay attention to how we throw things away or reuse things. I’m going to bet there’s some small way each of us can begin to join God in caring for his Good Creation. During this season of Ordinary Time, what more ordinary thing to do than to consider how to care for the earth?
