10:30 am, Sun, April 30, 2023 - JGWhite / FBCA
(Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25)
At this moment, I am part of the
CNC and the CNC. I am a member of the Chignecto Naturalists Club; in fact, in a
moment of need, I ended up becoming President. And I am taking part for
four days right now in the City Nature Challenge, in which citizen scientists
log many observations of plants, birds, lichens, fish, mammals, insects, fungi
– every living thing they can find. I’ve been trying to get as many pictures of
as many plants and organisms as I can (up in Westmorland County, actually) and
post them online to the iNaturalist platform.
Yesterday I spent some time traipsing
and trespassing in woods up towards Cape Tormentine. I observed this plant: Eastern
Skunk Cabbage, which I befriended when I lived in Digby County.
Why would I care? Why would I
care for you to be interested? Because I am a Pastor, a Shepherd to you,
who can share creation deeply with you. I even pick this out of the world’s
favourite Psalm, number twenty-three. YHWY God is a Shepherd, lies me down in green
pastures, leads me beside still waters, provides everything needed, and leads
on right paths. This is the same ‘LORD’ whom we praise as Creator, Creator of
life, all life. I truly learned that ‘pastor’ and ‘shepherd’ are the same thing
when I spent time in Bolivia. In Spanish, the Psalm begins: El Señor es me
Pastor.
This sermon is really a
testimony. I am going to work back through time. Let me end Scene One by answering
this: Why am I so green? Because there is so much to enjoy in nature!
Here’s SCENE TWO. Beginning with
a ‘plant’ I observed yesterday for the nature challenge: Orange-Cored Shadow
Lichen – which is not quite a plant – it is a combination of at least one
fungus and at least one alga. Many of the lichens that grow on trees and rocks
and the soil are very sensitive to disturbance: to tree cutting, to air pollution,
and so forth. Their presence can be a
sign of health, of old-growth forests; the absence of certain lichens is a sign
of a wrecked landscape. I am reminded by orange-cored shadow lichen of what
Christian environmentalism is.
In my mind, I go back thirty years,
to meetings of the CABF, which then was called the ABF, a left-wing Baptist
group of which First Baptist has always been in fellowship. ‘Back in the day,’
I would meet up with a retired Old Testament professor at these meetings, Dr. Morris
Lovesey. He knew I had first graduated in Biology and Chemistry; he himself had
a degree in geology. Again and again, he would say to me: work with
Christianity and biology, the Church and science! For years I was
not sure what on earth to do. When I finally preached my first Earth Day sermon,
in about 2012, I got in trouble with several leading voices in the
congregation!
Our religion can truly at times
seem to be ‘so heavenly minded we are no earthly good.’ But we are here,
on earth, where God indeed joined us, as one of us: Jesus of Nazareth, our Good
Shepherd. We heard, in Peter’s advice to believers in households of long ago, ‘Return
to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.’ Good advice. Yet we can hear this
word speak and take us farther than usual. Is God not the shepherd and guardian
of this planet? This Universe? And are we not to be little shepherds under the
Good Shepherd? If I am a ‘shepherd’ or ‘pastor’ among you, many of you
are also guides to other people. We all must work together to make a difference
in this world of earth, wind, fire and water, and of every living thing. You,
be a ‘green pastor’ too.
Why am I so green? Because of
many people God used to influence me. Dr. Morris Lovesey. My Digby friend, Jonathan
Riley, who became an amateur lichen expert to save them and the local
forests. Linda Vogels, whom I got to know and love at seminars about
creation care, and who keeps speaking out about doing the right day-to-day things
for mother earth, aka Gaia.
SCENE THREE (of four. These
scenes are getting too long!). The last couple days I observed a lovely, common
shrub sometimes called Northern Wild Raisin. The long, brown, suede-like buds
are just expanding to open now, and become leaves. This bush, and its Latin
name, Viburnum cassinoides, always takes me back to the summer of 1992.
Picture me, freshly graduated with
my science degree, and working for the summer at Acadia’s biology research
station on a Shelburne County island, called Bon Portage. Oh, to be twenty-one
again, and spend the summer on a windy, maritime island. I did not learn many
names of plants in my degree; I learned them ‘for the fun of it,’ that summer, working
on this with a masters student doing his research at the same place. Viburnum
cassinoides was part of the botany we learned there.
You work on a biology research
station – a whole island for a classroom – and you meet many fellow travellers
on the journey of learning about this awe-inspiring world. I met birders, not
just birdwatchers: birders, and joined the Nova Scotia Bird Society. By
boss was actually an ornithologist, Dr. Peter Smith, who got married that very
summer to Linda Lusby, formerly of Amherst.
Our Biblical image of the
Shepherd with all the sheep who know the Shepherd’s voice rings so true. The
Good Shepherd wants, works, to keep us together. Sometimes, a common
enjoyment of nature is one way God brings people together.
Why am I so green? A shared joy
in nature, shared with the most wonderful people. And we share life with so
many other life-forms. All one family; all gift. Siblings of Wild Raisin.
SCENE FOUR. Another plant I
observed this weekend of the Nature Challenge: the Pitcher Plant, carnivore of
the bogs. This has been a favourite of mine since before I first saw
one.
I first saw one on a camping trip
to Briar Island, with the Middleton Baptist Christian Boys Group, at age 12. My
one and only photograph from that wonderful, boyhood experience is me with a
blooming pitcher plant in hand. I have a weak memory. I remember barely anything
from that four-day wilderness camp, except that it was an amazing time. I even ended
up with ‘Camper of the Year’ award!
My childhood was blessed with
opportunities to enjoy nature. The summer I was six we moved to the Annapolis
Valley and my backyard suddenly was my grandfather’s 20-acre campground, with
lots of wild spaces. My other grand-father in Ontario was a gardener in his
yard. I had houseplants inside our house, and wildflowers planted outside.
“You were going astray like
sheep,” wrote Peter to his Church friends, long ago. The ways we humans have
gone astray in our lifetimes includes creation crushing. Children
today – all the upcoming generations – need the support of our Faith, which
calls us into right relationship with Creator and creation.
Why am I so green? Nature was my
backyard in my formative years. Family members were plant growers. My Baptist
Church took this kid out for wilderness camping on islands: Briar Island,
Mosher Island, even Isle Haute.
We do walk thru a dark valley on
earth right now… In the environmental crisis, the Good Shepherd is still with
us. This is what we need to remember. This is how we live. This is what the
next generations needs to know, from us. They get lots of good info from
schools and so forth. What hope, what plan, do we, Christianity, give
them? What community and togetherness does Christ make possible? Let us,
Church, be ‘a green pastor,’ in other words: a team of good shepherds, guides
in creation. Seek this miracle with me: that our grandchildren and
great-grandchildren will find that goodness and mercy will pursue and chase
them all the days of their life.
SILENCE
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