By Rev. Pat Watkins
God told Adam to “till and keep” the garden, the first vocational call laid upon humanity that we know of.
God asked Noah to preserve all the animals that God had made, a uniquely human task of preserving God’s creation. The covenant that God made with Noah and family also extended to all the animals and Earth itself.
Job rather painfully learned that life with God is not about the accumulation of wealth as a result of living a good, upstanding life, but is more about living in right-relationship with one another and the natural world.
The Psalms are full of examples of creation praising God.
The entire Christ event was not solely related to the salvation of a certain group of favored human beings, but the salvation of the entirety of God’s creation. Jesus came as Emmanuel, God with us, “us” being inclusive of all God has made. God makes covenant with, creates, and loves every piece of creation. God accompanies all of creation, especially in its suffering.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodism, was crystal clear on the connection between Jesus and creation:
“[Christ] is now the life of everything that lives in any kind or degree. He is the source of the lowest species of life, that of vegetables; as being the source of all the motion on which vegetation depends. He is the fountain of the life of animals, the power by which the heart beats, and the circulating juices flow. He is the fountain of all the life which man possesses in common with other animals. And if we distinguish the rational from the animal life, he is the source of this also.”
Sermon 77, “Spiritual Worship,” §II.3, Works 3:95.
Wesley was also clear that the mission of the church was not just to fellow human beings, but to the entirety of creation:
“I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the wellbeing of other human beings to the broader concern for the wellbeing of the birds in our backyards, the fish in our rivers, and every living creature on the face of the earth.”
God’s Covenant with Animals, Lantern Books, 2000, xii
According to Jesus, love of God and love of neighbor are the two greatest commandments. Jesus was clear in his definition of neighbor… EVERYONE, period!!! The UMC has done a great job over the years of being in mission for and with neighbors all over the world, especially those neighbors who are struggling for whatever reason.
Today millions of our neighbors are suffering due to fossil fuel induced climate change. The only way we as a church can continue to be in ministry with these neighbors is to advocate for an end to fossil fuels. This has to become a primary mission emphasis of the church today if we are to continue our traditional, historical mission to God’s people everywhere.
Our addiction to fossil fuels and the consequent damage we’ve done to the earth as a result violates God’s call to Adam to “till and keep” the garden. If God loves the earth enough to make a covenant with it, and I am a person of God, then I also must make a covenant with the earth. I cannot honor my covenant with the earth by disregarding the unbelievable damage done by the burning of fossil fuels. In an effort to live out my covenant with the earth I have to do all within my powers to do away with fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels have made millions of people, particularly those in the northern hemisphere, very wealthy and have made even more lives, mine included, somewhat easy. But I have learned, just like Job, that life with God is not about getting rich nor about enjoying an easy life, but about relationships with all my neighbors inclusive of all people, all creatures, and the earth itself. My relationship with the earth necessitates me phasing out fossil fuels in my own life and advocating for phasing them out in all aspects of our lives as human beings.
The UMC must also phase out its profit-making from fossil fuels. Given our theological and Wesleyan mandate to care for all of God’s creation and to do no harm, it just seems unconscionable that the church would continue to invest in the fossil fuel industry, given all the destruction that has been wrought by that industry. How can we stand by, given all the harm done to God’s people and God’s planet in the name of greed, and do nothing?
Rev. Pat Watkins is an elder in The United Methodist Church and commissioned as Missionary to the Earth.