Wisdom of Creation (Job 12:7-10)

 In today’s sermon, since it is “Earth Care Sunday” (Or, “Earth Stewardship Sunday”), I’m going to introduce you to some of my closest friends… and by friends, I mean some of my favorite trees.

This incense cedar tree I encountered on a hike along Vivian Creek near Mount San Gorgonio, the highest mountain in southern California. When I saw it, I literally stopped, and gasped.

My son Tristan, who was with me on that hike, probably thought: What is Dad doing? Has he never seen a tree before? 

But this tree was beautiful and magnificent. And it had been through some things, as you can tell. It was hollowed out on the inside, with black fire scars. Perhaps it had been struck by lightning at some point in its life.

I began to imagine what stories this tree could tell, and probably would tell, if I were patient enough to sit and listen. 

But trees speak very slowly, and we had a mountain to climb…

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This stunted, gnarly oak tree can be found at Disneyland in California, in the line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The branches spread out more horizontally than vertically, providing lots of shade to people waiting in line to ride. 

This is one spot where I wish the line for the ride would actually move slowly, because I just want to spend some time here, tracing the branches with my eyes…

By the way, there are only two pictures today that I didn’t take myself. I found this photo online, on a Facebook page dedicated to the horticulture of Disneyland. Apparently someone else appreciates this tree as much as I do.

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Another favorite tree of mine is a giant, 150-year-old oak tree at Loch Leven, our Disciples camp in southern California. Loch Leven is located in a dry, desert-like environment; however, the camp is located where two canyon streams meet, and there, where those streams meet, are many shady trees, creating a cool oasis. 

And for many of the summers I spent there, campers could safely climb to the top of the tallest of these trees by harnessing themselves into a professionally-installed system of ropes.

There were even a few hammocks placed high in that tree. Some campers liked to hoist themselves up 40 or 50 feet off the ground, and lay in one of those hammocks. If there was a breeze, they’d feel a gentle rocking motion. Sometimes they’d just stay there, and wouldn’t come down until it was time for dinner. 

Those campers fell in love with this tree as much as I did. I’m pretty sure that, in those moments, those campers were being taught by the trees, as our scripture says.

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The toyon is a California tree so small that it is sometimes considered a bush and not a tree. This toyon is one I photographed on Catalina Island, on a hike I took one day after substitute teaching at the school there. 

When I look at this picture, one of the things it tells me is that school must have been dismissed early that day. How do I know this? Well, because toyon berries only grow in winter; and in winter, the sun sets too early for me to have time to go for a hike after school… unless school got out early.

Birds and wildlife love Toyon berries. And native Americans—the Tongva and Chumash people—made use of them as well. In fact, the name of the plant—toyon—is derived from the Ohlone language, a Native American people of Central California.

The toyon is a signature plant in southern California; so much so, that the restroom interiors at the Hollywood Bowl are painted a shade of green that was color matched to the toyon. 

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After I moved to Illinois, I was walking through Ewing Park one day, and I saw these two small trees that looked a lot like toyon. I took this picture a few weeks ago, but when I first saw these trees, it was early summer, and the branches were full of dark green leaves and bright red berries.

I learned that these trees—the ones I saw in Ewing Park—are called serviceberry. Since toyon doesn’t grow in the midwest, the serviceberry quickly became my favorite Illinois tree.

And midwestern birds love serviceberry just as much as California birds love toyon. 

A few months after I decided that serviceberry was my new favorite tree, Robin Wall Kimmerer published a book she titled… Serviceberry. So when it came out, I had to read it.

In the opening pages of that book, Kimmerer writes that “the Serviceberry supports biodiversity. It is a preferred browse of Deer and Moose, a vital source of early pollen for newly emerging insects, and host to a suite of butterfly larvae—like Tiger Swallowtails, Viceroys, Admirals, and Hairstreaks—and berry-feasting birds who rely on those calories in breeding season.

Kimmerer also writes that “Human people, too, rely on those calories, especially in traditional Indigenous food practices. Serviceberries were a critical ingredient in the making of pemmican. The dried berries, along with dried venison or bison, were pounded to a fine powder, bound with rendered fat, and solidified into the original energy bars. This highly concentrated, preserved food provided full nutritional sustenance through seasons of hunger, was easily transportable, and could be cached or carried. 

“Pemmican became part of the traditional trade economy, a sophisticated local and transcontinental network that distributed vital materials across ecosystems and cultures. Surplus Serviceberry calories could be exchanged for other goods not locally available.”

I love Kimmerer’s writing so much; it’s tempting to read her whole book to you this morning, but I’ll just share a little more.

She writes that “The leaves of the Serviceberry [like the leaves of most plants] draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which they make into sugar via photosynthesis.”

I don’t know about you, but I still remember that exciting day in high school when I learned the chemical equation for photosynthesis: CO₂+H₂0+sunlight → C₆H₁₂0₆ + O₂. (I’ll leave it to you to balance that equation.) 

The sugar that photosynthesis produces in the serviceberry is stored in the berry, along with essential nutrients and minerals. Kimmerer notes that a bird (say) eats the berry, and some of that carbon becomes a beautiful, brightly colored feather. When that feather falls to the ground, it becomes food for beetles, who become food for a Vole whose death feeds the Serviceberry. 

This demonstrates that God’s creation is characterized by abundance and reciprocity (giving back); and reciprocity, borne out of gratitude, would go a long way toward making our world a better place, if only we humans learned the lesson of creation—if only we allowed ourselves to be taught by the plants—and put those lessons into practice.

Yet we often take without giving back. And we create systems in which scarcity, not abundance, governs how we think, how we act, and the economies we develop. There is no reciprocity, and no gratitude.

Data centers have been in the news a lot lately, and are a good example of what I’m talking about. 

Data centers suck up enormous amounts of energy, and enormous amounts of water. Utilities struggle to keep up with the demand, and to help finance the need for more energy and more water, they raise their rates… for everyone. WE are paying higher utility costs because of these data centers.

But that’s not all. Data centers generate a tremendous amount of heat. Some large data centers have raised the average temperature of the surrounding region by as much as six degrees. With the climate already warming due to climate change, you can see why this is a big problem.

Data centers take so much in terms of earth’s resources, but give nothing back to creation.

But I believe that we have the solutions, if not the will to implement those solutions. We have the technology and the ability. God has given us the knowledge and wisdom we need.

The companies that build data centers could, if they were motivated enough, find a way to do it without that huge, negative environmental impact. We—and our leaders in government—need to find a way to give them that motivation, and work together to undo the environmental harm we’ve caused.

It is possible! We CAN make positive environmental changes!

I’ve seen it happen.

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This is the other photo that is not mine. It shows that when I was growing up in southern California in the 1970s, the smog was terrible. Los Angeles regularly looked like it does on the left side of this photo. 

After a day of playing outside, my lungs literally hurt, and it was hard to breathe.

But then we passed the Clean Air Act, and California in particular took controlling smog seriously. 

Smog still exists, but it has gotten a lot better. Today, Los Angeles looks more like the right side of this photo.

It IS possible to create POSITIVE environmental change.

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And there are other things we can do, to actually help cool the environment. Trees have a natural cooling effect. 

In 1955, Disney imagineers planted a jungle in Anaheim, California. Now, 70 years later, that jungle has matured quite a bit, with some of the trees reaching incredible heights. And that jungle has created its own micro-climate, where the temperature is actually cooler than the surrounding city. 

Now, when I took this picture from the Jungle Cruise boat several years ago, I do wonder what the other people on the boat thought when I spent much of the ride gazing up at the trees, instead of looking at the elephants, the hippos, or the “backside of water.” 

But I know I’m not the only one. Did you know that, at Disneyland, you can walk into City Hall on Main Street, and right there under the counter, they have this massively thick binder in which every tree and plant at Disneyland is listed? The species name is listed, along with its location in the park; and any special watering needs or care instructions for that tree are also noted. And anyone can just go in and ask to look at that binder…

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At camp this summer, I’m not going to lecture the campers about all the details of all the trees in camp.

But I do hope that campers will find a tree or two that they can get to know, and learn from. A tree that they will spend some time listening to, and gain some of the wisdom that is referred to in today’s scripture.

Because trees, and all of creation, really are great teachers. 

This week, I want you to let creation teach you. And for that to happen, you need to spend some time noticing creation…. And noticing God in creation.

If you don’t know where to start, here are some things to find out through observation. Don’t look it up on google; find these things out by spending some time in creation:

1.     What is the current phase of the moon?  Approximately what time did it rise or set yesterday?

2.     What constellations – and what planets – can you see in the night sky this week?

3.     When was the last time you listened to the song of a mourning dove? (I heard one the other day… I love the song of a mourning dove!)

4.     What trees grow on your street? What do the leaves look like? What does the bark look like? What does the tree smell like? 

If you notice any of these things, then you are well on your way to receiving the wisdom of creation.

Two weeks ago, I planted two serviceberry trees in my front yard. 

I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for berries to appear on those trees. Probably several years.

And when the berries do appear, I don’t know that I’ll eat any. I feel like I should at least try one.

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 On Catalina Island, there is a plant called “lemonadeberry,” and so naturally when I worked at a camp there, I, and the students I taught, tasted those berries… and they really were sour and sweet and tart—and sticky—just like lemonade…

Robin Wall Kimmerer says that The Potawatomi called serviceberries Bozakmin, which means “the best berry.” So maybe, when the berries appear on my trees, I’ll at least give them a try. 

But even if I don’t eat them, when I see them, I will learn from them.

I will be reminded of the things I do eat, and where those foods came from. I will ask myself if the food I eat is made from real, natural ingredients, or artificial ingredients created in a lab.

I will be reminded of the miracle that is present in every bite I take, and to offer up gratitude for the blessing of nourishment and raiment.

I will remember that the berries and all real foods are dependent on good soil and clean water. Everything I eat is dependent on good soil and clean water. 

I will remember that, since it all comes from the land, the earth, everything I eat is a gift of God. It is all precious and sacred. To take or use anything thoughtlessly is a great sin. And to buy something that is used only for a moment, and then thrown away, is an insult to God the creator.

When I see the serviceberries, I will remember how interconnected I am with all of creation, that I myself am a part of God’s creation, and that my wellbeing is dependent on the wellbeing of creation itself.

The trees have so much to teach us. Creation has so much to teach us.

And I will be reminded, as Clayton—our Camp Walter Scott caretaker always says—to “care gently for God’s creation… and that includes you.”

God is Here (Psalm 139:7-14)

 When I was 11 years old, I bridged from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts; and the boy scout troop I joined was a backpacking troop. 

While other boy scout troops went car camping, with heavy, wooden patrol boxes to store all their cooking gear, which they placed on picnic tables or the tailgates of pickup trucks, we carried everything we needed on our backs and headed several miles into wilderness places where there were no picnic tables, no pickup trucks, no tailgates, no roads… just nature. And there, away from civilization, we pitched our tents and spent the night, before hiking back out the next day.

My very first backpacking trip, it rained.

My second backpacking trip, it rained.

The older scouts started to blame me. They said, “Everytime Danny goes on a trip, it rains.”

On the plus side, everytime we went on a backpacking trip where it rained at least a half inch, we earned a patch: the “Puddle Duck” patch. 

On that second trip, we were up about 8,000 feet in elevation, near Mt. Pinos—a remote place where California Condors roam—and for whatever reason, I was in a tent by myself, a cheap tube tent that was open at the ends, and I was trying to shift around to avoid the water that was coming in during the night. It was dark; I couldn’t see anything outside my tent. 

And I felt alone. More alone than I had ever felt up to that point in my life.

The other tents weren’t actually that far away. At least, they didn’t seem that far away when we set them up before sunset, while we could still see.

But in the dark, they may as well have been on the other side of the mountain. It really felt like it was just me, alone in the wilderness, getting wet from the rain.

Many years ago, when I was counseling church camp, I had a camper named James Bishop. Then James became an adult and we counseled together.

A few years back, James hiked 1,500 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail by himself. It took him 5 months. 

I asked him once, when we were counseling together: “What was it like, at night, in those remote places, in your tent by yourself?” 

He said: “I’m not gonna lie; there were times when the sense of being completely alone was overwhelming.”

James is a musician, and strapped to the back of his backpack was his guitar. He wrote songs as he journeyed through the wilderness, and recorded some of the nature sounds he encountered, and he turned those nature sounds into a musical album. For that, he was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered; and I listened to some of his music while I wrote this sermon…

Anyway, I was laying alone in my tube tent, trying to stay dry, for what felt like hours… although actually it was probably much less than that. Maybe 15 minutes. 

Then I heard our leader come to my tent, and tell me that I should move into a different tent with another scout, because that was a better tent that would maybe keep me drier.

It did, sort of… but my new tentmate and I still needed to shift around awkwardly to avoid some water coming into that tent. 

We made it through the night. With morning came sunshine, and we left our campsite, and hiked our way back down to civilization.

A few months later, when the troop began planning a summer backpacking trip in the Sierras, one that would last a whole week, they asked if I wanted to go, and I said: Sure!

And yes, it rained… almost every day.

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Every spring, I preach on the themes and scriptures from the curriculum we use for summer camp at Walter Scott Camp & Learning Center, the camp that we at First Christian Church, along with the other Disciples congregations in our region, own and operate.

This year, the camp curriculum theme is “Into the Wilderness.”

The wilderness can be a lonely place. It is a place of isolation. A scary place. A place where you will be challenged. A place where you will be put to the test.

It is certainly an unfamiliar place. You don’t have any of the comforts of home. In the wilderness, you are quite literally outside your comfort zone.

So why did I keep going back? All these years later, I’m not really sure of the answer to that. As a child I was not a risk-taker or a daredevil or even an adventurer. I was a quiet, shy, nerdy kid who was usually second-to-last when teams were picked on the playground.

(Hey at least I wasn’t last.)

But even though I couldn’t throw a football or hit a softball, I could hike. Hiking is just walking, and walking is just taking a step, and another step, and another step. 

I could do that.

And I felt something calling me to go to those wilderness places, those places away from civilization, those places that still exist pretty much the way God made them.

And over the years, those are places where I have felt extra-close to God.

Which is ironic, I know; because that dark night in the tent, by myself, in the rain, I didn’t feel close to anyone.

Yet, as today’s psalm reminds us, “If I say, Surely the darkness covers me, and night wraps itself around me, even the darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to God.”

Even when I am feeling completely alone, in the dark, I’m not truly alone, for God is there with me.

Now, a wilderness doesn’t have to be miles and miles from the nearest road. Anywhere can be a wilderness. [This] cover of the camp curriculum has an image that features mountains and trees… but also big city skyscrapers.

Spiritually speaking, “wilderness” is a state of mind.

Many of the campers who go to church camp feel like they’re in the wilderness.

For some, it’s because of the unfamiliar surroundings; the cabins; the woods; and all the sounds of nature that many of them are so not used to.

For others, it’s because they’ve never spent this amount of time away from home before. The unfamiliar setting and unfamiliar routines can be intimidating.

And for some, it’s getting used to living with people you’ve just met. Maybe at home, you have a bedroom all to yourself, but here, you are sharing a room and a bathroom with a whole group of people.

Yes, our cabins keep you warm and dry—and even have air conditioning for when things get too warm—but they are still unfamiliar.

At camp, there are other challenges to face.

As a camp director, I try to do everything I can to lessen the anxieties of those coming to camp—especially first-time campers.

But at the same time, I also try to plan some real wilderness challenges for the week. Challenges that are both physical and mental. Things like going for hikes, or completing an obstacle course… or speaking out-loud in front of the whole camp during worship… 

To be honest, I’m always amazed at the leadership our campers provide at camp, in worship, and throughout the week.

There’s just something about spending time in the wilderness that makes you realize that you can do what you didn’t think you could do. Some of the greatest opportunities for growth appear when we find ourselves challenged in the wilderness.

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One of my favorite wilderness stories in scripture, one you’ve probably heard me talk about before, is the story of Elijah, the prophet of God, who heads out to the wilderness to meet God. He’s out there standing on Mount Horeb, and there’s a violent windstorm, and he wonders if God is in that windstorm, but nope; God is not in the windstorm.

And then there is a great earthquake, and he wonders if maybe God is in the earthquake, but nope; God is not in the earthquake.

And then there is a fire. Fire can be a sign of God’s presence; just ask Moses. Elijah wonders if God is present in the fire he sees, but nope; God is not in the fire.

So where is God?

After the fire, there is silence…

In the wilderness, I have experienced wind, rain, lightning; and I have experienced silence.

I remember one time, hiking over a mountain pass in the Sierras, probably about 12,000 feet in elevation, there were few trees, just rocks and sand; and no wind; and it was sooo quiet. I felt like something was wrong with my ears. I cleared my throat, and shuffled my foot on the gravel, just so I could hear something, and be sure my ears were working.

And then I was startled by the sounds I had just made, because they seemed so loud compared to the silence.

There aren’t many places in the world today that get that quiet.

The night I spent in the tent, by myself, during the rainstorm was a different kind of quiet. The rain beating on my tent was loud, but I felt the silence of anything comforting. No reassuring voice, no message from God… until my leader came out of his tent to get me.

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Does it ever seem to you that God is silent? 

Does it ever seem to you that you are alone in the wilderness, even while you go about your daily life?

As I said, anywhere can be a wilderness…

Being a follower of Jesus, really trying to live by his way of love, incorporating his compassion, working for peace, establishing justice, can be a wilderness journey in a world that is quick to demonize and hate and act out with violence and injustice…

It can feel lonely. It can be challenging. It can be scary. It can feel dark.

But scripture assures us that when the darkness covers me, and night wraps itself around me, even the darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to God.”

And scripture assures us that, no matter how alone or isolated we may feel, that God is there; that even if we went to the furthest limits of the sea, God would go with us, because there is nowhere that we can flee from God’s presence.

So if you are feeling alone, as if you are in your tent, with no other human for miles around; and the darkness is so intense that you can’t see your hand in front of your face; and the silence is so intense that you can hear your own heart beating…

Know that God still goes with you.

God is with you. And God is with us, at First Christian Church. Because we, too, find ourselves in unfamiliar territory—despite our long history. The world is not as it once was. How do we effectively do ministry in a world that is so different, so unfamiliar, and — at times — so scary?

We’re on a journey of figuring all that out. A journey through the wilderness. 

And God is with us.