A couple of weeks ago we held an online discussion with Sarah French from the Christian conservation charity, A Rocha. It was a very interesting talk and discussion and you can still listen to it on the website. One thing that struck me in what she said was that we currently need 1.7 planet earths to sustain our present levels of consumption. Just a year ago, this was 1.6 planets. This is obviously unsustainable. What will happen in the future? What will life be like for future generations? Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmental activist who has prompted huge protests among young people across the world, is painfully uncompromising in her words: She told delegates at the UN climate summit last Autumn: ' The young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you, and if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.'
We are all increasingly aware that the way we care, or fail to care, for creation and the action we take, or do not take, in tackling the climate change emergency will affect the next generation for good or evil. What kind of responsibility do we have to care for the created world, not only for our vulnerable neighbours now, but also for future generations?
Let's see what our Scripture passages today have to say about issues of individual and corporate responsibility, sin and repentance and how they cast light on this question.
In our reading from the prophet Ezekiel, God calls the people to realise that each person has to take responsibility for their own sin, rather than blaming someone else or thinking that others will bear that responsibility for them. The prophet takes issue with the traditional proverb of the people: 'the parents have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.' I eat sour grapes, but my children suffer the taste of bitterness. This proverb expressed the idea that God would punish children for the sins of their parents. Ezekiel goes on to give several examples which make the point that each person must bear responsibility for their own actions, for good or evil, and that God will not punish someone for the sins of their parents. Surely, God says, it is fair for each person to bear responsibility for their own sins and failures rather than putting them onto someone else? But some people disagreed with Ezekiel and said 'the way of the Lord is not fair...'; perhaps we always prefer to move the blame and the consequences of our actions on to others.
The passage from Ezekiel makes it clear that God does not punish one person for the deeds of another. Yet, we all know that the consequences of one person's sin are often borne painfully by another. The consequences of the neglect, abuse or violence of the parents are indeed borne by their children. In a similar way, as Greta Thunberg says, the consequences of the greed and carelessness in our generation will be borne by our children and our children's children. This is not God's punishment but the natural law of actions and consequences.
But God wants it to be different. He wants each person to take responsibility for their own actions, for their own sins and failures, and to then to repent: to turn around, to change. To turn from sin to forgiveness and from death to life. 'Turn and live' as God says through the prophet.
Repentance is a key theme in the Bible. Repentance doesn't mean feeling miserable about ourselves, or wallowing in our failures, but turning around and starting again. Turning from ourselves to God. This will mean a change of mind which affects everything including how we treat creation and the most vulnerable in our world, both now and in the future. Surely repentance, turning around, changing our minds, starting again, is something that is desperately needed as we think about the mess we are making of our planet.?
In our gospel reading Jesus tells a parable about repentance. He tells a story about two sons.
The father asks his first son to work in the vineyard. 'I don't want to!' he replies. What cheek! So he approaches his second son with the same request. His reply is totally different, full of politeness and respect. 'Yes, Sir' he says.
But of course that isn't the real story. That's what the sons say, but what actually happens is very different. The insolent elder son later changes his mind (literally 'repents') and goes and does what his father wanted. Whereas the very polite and amenable second son, when his father is out of sight, decides 'I'm not going to do no hard work in no vineyard!'
Jesus asks the chief priests and elders which of the two sons did what his father wanted and of course they reply the first one. Jesus then goes on to show them that they are in fact like the second son – always saying 'yes, sir' to God, seemingly very religious, but in the end rejecting God's word to them. Jesus reminds them of John the Baptist who came calling people to repent of their sins and change their way of life. The scribes and Pharisees had refused to hear God's word in John's message. They preferred to carry on in their own 'religious' ways. But the tax collectors and prostitutes do respond to John's message. At first glance their lifestyles and attitudes seem to be saying a 'big no' to God. They are not polite, respectful and religious. But they take to heart John's message and do in fact change their minds and repent. Like the first son in the parable.
It must have been a very powerful witness seeing these outcasts of society change their ways. But Jesus rebukes the chief priests and elders 'even when you saw this, you didn't change your minds and repent.' They are still like the second son of the parable, always saying 'yes, sir' to God but in reality following their own way. They have not yet repented or changed their minds.
What about us? This parable may make us feel uncomfortable, as we may all be aware that it is easy to say 'yes' to God (to go to church, to say prayers, to be religious) but not really to turn around and wholeheartedly follow Christ in every area of our lives.
What does it mean to turn around and follow Christ?
There are lots of ways we could answer that question but one way is to draw on our reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians. To follow Christ means to put our trust in the one who became obedient to the point of death on a cross, and to confess that he, the Crucified and Risen One is Lord. But in confessing Christ is Lord, we are also called to seek to follow his way and be transformed in his image. This means following the Lord who humbled himself and emptied himself, who refused to grasp after, or exploit, his status, but who took the form of a servant. If we are to follow Jesus we are to seek to have that same mind and attitude that was in Jesus. As Paul puts it: 'let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.'
If we are to turn around, follow Christ and say 'yes' to God we will need to be changed and to learn a different way of being. This challenges us in all areas of our lives, including in our attitude to material things, our care for the environment, and our concern for those who are vulnerable. Jesus refused to grasp after his status or to exploit it, but we know that as human beings, we do often grasp after what we want, desire to prove our own status, and exploit the natural world and, knowingly or unknowingly, many of its peoples. Part of following Christ is to learn to live more simply, to let go of the desire to always possess more. As someone pointed out 'this planet has enough for our need, but not enough for our greed.'
We each of us have to take responsibility for our own sins, to turn around and say 'yes' to God. But this also involves looking beyond ourselves, for our lives are bound up with the lives of others. As Paul says: 'Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.' This includes having that awareness with which I began this sermon, that our lifestyle and actions now will have consequences for the following generations. Can we look to the interests of subsequent generations, as Greta Thunberg urges us to do? We can all play our part, in seeking to live now in a way that preserves the earth for the future. We all have a responsibility to do this, each one as an individual, but we can also learn from one another and encourage one another. We may think that all we can do is so small and insignificant, but if everyone did those small things, the world would be a different place.
As we look at the creation God has made we may be filled with gratitude for all that is good and beautiful. If we face honestly the damage we have caused to the environment and the threat to its animal and plant species, and to its peoples now and especially in the future, we may be tempted to despair. But rather than giving in to despair, we are called to repentance. We can turn around, follow Christ and say 'yes' to God, seeking to find ways to live differently and preserve all that he has made. We are not left on our own to do this. By his Spirit, 'God is at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for his good pleasure,' (as we heard in our reading from Philippians earlier). Let us pray that God will help us to want to do the right thing, and give us the strength and wisdom to do so. It is God himself who helps us to truly say 'yes' to God.
Revd Helen Marshall