Today we celebrate the festival of All Saints. As always, we have sung the stirring hymn 'For all the saints', about our relationship as the Church living and active in the world today to the saints of the past, with whom we are one in Christ in a communion that transcends death. We are encouraged by their example to persevere in faith, with our eyes fixed on Christ. Today's readings speak of God taking away death. Through Christ, the Son of God who sheds tears at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35), God wipes away all our tears (Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 21:5), opening to us the hope of eternal life full of the 'inexpressible joys' prepared by God for those who truly love him (Collect for All Saints).
But I'm not going to speak about that today.
Not because I do not love the message of All Saints. Not because I want to dodge anything in today's Bible passages. Not because I do not want to honour the memory of departed loved ones, as we shall do later in this service. But because, from time to time, there are things which have to be addressed in our immediate community or in the life of the wider world. Occasionally, something so pressing is going on around us that it's right to depart from the normal discipline of focusing on the scriptures we've just heard and the related themes of the unfolding Church year. Today is such a day, so with great respect I am parking the theme of All Saints to focus instead on the two week COP26 Climate Change Conference beginning in Glasgow tomorrow. This is so important to all the people of the world that it demands our attention, our serious Christian reflection, and our prayer. As we gather to worship God our Creator, this is a day to remember the one world that we share with all people, and to see the crisis we face in the light of our faith.
I am no expert on the science of climate change or on the politics of finding the best solutions to this crisis. Many of you know much more about these matters than I do. My main focus will be on what difference it makes that we believe in God, the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. As we open our hearts and minds to the scale of the problems to be addressed in Glasgow, what challenges does our faith pose to us, and what hope for the future do we find?
But before turning to the challenges and the hope that our faith brings, let's remind ourselves briefly of some of the main problems that set the agenda for those meeting in Glasgow.
The oceans and seas are being poisoned; glaciers are melting (not only at the poles, but also here in Switzerland). In some parts of the world the air is becoming toxic; plants and animal species are being annihilated; floods, storms, wildfires, famines and droughts have all increased alarmingly.
A vital point is that these changes have affected the world's poorer nations disproportionately. There is, however, ultimately nowhere to hide for anyone, rich or poor. There are no 'gated communities' that will keep these threats at a safe distance from us forever. No man is an island; no nation is an island. In the end, we can only flourish in safety and good health if we do so together.
Health is indeed an important aspect of the challenges facing COP26. A recent report by the medical journal The Lancet warns that climate change is set to become the 'defining narrative of human health', triggering food shortages, deadly disasters and disease outbreaks that could dwarf the toll of the coronavirus. But the worst outcomes are not inevitable, and these experts call for a massive change in our collective, global lifestyle, just like doctors telling unhealthy patients what changes they need to make. One American doctor comments: 'Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is a prescription... The oath I took as a doctor is to protect the health of my patients. Demanding action on climate change is how I can do that.'
Like a patient with alarming health symptoms, the world and all of us in it need to be challenged to change, but we also need hope, otherwise we can sink into despair or be paralyzed by panic. It is precisely a mixture of challenge and hope that God holds out to us.
First, we remind ourselves that the world around us is not a careless, casual, or accidental matter; it is God's creation. Our faith affirms the goodness of creation and God's delight in it. 'God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.' (Genesis 1:31) As a unique part of the wider creation, God makes us human beings in his own image and addresses us personally. We have the God-given capacity to interpret the world; to wonder; to worship; to live in conscious relationship with our maker. God invites us to delight in the world as he does, but also to look after it. God gives us 'dominion' over all living things (Genesis 1:28). Sometimes that word 'dominion' has been seen as licence for exploitation, but we are called to exercise dominion as Jesus Christ did, the Lord who came to serve, the shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. Our responsibility is to be good stewards, reflecting the loving wisdom of God who has entrusted this world to our care. On God's behalf, we are to seek the good of God's creation, the wellbeing of every other creature.
But while we humans have special, God-given capacities and responsibilities, indeed a unique role within God's creation, we should not think of ourselves as ultimately separate from the rest of creation. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes that 'we need a fresh sense of the delight to be found in human and non-human creation alike, a fresh sense of the importance of living in attunement with who we are and what the world is'. Like everything else, we are created by God, made of the same particles of life as other created things. We must humbly acknowledge that we are not masters of the universe, but creatures, lovingly created by God along with the rest of creation. 'It is he who has made us, and not we ourselves.' (Psalm 100:3)
There is also a dark side to the interconnectedness between us humans and the rest of creation. Although the world was created good, it is fragile, subject to decay, frustration and suffering. St Paul describes the 'groaning of creation' (Romans 8:22), which is somehow tied up with our human frustration, suffering and sin. We are sinful creatures living in a fallen world. We may today be aware of the groaning of creation in ways Paul could not have imagined, for example through deforestation, floods and droughts, loss of animal and plant life. Sometimes the suffering and groaning of creation is very clearly linked to human greed and carelessness.
Yet in the midst of a suffering, groaning creation there is hope. Paul is confident that the God who has raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also restore his whole creation – ourselves included – to the glory for which it was made. All creation will be liberated, 'set free from its bondage to decay', and this is bound up with our destiny as perfected children of God (Romans 8:21). Christian hope is indeed about our redemption, our deliverance from all that deforms the divine image in us, but it is not just about ourselves. In today's reading from Revelation Christ says: 'See, I am making all things new' (Revelation 21:5). We must avoid thinking of salvation in narcissistic terms. Jesus Christ died and rose again for me, for you; but not just for me and for you. Jesus Christ died and rose again to make all things new. So Christian hope is not just about my eternal welfare; it also lays upon us responsibility to play our part in the healing of God's creation. The whole creation matters to God; it should matter to us also.
So concern for creation is not an optional extra. The Anglican Communion, to which the Church of England belongs, defines as one of the five marks of the Church's mission: 'To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth'. Concern for creation is part of the Church's mission. That doesn't mean each individual Christian will be equally involved in this issue; but it does mean we should all recognize this calling, this task laid upon the Church, and consider how we may share in this task, through action, through giving, through prayer.
This is not just about protecting animal and plant species, trees and rivers, seas and glaciers. It is also about people. Creation care is a matter of justice. Those most affected by climate change are the poor and vulnerable of our world. One person in the UK generates as much carbon dioxide as 212 people in Burundi – but people in Burundi suffer the effects of the environmental crisis far more than people in the UK. This is clearly unjust: a sinful state of affairs.
Although Jesus came to bring release from bondage for us all, in his ministry he showed particular concern for the poor and vulnerable, and he calls us to do so too. This also is a defining mark of the Church's mission. Safeguarding the environment and seeking justice for the poor belong together as marks of faithful Christian response to the crisis that the world faces.
So as thousands of delegates make their way to Glasgow, we are reminded that our faith in the Creator God, the God and Father of Jesus Christ, challenges us deeply but also gives us deep hope in God's good purposes for the world. This combination of challenge and hope prompts us to action as God's stewards, actively pursuing his agenda in his world. There is so much information about things to do and things not to do, or at least to do much less; there are causes and campaigns to consider supporting, with our activity, our money. Just within this church, our Eco-Group has provided valuable guidance to us all, and Dominic Roser recently gave us a very informative talk with some focused suggestions for action. You don't need me to give you ten more top tips.
I will leave you with just one prompt. With the great opportunity that COP26 offers to the world, this is particularly a time to pray. The leaders of the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches recently issued a joint appeal to pray for those meeting in Glasgow. And if you google 'COP26 - prayer' you will find much to guide your prayers.
God made the world. God loves the world. God is present in the groaning and suffering of his creation and calls us to share in his work in this world, seeking to cherish and renew it, to see its abundant riches shared gratefully among all peoples. Whether they believe in God or not, the people gathering in Glasgow face an extraordinary opportunity to seek the good of God's world and of all God's creatures. So let us pray for them.
I conclude with a prayer written by the Archbishop of York:
Creator God, giver of life,
You sustain the earth and direct the nations.
In this time of climate crisis
grant us clarity to hear the groaning of creation
and the cries of the poor;
challenge us to change our lifestyles;
guide our leaders to take courageous action;
enable your church to be a beacon of hope;
and foster within us a renewed vision
of your purposes for your world;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
by and for whom all things were made.
Amen.
David Marshall