Pastoral Ponderings . . . 

Christ is risen indeed, and all creation sings for joy today. New life is popping out around us, and the echoes of Easter are seemingly everwhere. The resurrection story from the gospel of Luke reveals how the resurrected Christ is not an ephemeral, ghostly spirit, disconnected from creation. The resurrected Christ, astonishingly, incredibly, is grounded bodily in physical reality.

To me this means Christ Jesus hasn’t left creation behind because the risen Christ is one with creation itself: One with the oceans, rivers, lakes and streams of the Earth; one with the mountains, hills, valleys, and plains; one with the trees, plants, and fields. One with Nature itself. One with every part of the universe.

I believe this is what our spirituality teaches us. There is no place that the Risen Christ is not.  In the air, we feel Christ, and breathe Christ; in the water and rain; in the food we eat; in the grass we touch; in the ocean we swim, and the mountains we climb.  In, with, and under all this, is the risen Christ. Earth and the Risen Christ are inseparable. This is good news to disbelieve for joy. Good news to astonish, confound, and wonder about. Good news to doubt, and yet somehow be guided by, in our stewardship of Creation.

The Earth is in dire need of lovingkindness from the humans blessed by her.  Earth Day events were held across the globe to inspire us to appreciate the world we live in and to protect our environment. Conservation of natural resources, ending pollution, protecting wildlife, and creating sustainable environments are some of the themes spread among many countries.As Christians, we believe that when we touch the wounds of the Earth, we are encountering the Risen Christ who calls us to make all things new.

There are five wounds in Christ’s resurrected body: one in each hand, one in each foot, and one in his side.“Touch me and see; see that it is I myself, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”Neither, we might gather, does a ghost get hungry!  Astonishingly, the resurrected Christ craves nourishment from the Earth itself just as we do.  For me, this is a profound metaphor for how deeply connected God is, in the Earth.  As wondrous and mysterious as gravity itself!  We can’t explain gravity; but it sure Is!  We don’t go spinning off into space!  Thank God for gravity!  And it’s astonishing really. We don’t know what it is.  It makes us wonder.  I think faith and science find common ground in the experience of wonder, just as they do in the experience of doubt.“Disbelieving” the disciples were in Luke.  “Disbelieving” we still are! And still we are met in astonishing ways by the Risen Love of God.

The first disciples touch him, and the wounds in his body, and their perception of life and the world will never be the same. I believe it can be that way for us too.

There are five Gyres in the oceans of the planet .A gyre is a circulating rotation caused by ocean currents and the rotation of the earth, and is normally avoided by sailors due to its light winds.    But in 1997, Capt. Charles Moore chose to enter the North Pacific Gyre on his way back to California from a yachting race, and was the first to discover one of the five horrific wounds in the oceans of our planet Earth.“On the way back to our home port in Long Beach, California, we decided to take a shortcut through the gyre, which few seafarers ever cross. Fishermen shun it because its waters lack the nutrients to support an abundant catch. Sailors dodge it because it lacks the wind to propel their sailboats. Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic.”

Biologists tell us that combined with ultraviolet light and wave action, all this plastic is being ground up into pieces smaller than a grain of rice that’s either swallowed by fish or floats to the bottom. And astonishingly, so much microscopic plastic is accumulating that it blocks the sunlight, killing off algae and plankton: the building blocks of the entire food web of the sea.

We can touch these wounds and be consumed with despair, or we can touch them and be empowered by the Risen Christ to be co-creators with God of the New Creation: redeeming those wounds in the Earth.  I believe that God has been calling Christians to that redemptive work ever since that first Easter morning.

Today, the US petro-chemical industry is planning to triple the production of plastic by 2050, using new technology.  But each of us, as consumers, have the ability to influence production.  We vote with our dollars.  We can vote for more plastic, or we can vote for a plastic-free world.  This Easter we can pledge in our households to go plastic free for a day, a week, or the rest of the season! We can choose to not buy or use single-use plastic products, as modern disciples who have touched the wounds of the Risen Christ, putting our faith in action.

The 5 Gyres website lists the top 5 sources of single use plastic in the world today, and how we can start going plastic free:

  1. Plastic shopping bags.  Taking our reusable shopping bags to the store is a great way to go plastic free for Easter.
  2. Buy in bulk.   Packaging now accounts for 25% of all plastic manufacturing.  Buying bigger helps reduce the amount of plastic you consume.
  3. Wear natural fabrics.  Unlike wool and cotton, plastic microfibers from synthetic materials like nylon and spandex don’t biodegrade.
  4. Carry a reusable water bottle. 7 out of every 10 single use water bottles are trashed.  Not only does a reusable water bottle make good environmental sense, it saves you money! Bottled water costs 2,000 times more than tap water.  And please just say No to plastic straws.  Americans use 500 million plastic straws every day, which aren’t recyclable.
  5. Refuse lids.  Americans use 25 billion Styrofoam cups every year, and many lids are made from the same plastic. Since we still can’t use reusable cups at our favorite coffee stand, we can still refuse the lid.

If we’re still buying single-use containers, consider choosing the aluminum container.  It’s currently 70% post-consumer-recycled content, and holds its value because it’s in such strong demand!  Sadly, only 19% of plastics are accepted at curbside, and take up almost 20% of all US landfill space.

“Look at my hands and feet.  See that it is I myself! Touch me and see.”This Easter, the wounds of Christ in the Earth are still being touched, hearts are being changed, and the new creation is coming into being.  We can touch these wounds and be consumed with despair, or we can touch them and be empowered by the Risen Christ to practice New Creation.     – Pr. David