And Justice For All


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“And Justice For All” Week 8 Romans and the Environment: The Ancient Cedars of Lebanon

Welcome! •Please: •Make a name tag for yourself. •Help yourself to beverages and refreshments. •Fill out the information card on the table. •Read any materials on the table while you wait for the class to begin.

Thoughts from God (NRSV, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

• "You must keep my decrees and my laws.... And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:26, 28) • "The land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and garner their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the Lord.... The land is to have a year of rest." (Leviticus 25:2-5; cf. Exodus 23:10-11) • "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land." (Leviticus 25:23-24) • "You shall not pollute the land in which you live.... You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the LORD dwell among the Israelites." (Numbers 35:33-34) • "If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?" (Deuteronomy 20:19)

Your Thoughts on God’s Thoughts • What strikes you about the verses and what God has to say to the Israelites about the land in which they live?

Some Statistics from NASA

(NASA.gov)

• Between 1993 and 2016, Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice per year, and Antarctica lost about 119 billion tons during the same time period. • Global sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades is nearly double that of the last century. • Since the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans has been increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.

Some Statistics from WHO

(who.int)

• 4.2 million deaths every year as a result of exposure to ambient (outdoor) air pollution • 3.8 million deaths every year as a result of household exposure to smoke from dirty cookstoves and fuels • 91% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality exceeds WHO guideline limits • Indoor and outdoor air pollution, second-hand smoke, unsafe water, lack of sanitation, and inadequate hygiene take the lives of 1.7 million children under 5 years every year

Some Statistics from Conserve Energy

(conserve-energy-future.com)

• Every year around one trillion gallons of untreated sewage and industrial waste is dumped in the U.S water. • The garbage dumped in the ocean every year is roughly around 14 billion pounds. Plastic is the major constituent. • 5000 people die every day as a result of drinking unclean water. • Pollution kills more than 1 million seabirds and 100 million mammals every year. • A single person in United States produces 2 kilograms of garbage every day.

Your Thoughts on the Statistics • What strikes you about the statistics and what do you make of them as you think about God’s thoughts about His land?

Isaiah 24:4-5 "The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant."

A Recent Graph from James Hanson

Psalm 104 • 10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, • 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. • 12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. • 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

• 14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,

• 15and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart. • 16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. • 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. • 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.

Cedars of Lebanon – 2100?

What Tim saw in the Compost.

Thoughts from Aquinas and Richard Rohr “Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine.” “The immense diversity and pluriformity of this creation more perfectly represents God than any one creature alone or by itself.” St. Thomas Aquinas The Incarnation of God did not happen in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. That is just when we started taking it seriously. The incarnation actually happened 14.5 billion years ago with a moment that we now call “The Big Bang.” That is when God actually decided to materialize and to self expose. Richard Rohr

Romans Romans 1:20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. Romans 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Later Paul Ephesians 1:8b With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Colossians 1: 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. . . 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

What Tim saw in Arlington (www.foodlinkma.org)

A Generational View

Bruce and Cherith Rydbeck, Life Giving Water, International

Reflection Suggestion for This Week St. Francis of Asissi: Canticle of the Sun