As Holy Week quickly approaches and Good Friday and Earth Day coincide, the Episcopal Church has compiled liturgical, educational and other resources for incorporating earth-care themes into services and celebrations.
“This year Earth Day falls within Holy Week, specifically on Good Friday, a profound co-incidence,” said Mike Schut, economic and environmental affairs officer for the Episcopal Church. “To fully honor Earth Day, we need to reclaim the theology that knows earth is ‘very good,’ is holy. When we fully recognize that, our actions just may begin to create a more sustainable, compassionate economy and way of life.
This makes perfect sense for on Good Friday we always sing “On a GREEN hill far away.”
As if we needed another way to distract ourselves from the God-awful goodness of Good Friday!
But Fr Carl, it’s a “[i]profound[/i] coincidence” doncha know. That TEC guy said so.
It’s a three-fer at our house; it’s also my wife’s birthday. She’s been complaining that her birthday falls on a fast day all year :).
[i]”And on Good Friday, the day we mark the crucifixion of Christ, God in the flesh, might we suggest that when earth is degraded, when species go extinct, that another part of God’s body experiences yet another sort of crucifixion — that another way of seeing and experiencing God is diminished.”[/i]
NO. Just — no.
The thing is there’s an appropriate way to do this, in a Christ-centered fashion, by reflecting on the fact that Christ died for the redemption of the world, that His Resurrection marked the dawning of His new creation, and that because of this we can look forward to the marriage of the new heavens and new earth in His time. From that starting point we can celebrate creation and anticipate the day when the whole world will be renewed and it and we will be free just as we are free, and yes, look for ways to begin to reflect that in the present. But most of the TECians mentioned here are not interested in Christ-centered ecology, they’re interested in an eco-centered version of Christ.
You see ,LJ, that he does not see the difference between Christ’s life and evolution. Evolution demands extinction as a necessary part of its success, that is, the survival of life itself. Christ’s message is, we may say, rather different. The problem arises because TECnobodies have come to believe that the only heaven is MEANT to be on earth, and that all life is meant to be headed toward a steady state of perfection. Rightly engineered, we will live forever. This is why they have placed such faith in Millenium goals. But of course evolution will have none of this nonsense – while Christ go on doing his little thing about life after death and all that. (The notion of God being diminished is, by itself, hilarious.) Larry
I guess they haven’t really considered the ramifications of Entropy.
Then there is the little matter of the about about 4 Billion years of earth history since the creation of life on this planet, in which God has brought many species into and out of existence…long before he created man. Have these people ever actually looked at dinosaur teeth? Hello, God made great nasty ripping teeth for dinosaur predators to rip their prey (other dinosaurs) apart…and He said it was “GOOD”. Let’s celebrate the great carnivors for our tribute to Green!
“You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.” ~ Psalm 104:20-22
Do they realize that God lavished 9 Billion years and three star lifecycles to produce the heavy metals essential to all life? Don’t they have any concept that: “…the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare”? ~ 2 Peter 3:10
Yes, good stewardship is important…but linking it with the death of Emanuel? It’s just wrong in a fundamental way.
Drat! Typo: “carnivores”
#6: thanks you – well said
I might add that there was another profound coincidence a couple of years ago when Good Friday fell on March 25 – preaching about the cross on the feast of the annunciation just made a lot of sense. There is no reason why we can’t pick up a theme or 2 from the earth day ‘coincidence’ – as long as we see the really profound thing – that Christ died to reverse the curse which is suffer4d not only by the human race but by all of creation, and that the creation is waiting with eager lionging for the revealing of the children of God. (Rom 8)