“THE CHATTERING TREE”

           

Have you noticed the “chattering tree” on your way to North Ryde Community Church? It’s a huge tree (you can’t miss it) on the corner block facing our church. Each time I arrive this tree is alive, its leaves hiding a mass of resident birds of differing species loudly discussing their accommodation arrangements with their neighbours.

There are other noticeable things available. When the bottlebrush trees alongside Cutler Parade are in bloom, each tree quivers full of lorikeets feasting upon the nectar. In the front of the North Ryde Community Aid Centre you can notice community beds of flowers and of vegetables and herbs growing.

Perhaps we may have been in too much of a hurry or have too many things on our minds to notice any of these things. God has so much to show us and we do mean sometime to stop and smell the Manse roses but procrastination is always something we put off trying to correct.

We are entering that long part of the season of Pentecost where we are called upon, according to “With Love to the World” to “focus on God’s creation and reflect on our own faith journey”. We are often so busy trying to keep on top of things that we miss the simple messages of creation all about us. We ignore them at our peril and at the peril of those who will come after us who may well find them no longer there when it is too late.

Less and less we taste the locally grown food and depend upon imports from God knows where. Not only is the little community garden next door to our church hardly noticed but its purpose to encourage attenders at the Centre to participate in the nurture of these plants. In times of disadvantage, an ability to grow and prepare one’s own food can mean the difference between dignity and despair, between self-reliance and dependency. And it is only when we begin to notice our environment that we find our proper place within it.

I suspect that El Nino is arriving in what is turning out to be a dry time for us where water and therefore some foods become all the more precious through their scarcity. The bowling green lawns look brown. Watering is taking place this winter because the rains are spasmodic.

All these are signs that we are neglecting our environment – the creation of God. Our farmers continue to find rural life more difficult with our cities becoming more congested by default. Country bridges, the lifeline to many communities, fall into disrepair because resources seem only available to develop high-rise urban living.

The sign of the chattering tree is that of God telling us something about his creation. In Jesus Christ we have been given the opportunity for new life, not just for us, but for our community, not only for ourselves but for all life placed around us. When we stop for a moment, we may hear the cries of people treated badly, near and far away. We may experience in the changes of our climate that we have not treated our environment much more kindly than those seeking asylum. We find to our horror we are capable of great cruelty and indifference when what we want is put at risk in any way. Nature and human victims cry out like the murdered Abel in Genesis ch 4 from the ground on which we stand.

We remember Jesus who did not shrink from putting himself at great risk so that we may have life abundant. Our call to discipleship is to include others and our environment to taste this great life which God has given to us.

Dominion?

Tidying up after some guests had departed from a holiday resort, the proprietors were heard to mutter to one other, “Some come for recreation. Others come to wreck creation.”

I think if God could be heard to mutter, he would surely lament over what those whom were said to be “made in his image” never cease to want to destroy what was created.

Now I’ve heard many arguments regarding the so-called Creation versus Evolution debates as if they were mutually exclusive. However, the “wow” factor emerges whether one reads the two stories from Genesis recently studied or from the magnificent documentaries one views on TV. God has been at work even as we wonder at the remarkable detail and process by which creatures have evolved over millennia right from the Big Bang.

The real debate is not so much over how the universe was made but what we do with it. Too often the instruction in Gen. 1:26 to “have dominion” over other creatures has been taken as an excuse to exploit all nature for what it is worth. Despite using possible oral traditions dating well back into Babylonian pre-history which, at least, shows the wisdom of describing creation in order, the Jewish priests, writing about 597BC, added some all-too-human arrogance.

There is more of a sense of stewardship in the second Genesis story where God takes the man and puts him in the Garden of Eden “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). This story, based again on ancient folklore this time around the southern regions between Egypt and Arabia, began to be written down in the kingdom of Judah c900BC. We are given limits and we know what happens when the envelope is pushed too far.

By stressing the dominion rather than the stewardship, we human beings have irresponsibly brought our planet too far to the point of no return. Already there is doubt whether the new baby prince George will have any kingdom left to reign over.

           

            The more we study how our universe, including our planet, was made, the more fragile we see it to be when we keep on pushing that envelope. Every attempt to blow the whistle to stop and think what over-development does is met by scorn as if any use of the brake will take away people’s jobs. As if our destiny is to make our money out of cutting down and digging up the homes of fellow creatures.

            We keep thinking that employment is based on making money at the expense of man and nature rather than caring for humanity and creation. Have we lost the sense of vocation where we are called to be stewards of time, talent and treasure? We need no one to re-build the Titanic for we are fast working to pull the plug out of its bottom.

            Here in Australia, we are fast forgetting to care for those who seek refuge with us. We adulate the birth of a prince overseas who may have little impact on the way we live but treat as disposal human trash those who now dare to risk their lives to come here by boat. How can we be entrusted with nature when future citizens who can help rebuild our nation are denied what we take for granted?

            Where do we stop with this idea of “dominion” at the expense of the original “tilling and keeping”? Have another look at our creation stories and keep viewing those documentaries. It’s not what we believe about creation that we shall be held accountable but how we treat it that matters.