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Commentary: Loving neighbor in deed and truth, through the storms
July 25, 2024 / By Dr. Andrew Hartley, UNY Creation Care Ministry / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The following commentary was written by Dr. Andrew Hartley on behalf of the UNY Creation Care Ministry. The views expressed in this article are of the UNY Creation Care Ministry, and not of Bishop Burgos Núñez or any Upper New York staff member.
How much do you know about our purpose for being here, on this earth, according to the Bible? Here’s a little quiz. Several different Bible verses, using different words, tell us why humans are here. Do you know which of these comes first in the canon?
A. To test us.
B. To prepare us for Heaven.
C. To tend and keep Earth.
D. For God's pleasure.
E. So people can love one another.
In fact, the answer is “c,” to tend and keep Earth, as stated in Genesis 2:15.
That’s a very general and broad command. Later portions of the Bible unpack that command, re-stating it in more specific terms and telling us what it means in certain contexts. For instance, we’re not to cut down trees without a good reason. When we take birds’ eggs from the nest, we’re to leave the mother bird, to help the species flourish. Then, too, when oxen are treading out grain, they must be allowed to eat from the grain, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. The larger principle seems to be that we must treat animals kindly, protecting them from cruelty.
God’s “tending and keeping” command is the most important reason I’m working for creation justice. However, caring for the planet is also an extension of Jesus’ commandment to love others as I love myself. How can I say I love others if I pollute the earth they depend on, or take more than my share of resources? Loving others means working to ensure they have enough.
Dear reader, you are probably aware that we are not tending and keeping Earth well and, as a result, our neighbors are suffering. Plastic pollution is everywhere: the deepest ocean trenches, the highest mountains, the polar regions, the rain, and in our body tissues. Nineteen percent of human deaths are caused by fossil fuel air pollution. Soils are depleted, making food less nutritious. And so on.
One especially serious consequence of our over-use and pollution of Earth is global heating. For millennia, the blanket of gases around the planet kept us around a comfortable, safe average temperature, by trapping some of the sun’s energy. However, since we began burning lots of coal, oil and natural gas, we have made that blanket thicker and denser than it’s been in all of human history. The resulting warming is causing havoc of many kinds: collapsing infrastructure, spreading diseases, encroaching oceans, food supply failures, heat waves, killer storms and more.
Compared to other regions, Upper New York has not incurred as much damage from that heating. Nonetheless, some changes are apparent, and increasing more invasive plant and animal species. Ticks that carry Lyme and other diseases and stronger windstorms.
So far, the most pronounced effect of global heating on UNY may be heavier precipitation events. Warmer air can pick up more moisture and dump it in concentrated bursts. The most famous example in the U.S. may be 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, which covered Cedar Bayou, Texas with 51.88 inches of rain, breaking the continental U.S. record for rainfall from a single storm. That said, the American Northeast has seen a roughly 60% increase in the number of days with extreme precipitation, and the intensity of these events has also increased.
Some weather events cannot be attributed to global heating; we may never be able to conclude that it caused the severe winds and rains that hit our United Methodist brothers and sisters across UNY in early July.
To explore creation justice in your congregation, consider creating a Green Team for your church. Resources available include what others have started here.
What we know, though, is that this heating increases the strength and frequency of such events. I am grateful that New York and the U.S. have reduced emissions of heat-trapping gases, but I’m praying that God would inspire and enable us to do even more, including preparing better for the severe weather we cannot prevent.
“…let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18 NRSVUE).