Held Up By a Sycamore: A Sermon
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Friends, it’s that time of year again: It is time to join the annual Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike! Beginning today (Sept 20) and lasting all week, people around the world will take to the streets and participate in other events to demand climate action. Please join in! Go to the map on their site to find a march near you.
Think that you’re too old to protest? Here’s what a 72-year-old woman said to me at church on Sunday, after hearing the sermon I preached (that sermon is below):
“Rev. Jessica, you’ve inspired me to start going to protests!”
We need everyone who can to participate in the Global Climate Strike. This year, it coincides with the UN Summit for the Future, when world leaders convene in New York City “to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.” Given the lack of strong leadership on the climate emergency, we need to fill the streets to send the message that we need radical changes today. As it says on the Canadian Fridays for Future website:
Enough is enough! For decades, fossil fuel companies have spread disinformation and obstructed meaningful climate action. It’s time to stop fossil fuel expansion, hold polluters accountable, and finance a just transition for everyone. Together, we can create a future free from fossil fuels.
Unable to join in person? We need prayer warriors! In addition to donating money to climate organizations like Fridays for Future, participating in online events, and raising awareness in your own networks, please pray for and during the climate marches and actions.
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This is your Friday Nudge. Join in the Global Climate Strike near you this week. I’ll be marching with my family tomorrow in Ottawa. Come join me!
As I prepare to march with my family, I take with me the learning that I gained while away last month. I was invited to preach an ecological word to the good people of South Gloucester United Church last Sunday; the following sermon reflects some of what I learned while I was away. I hope that it feeds your soul and helps you find hope and resolve in your commitment to climate action and economic justice.
Sermon: Held Up By a Sycamore
Scripture Reading:
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’ 6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. 7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ 8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ 9 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’ (Luke 19:1-10, NRSV).
Let us pray: God of Life, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our minds and hearts lead us to deeper understanding of you and the love you call us to live. AMEN.
In my call to a ministry of ecology and discipleship, God has led me to international ecumenical work. I serve as a commissioner to the World Council of Churches Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, and the same role with the World Communion of Reformed Churches. In that capacity, I was in Kenya last month, working on issues of economic justice and how they relate to the climate and ecological crisis.
It was a powerful and transformative two weeks, where I learned from colleagues from around the world, as well as from the flora and fauna in and around Limuru, a town about 45 minutes outside of Nairobi. In those two weeks, the connections between global economic injustice and the climate emergency were made very clear to me. It is not an accident that it is the countries in the global North that have caused the worst of global warming through fossil fuel emissions and industrial agriculture, while it is the countries in the global South that are experiencing the worst consequences of the climate crisis.
While there I learned more about the ways in which the system of colonialism impoverished countries in the global South by stealing land and resources, and how, through neoliberal globalization, there is a neocolonialism at work that is keeping the global South impoverished. Countries like Kenya are beholden, through unjust lending practices, to other countries, multinational corporations, and global bodies such as the World Bank and the IMF. That the countries that are impoverished and debt-beholden are also rich in the resources that have allowed for the high-consumption lifestyles of the global North is not a coincidence. The links between capitalism, globalization, and the climate crisis, while they are complex and so cannot be fully explained in one sermon, are also clear.
I came home from Kenya ever more aware that we will never be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to mitigate climate change, nor effectively make adaptations for life in a rapidly heating climate, without addressing the global economic injustice in the world, particularly between the global North and the global South.
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