Surely We Are In Communion Together: Sermon
What it means to be in communion with the Earth community and its people. This week's nudge: biodiversity stripes and praying for those of us headed to Biodiversity COP 16
Our Stripes Are Showing: Global Heating and Biodiversity Loss
Are you familiar with the climate warming stripes? Created by Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading, “each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year, relative to the average temperature over the period from [1850 - 2023]. Shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter than average.” They are a powerful visual of how quickly the Earth is heating due to greenhouse gas emissions.
Now there are biodiversity stripes, too. Inspired by the climate warming stripes, Professor Miles Richardson, a psychologist from the University of Derby, created a graphic representation of global species loss over the last 50 years.1 As you can see here, the shift from the bright green of a world rich in biodiversity to the grey of increasing extinction is jarring.
Next week, I will head to Cali, Colombia, to attend the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (Biodiversity COP16), which will be held from October 21 to November 1. I’ll be part of a delegation from the World Council of Churches (WCC) in my role as a Commissioner to the Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development and as the convenor of the Commission’s Working Group on Biodiversity and Creation Justice.
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This will be my first time attending a COP, and the first year that the WCC will be present at a Biodiversity COP. (Here is the WCC’s statement on Biodiversity COP16 and Climate COP29). I’m looking forward to learning and connecting with many others, especially in the Faith Hub that has been established. The Faith Hub is an interfaith space for meetings, prayer, and presentations on how communities of faith can work to preserve biodiversity and prevent further species loss. I will be giving a talk on eco-anxiety and the role of the church in biodiversity protection.
What we need to remember is that climate change and species extinction (which is what biodiversity loss means) are closely related. What I find helpful is when the two graphs are placed together; you can see the relationship between increasing temperatures and species extinction.
Biodiversity COP 16 is happening at a different time and place than the next Climate COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, but while the high-level and grassroots discussions will be focused on biodiversity loss, there will be conversations about climate change and its impact, too. The issues cannot be separated from each other; the Earth community is a single living system, in which human activity has impacted every aspect. As I and my colleagues travel to Colombia (half of us will be attending the first week, the other half the second week of COP 16), please pray for safe travel, rich conversations, new connections made, and for this high-level meeting to make a positive impact upon the issue of species extinction as well as global heating. This is your nudge for this week.
Sermon: Surely We are in Communion Together
Earlier this month churches around the world celebrated World Communion Sunday. This is the sermon I preached that day, reflecting upon my experiences in Kenya and what I learned there about being in communion with people and the wider Earth community.
Scripture Readings:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honour and majesty,
2 wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
3 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
4 you make the winds your messengers,
fire and flame your ministers.5 You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys
to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.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[e] 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. (Psalm 104:1-13, NRSV)
32 ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:32-34, 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.
This summer I travelled to Kenya for two weeks. I was in Limuru, 45 minutes outside of Nairobi, for work with the World Council of Churches. For ten days I was the chaplain to a group of 25 participants in GEM School, which stands for Governance, Economics and Management for an Economy of Life.2 They were church leaders gathered to learn about global economic injustice and create projects they could undertake in their home church communities to advocate for the rights of the poor and the Earth. I was there to support them in a time of intense learning and engaging with one another.
Then, two dozen more people arrived, and I participated in an ecumenical consultation on the issue of land privatization. It was called the NIFEA Consultation on “Land as Commons, not Commodity,” and after two days of presentations and conversations, about 50 of us wrote a collective document, a theological communique on the problem of the commodification of land, and the need to restore land to its rightful place as something with its own inherent dignity and rights, that should not be held in corporate or state hands, but be freely accessible and available to all people. The biblical and theological arguments for this position are powerfully laid out in the communique, which is available for you to read online.
My time in Kenya was transformative, and I’m reminded of it when I reflect on the meaning of World Communion Sunday. Today, when we celebrate our oneness in Jesus Christ with the faithful around the world, I remember what it felt like to be in communion with Christians from all over. The participants and presenters came from every corner: Papua New Guinea. Germany. Indonesia. Kenya. Pakistan. The United States. Madagascar. Serbia. Zambia. India. The UK. Ghana. The Philippines. Canada. Lebanon. Ethiopia, and so many other places. They came from a wide range of Protestant denominations, too.
We worshipped together every day, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in our mother tongues, a cascade of sound as we’d hear the words so familiar to us pour out in languages all around us. Since we were all staying in the same accommodations for the two weeks together, we shared three meals a day in the dining room. Morning, noon and evening, we broke bread and raised our glasses with one another. We were surely in communion together.
In Kenya, I learned something about communion.
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