Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Genesis 1:26 - 31; Psalms 24

Preached by Rev. Dr. Robert Matlack
=================================================

This is a wonderful world in which we live! It's especially easy to appreciate on a day like today - when even though it's cloudy out, the temperatures and humidity are comfortable, the trees and the flowers are beautiful, and the birds are singing. It's a good day to be alive! It is a good day to enjoy the beauty of the earth!

Have you ever wondered how a tree grows leaves? Have you ever wondered how a plant knows to grow a flower of a particular color or shape or size - so that all the daisies look very much alike or all the roses or even all of the dandelions? It's a miracle!

Yes, there are scientific explanations which describe how all of those things happen. Just as there are explanations as to how a child is born and grows from a few tiny cells into an adult human being. I have seen the process happen. I have read and studied the scientific understandings of the intricacies as to how our bodies, or the body of a plant functions. It is miraculous! We are so complicated, so precisely put together, so that we can live and breathe and have our being in this world, that all of the scientific explanations remind me of how miraculous these things really are.

It is truly a miracle that we live and are able to be here today. That is the message of our passages, which remind us that God is our Creator, that life is a gift - a wonderful gift, a gift that we often take for granted, but that each and every day is a special gift from God. All of the complexities and intricacies of who we are and how our bodies function, not to mention the complexities that abound in the creation around us - all of that reminds us that God is the one who created this world. It is truly a miracle that we live and are able to be here today. That is the message of our passages, which remind us that God is our Creator, that life is a gift - a wonderful gift, a gift that we often take for granted, but that each and every day is a special gift from God. All of the complexities and intricacies of who we are and how our bodies function, not to mention the complexities that abound in the creation around us - all of that reminds us that God is the one who created this world.

This world belongs to God. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof" as the 24th Psalm reminds us so powerfully. This is God's world. The world and each and every one of us belongs to God. Our role is to be God's stewards, to order, to manage this world on behalf of God.

That's easy to say. It comes out very simply. Our role is to be God's stewards, to order, to manage this world on behalf of God. Unfortunately, most of the time those words come out too easily, for we don't take them seriously enough. We fail to accept and to see all that this means for us and for how we live.

We like to live with the exceptions. "This is my house and my yard. God owns the rest of the world and I sure wish that other people would take better care of it. I'm managing my part of it just fine - just the way that I want."

What would it really mean for us if we saw all of creation as belonging to God and as our responsibility to administer in God's name? Think about that for a moment.

I believe that one of God's expectations is that old saying - when you're camping out in the woods or hiking through wilderness areas, "to leave the area in as good or better shape than you found it". There's a recognition in that saying that this is something special, that we are there to enjoy it but not to destroy it, and that we have a very real responsibility to preserve it for others.

That's true not just of the woodlands and wilderness areas, but of this whole world. When we pollute the air or the water or the ground - as we do minute by minute, day by day, then we leave the world in worse shape than we found it . We expose other people and plant and animal life to toxic chemicals and we leave those problems for future generations. Yet, how many more generations do we really thing there will be if we don't stop polluting, if we don't curb global warming, if we don't start really taking care of God's creation?

There's an old story that one day a policeman in London was working his beat on the Waterloo Bridge and he saw a man there who was about to jump off the bridge. The bobby (as policemen are called in London) managed to get to him just in time,. "Come now" said the policeman. "Tell me what is the matter? Is it money?" The man shook his head. "Is it your wife?" Again the reply was negative. "Well, what is it then?" persisted the policeman. "I'm worried about the condition of the world," admitted the man. "Oh come now, replied the bobby reassuringly. "It couldn't be as bad as all that. Walk up and down the bridge with me and let's talk it over." And so the two men walked along discussing the world's problems for about an hour, and then they both jumped off the bridge!

Sometimes that's how we feel. The problems are so great that we feel like there is nothing that we can do. We're ready to give up. But there are many things that we can do. None of them will fix the problems in their entirety. The problems are worldwide problems after all. They can't be fixed by just a few people or even a few million. It will take all of us. But we can do in the meantime is to plant seeds of hope by the way that we live.

When we start taking seriously our responsibilities to be God's stewards; when we start caring for the world and taking seriously our responsibility to leave it in at least as good shape as we found it; when we start really caring for and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves; when we live like that, then we truly make a difference in that part of the world in which we live. God works through us to give hope and nurture to others, so that they too can follow our example.

Remember that wonderful story in Genesis where God is going to destroy the city of Sodom because of the wickedness of the people. Abraham argues with God and gets God to agree to spare the city if there are 50 innocent people there, then 45, then 40 and on down so that God agrees to spare the city if there are only 10 people there who are innocent. As you know, there were not even 10 and so the city was destroyed.

Let's not have that happen with this world in which we live. Let's not have God shaking his or her head in sorrow and regret that there are not enough faithful people here. For today, let each of us commit ourselves to the task of being God's faithful stewards - loving and caring for this world and all who live here.

Amen