The Climate is Changing: Part 3 on August 18, 2024

Small is Beautiful

I Samuel 16: 1-13

August 18, 2024

This sermon is the third message in a five-part series on The Climate is Changing. We’re looking at views we’ve held about our world that we need to deconstruct. Then we’re coming up with better ways to understand our situation to respond to our climate crisis.

The first Sunday I shared that we shift from theology of escape to a theology of restoration. Also, that we shift from God doing all the work to a citizenship path where we are all needed to work for change. Last Sunday we talked about moving from individualism to interconnection as family and friends with creation. Dr. Kristen Poole also challenged us to move from just thinking about our neighbors today to also thinking about loving our neighbors of tomorrow.

          Today, I’d like for us to make another shift in our thoughts. One of the views we’ve held about our world is that bigger is better. I’d like to suggest a different and more faithful message: Small is Beautiful. Let’s do a Call and Response that summarizes this sermon. I’ll say: “Instead of bigger is better”. You respond: “Small is beautiful.”

          “Instead of bigger is better….(small is beautiful)”

          The past 75 years have been what some are calling the Great Acceleration. Human economic activity has mushroomed astronomically during this time. In fact, global GDP from the 1750’s onward has been like a hockey stick. It was flat or a slow rise up until 1950 when it shot straight upward. This has benefited so many people across the earth.

On the other hand, it has required an extraction economy based on dominating the earth’s resources for the sake of perpetual growth. For our global economy to thrive, it must grow continuously – bigger is better. Since commodities extracted from the earth make up the engine of growth, we must extract and consume more and more. And we see the consequences in our changing climate.  

Instead of bigger is better…(small is beautiful)

Our Scripture story today really starts with the prophet Samuel. Instead of having elections like we do to select our leaders, Samuel took it upon himself as prophet of God to personally handpick Israel’s first two leaders.

The first leader Samuel chose was Saul. Saul was said to be handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else. Saul was the epitome of the bigger is better philosophy.

But Samuel’s choice of bigger is better didn’t work out too well. Saul turned out to be a failure. He failed in providing good leadership for the people. He failed in following God’s path. He also failed in battles against their neighboring enemies.

As a result, Samuel had to go back to the drawing board. He went to the family of Jesse this time to get the right person.

When Jesse and his sons arrived, Samuel noticed Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab. “He has to be the one the Lord has chosen,” Samuel said to himself.

⁷ But the Lord told him, “Samuel, don’t think Eliab is the one just because he’s tall and handsome. He isn’t the one I’ve chosen.”

¹⁰ One by one, Jesse told all seven of his sons to go over to Samuel. Finally, Samuel said, “Jesse, the Lord hasn’t chosen any of these young men. ¹¹  Do you have any other sons?”

“Yes,” Jesse answered. “My youngest son David is out taking care of the sheep.”

You see, David was the runt of the family – the youngest and smallest. But this is the one God indicated should be the next king. Samuel anointed David to become the next King of Israel.

Instead of bigger is better…(small is beautiful)

I’ve read many books about climate change over the past few months, but there is one that stands out. It’s written by a professor at Calvin University in Grand Rapids by the name of Debra Rienstra. She talks about many places along Lake Michigan like Douglas, Grand Haven, Holland and Sleeping Bear Dunes. The book is called Refugia Faith.

Rienstra starts the book out talking about Mount Saint Helens and the massive volcanic eruption there. It was May of 1980. 1300 feet of elevation was lost and a new mile wide crater was formed. It devastated not only the mountain, but also its surroundings for miles. It crushed, burned, killed and coated everything in hot ash. Everyone assumed life would come very slowly to this death zone over many generations.

Instead, the mountainsides are already covered with lush grasses, prairie lupines and alders. Animals scamper around and streams flow.

What the scientists know now but didn’t know at first was that the devastation passed over some small patches hidden in the lee of rocks and trees. These little pockets of safety are called refugia. They are small, hidden shelters where life persists and out of which new life emerges.

We are living in a time of climate crisis eruption in our world. But we can be people of refugia. In fact, that is something we find throughout our Christian tradition. God works in small, humble, hidden places. Just like through the runt of the family David.

The refugia model calls us to look for the seed of life right where we are, concentrate on protecting and nurturing a few good things and let what is good and beautiful grow and connect and spread. Refugia are places to begin, places where the reconstruction and renewal takes root.

It’s like refugia operate as micro countercultures where we prepare for new ways of living and growing.

Rienstra says, “Refugia are neither bunkers nor beachheads. In times of crisis, religious people are sometimes tempted to remove ourselves from society out of fear and disgust, hoping to wall off a space safe from pollutants where we can protect some kind of holiness and purity.

The opposite temptation is a kind of triumphalism in which we seek strategic dominance, infiltrating and controlling every aspect of society for God, as if God needs our human systems of dominance to squash out the competition.

People have always mustered persuasive arguments for these impulses: to hide or to conquer. …

But God’s preferred way seems less like walls or combat boots and more like a tray of seedlings. God seems to appreciate the humble, permeable, surprising potentials of refugia. I think of refugia faith, then, as a sort of alternative posture, a posture not of retreat or conquest, but of humble discernment and nurture.

 Refugia faith continually asks, ‘Where are refugia happening and how can we help?’ ‘Where do refugia need to happen, and how can we create them?’”

Someone might ask, “What can I do?” The answer might be something small like: “Do what you’re good at. And do your best.”

Instead of bigger is better… (small is beautiful)

Refugia faith also focuses on limitations, not uncontrollable growth. As Christians who celebrate Lent, we know that self-restraint and limits can bring unexpected joys. During Covid we glimpsed for a brief time the values found in a cleaner, quieter world as we stopped driving for a few months. This means we challenge the culture around us that emphasizes continuous growth and size.  

The refugia faith model reminds us of the importance of doing our little work in our little community, in our little home. Refugia are by definition local, particular, and relatively small scale. It is about ordinary people doing small scale work, creating refugia spaces designed to answer needs right where we are.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t need to also attend to our national policies and international agreements. It needs to be a both/and. Both large scale and small scale.

This refugia faith is the Christian way. We believe that God came into this world in a hidden refuge thru the child Jesus. Out of that tiny shelter, against all reasonable odds, we believe the Spirit’s power was at work. The resurrected Christ continues to work in small, hidden places to make a difference in our world.  

Instead of bigger is better… (small is beautiful)

I’m ending each of the messages this month with a time for each of you to make some suggestions about how we can respond to our changing climate, the work that we can do to bring God’s kindom to earth. What are some small, refugia like things are you doing or would you like to do?