Sep. 1, 24 Last in Climate Change Series: What a Magnificent Time to be Alive

What a Magnificent Time to Be Alive!

Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-16, 35-39

September 1, 2024

This sermon is the last message in a 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.

I’ve read many books about Climate Change in preparation for this series. The most recent one I read is called “Life After Doom” by Brian McLaren. This sermon will be using thoughts I discovered through reading that book.

As I’ve been reading and thinking about the Climate Crisis, there’s one emotion that comes to the forefront: Despair. The latest issue of Time Magazine has an article entitled: How to Avoid a Climate Backlash.

In it I read this: “A growing cohort of climate advocates view the simmering anticlimate narrative in our country with a concern bordering on panic. They have seen versions of this fight playing out around the world and it hasn’t gone well. …The result, amid the hottest year on record is a sort of climate retreat….So climate advocates, researchers and public officials are scrambling…”

It’s easy to get discouraged as we watch the news and see what some are saying and doing to stop our efforts to help our warming planet.

It’s also easy to get discouraged as we see the numbers from the scientists that show us unable to stop or slow down our growing climate crisis.

All in all, one can conclude: These are the worst of times. You and I are living in the worst of times.

But there’s another way of looking at what is going on. In addition to seeing these as the worst of time: I want to say this: What a magnificent time to be alive!

          It’s a magnificent time to be alive because everything we do matters so much. We have such an amazing opportunity in front of us right now to change the direction of history. These are the days that our great great grandchildren will be talking about in their history classes.

Everything we do for the environment right now matters so much. Everything we do for the political direction of this country right now matters so much. Everything we do for equality and equity and justice for all people right now matters so much.

             It’s a magnificent time to be alive because everything we do matters. And everything everyone does matters.

It’s not that you are entrusted with saving the world or I’m entrusted with that task. Instead, it’s all of us, all 8 billion of us each doing our little part. 8 billion people doing 8 billion different things to make a difference in our world.

          It’s a magnificent time to be alive because everything matters.

          On the other hand, I know that it can seem like the worst of times. Even that word hope can be misused to lead us in the wrong direction. I know over the years I’ve heard many misinterpret our Scripture reading today. They use this Bible reading and others to say that our hope should be solely focused on our life after death in heaven. They use the verses we heard read which say: “They were only strangers and foreigners on this earth…They were looking forward to a better home in heaven.”

          The people who talk about this say that what happens in this world doesn’t matter. They say that it only matters whether we get into the next world – God’s heavenly realm beyond this life. It’s only about our pie in the sky, our streets of gold, our mansion and our gold crown.

          Karl Marx, back in the 1800’s, talked about this misuse of hope when he said that religion can be the opiate of the people. The opiate offered by religion is the hope of heaven. As a result, people are encouraged to not bother with this world or the challenges and pain of this world.

This is how Brian McClaren summarizes this approach: “As a result, rather than feeling the pain of our current situation and translating that pain into action, we took a long draw from our religious hope-ium pipe, sang songs about the coming joys of heaven, and fell into a pleasant dream of blissful indifference.”

          These may be the worst of times because so many people are clinging to this hope-ium pipe of pie in the sky religion.

In addition, so many of us are cushioned by privilege. As a result we find it easier to simply ignore the reality that’s going on around us. It’s easier to give up on working for change when one is comfortable in the present situation. We’re so used to enjoying the good life, that we forget that for most people now and in the future, the world is ‘on fire’.

That’s what Greta Thunberg, the young environmental activist said, “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic and act as if the house is on fire. Because it is.”

These seem like the worst of times. And that could very well be true. The house is on fire. But in addition to that I believe in the affirmation: What a magnificent time to be alive!

I believe it’s a magnificent time to be alive because of what I find in our passage of Scripture today. It’s all about doing the right thing regardless of the outcome. In this eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews, the author highlights many examples of people who made difficult choices for the sake of God’s kindom, but never saw the results of those choices. Verse 39 says: “All of them pleased God because of their faith. But still they died without being given what had been promised.”

The hope that these people had was not a hope that caused them to ignore the problems of this world. Instead, their hope was focused on simply doing the right thing, regardless of outcome. Abraham chose to leave his home and go to an unknown land. Sarah chose to believe that she could be a mother in spite of her age. Moses challenged King Pharoah and led the Israelites out of Egypt, but never got to the Promised Land.  

The point the author of our Bible passage is trying to say is this: We can live magnificently whatever happens as a result – whether we are successful or not. How we live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is in itself a magnificent victory.

I believe it’s a magnificent time to be alive because we can love. We might not be able to hope or be confident in a positive outcome for our world. But we can always love. We can express a fierce love that persists and perseveres.

As McLaren says, “We will live as beautifully, bravely and kindly as we can as long as we can, not matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes, even if failure and death seem inevitable.”

Or when people ask him, “Do you have hope?…I say it depends on how you define hope. Hope is complicated. But…even if hope fails, something bigger can replace it, and that is love.”

So often we hear it said that it’s too late. It’s too late to keep our CO2 levels down below a certain number. It’s too late to keep our world temperature below the 1.5 degree rise. It’s too late to save the coastlines or a certain ecosystem.

But it’s still a magnificent time to be alive because it’s never too late to love and never will be. Love will count, no matter what. Even on the last day of the world.

What a magnificent time to be alive because we can love, we can love each other and we can love our world.

I know that in response to the climate crisis so many people are panicking right now. They are screaming that these are the worst of times.

Imagine if you were scared to death of flying on an airplane.. Picture yourself getting on that plane in spite of that fear. Then in midflight the pilot comes on and tells everyone that there will be some turbulence. The plane starts rocking back and forth. People around you start panicking.

That can be a metaphor for the world we’re living in right now. People are panicking because of the climate crisis and because of the changes that are happening all around us. The changes we’re dealing with are also shaking up our economy, our country’s racial make-up, our way of life.

Some people will show their worst selves in this turbulence. They become like toddlers having a temper tantrum. They get out of control. Panic leads to craziness.

In the midst of all this panicked craziness, it seems like we’re in the worst of times.

But I believe: What a magnificent time to be alive. Because we can resist getting sucked into the panic and collective stupidity. We can maintain some semblance of balance, maturity and sanity.

We can acknowledge that there are some things beyond our control like the external turbulence in our world around us and the internal turbulence among our fellow passengers.

But in the midst of these times, we can choose two things: how we respond and how we support one another through this flight. We can choose to huddle together to create islands of sanity and mutual support even as all around us, stupidity levels rise as well the temperatures of the oceans and air.

What a magnificent time to be alive. We can stay calm. We can gather together with other calm passengers. And we can all do our little part in making a difference.

It’s a magnificent time to be alive because everything we do matters.  Every little thing we do today matters greatly.