We are living through horrific pictures of crowds flocking around and trying to hang on to a big jumbo jet in Afghanistan. What fear? What danger? These people are very desperate to escape their country. What horrors are they running away from?
We live on the world stage. It not only affects how we operate in our own country but it deeply affects our relationship with God. Religion must never be an escape hatch from the struggles of the world. Rather, religion is meant to give us strength and vision to embrace the struggles of this world. Our Christian faith is not protection from the onslaught of wars and natural disasters. Our Christian faith is empowerment to embrace what is happening with hope and with courage.
In front of all the political and economic tragedies which batter humanity we have the greatest of all wars right in front of us: climate change induced by human activity!
Slowly people are coming to embrace the reality that human beings are actually causing the atmosphere to heat up. We want to recognize how hard this is to accept for so many people. They will have to make major changes into their lifestyle and their patterns of consumption. And they will have to take responsibility for their personal contribution to the threat of global warming. We are asking a lot of people to make these changes in their own lifestyle and their own self-image of their place on this earth. We are facing less and less resistance but more and more foot dragging to make any changes that will contribute to the sustainability of the earth.
Christians are not people who try to build safe bomb-shelters that will insulate them from the problems of the world. Even though we have an unhappy history of building a fortress church to protect ourselves from the world we accept that this was a mistaken approach to the development of science and human rights in society. Christians embrace the world for what it is and are there to be the ‘yeast that makes the bread dough rise.” We are involved in the world to bring out the plans of God for humanity.
Even though there is much resistance within the people of the Church this will demand that there be a shift in our understanding of our role and responsibility within creation. We must turn toward the created world and embrace the love and purpose God has given to each and every part of creation. This means appreciating the value of each tree, bird and blade of grass. What kind of respect does the Creator-God bring to each and every part of creation?
Pope Francis in his encyclical ‘Laudato si’ (2015) has given official launch to the embrace of the values of creation for our faith, our prayer and our liturgies. We the people of the Church have to work the details out.
We will be surprised what power and energy will come forth as we reach back into our beliefs and experience of God’s creation. Our religious faith has so much to offer us as we move toward building a sustainable world. We will be surprised in what our faith can actually offer us in this regard.
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