I Speak for the Trees
Mark 12:28-31
April 23, 2006 – Earth Stewardship Sunday
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

• Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, was once asked, “What is the earliest sign of civilization in any particular culture.” The expected answer would have been, “early stone tools, or perhaps clay pots.” Instead, Dr. Mead answered, “A healed femur. A human thigh-bone. That, she indicated, meant that someone cared. Someone would have had to do the hunting and gathering for the injured person while the bone was healing. Therefore,” she concluded, “compassion is the first sign of civilization.”
• Our scripture begins with a scribe coming to Jesus with a question. This story is also told in Matthew and Luke, but there, it is a lawyer who comes to test Jesus, looking to trap him, to trip him up. We don’t get that sense from Mark. Here, it seems to be a genuine question. The scribe comes to Jesus asking, because he’s already seen that Jesus answered well.
• Which commandment is first of all?
• Jesus answers: Love God with all you have and all you are. But there’s another law just as important, Love those whom God loves. There is no other commandment greater than these.
• The scribe responds: Well said, teacher. Love God and love those whom God loves, for that is worth more than any burnt offerings.
• I should pause here and confess: I don’t really speak for the trees, even if that is the title of my sermon. It was the Lorax who spoke for the trees in the Dr. Seuss book I just read to the children.
• Besides, I think the trees speak pretty well for themselves: in good conditions they grow mighty and with vigor expressing themselves in green leaves and healthy fruit. But these same trees fail when environmental forces are turned against them: when pollution and toxins in water and soil, and mismanagement of the land prevails, the trees express a different message. Or perhaps, they don’t speak at all when they are overlogged or slashed and burned.
• No, today I speak for those whose lives are affected by the loss of the trees, or pollution of the water or air, or infusion of toxins into the soil.
• The Lorax spoke for the Brown Barbaloots in their Barbaloot suits, and the Humming Fish who can’t hum and the Swomee Swans who can’t breathe.
• I speak for our neighbors, the ones we don’t know, the ones we’ve never met, the ones who live far away. The ones whose lives are impacted by the decisions we make or don’t make as we live in and use and abuse God’s world.
• Because studies have shown and commonsense tells us that it is the most poor, the most vulnerable, and the most voiceless among us who will be most impacted by pollution and the misuse of resources, by the privatization of essential resources like water, by the ever increasing toxic wastes that we know we have to put somewhere, but not in my backyard.

• The fallout from Hurricane Katrina revealed much that we wanted to pretend we didn’t know. As residents struggled to survive in the days after the Hurricane, it became painfully clear that the stranded, the homeless and the lost were predominately people of color, and the poor. But as the cleanup has continued and we’ve struggled with the ecological fallout of the Hurricane, the environmental injustice that exists in New Orleans and elsewhere also became apparent. Numbers from the Eco-Justice programs of the National Council of Churches tell us the story:
• 3/5 of African Americans and Latinos in this country live in communities with toxic waste sites. I guess it’s OK to put them in their backyards.
• 71% of African Americans and Latinos live in communities where air pollution violates federal clean air standards (in case you’re wondering it’s 58% for whites)
• And in New Orleans Lower 9 th Ward where so many homes were destroyed and lives uprooted, after hurricane levels of arsenic were 75 times higher than residential standards allow.
• Even before the hurricane, an industrial area along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans had been nicknamed “Cancer Alley.” Care to hazard a guess about who’s most likely to live within range?
• But there’s more: After the hurricane some 2.4 million people were left without safe drinking water. And that’s bad enough. But the U.N. reports that worldwide 1/6 of the human population has no access to clean drinking water, and that’s without a hurricane. The U.N. predicts that by the year 2025 2/3 of the world’s populations will not have sufficient drinking water.
• A quote from Fortune magazine says, “Water promises to be to the 21 st century what oil was to the 20 th Century: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations.”
• Transnational companies are buying up water rights in poor areas at alarming rates. Coca-cola stands accused of either draining or ruining freshwater supplies for numerous poorer communities in India, and Nestle stands accused of similar charges in Michigan.
• The quote from Fortune magazine predicts the future: Those who can afford it will have safe water, and those who can’t, won’t.

• Which brings us back to the two great commandments. It’s easy to see how caring for our planet demonstrates our love for God. But now, we see it’s more than that. How we care for our planet also demonstrates our love, or lack of love for our neighbor, loving those whom God loves. Caring for the environment then becomes a sign of compassion: the first sign of civilization.

So…In the spirit of Dr. Seuss:

“Catch,” said the preacher

The ball comes to you

Cherish God’s blessings

Earth, sky, and water too.

Take care of God’s planet

It speaks volumes you see

As we love God and neighbor

Compassion is key.