THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Cathy Church Norman

July 1, 2007

The Work of God's Hands

Psalm 8
Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

2 Kings 20:1-19

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, "Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover."

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord:
"Remember now, O Lord, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight." Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: "Turn back, and say to Hezekiah prince of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; indeed, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."

Then Isaiah said, "Bring a lump of figs. Let them take it and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover." Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?" Isaiah said, "This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: the shadow has now advanced ten intervals; shall it retreat ten intervals?" Hezekiah answered, "It is normal for the shadow to lengthen ten intervals; rather let the shadow retreat ten intervals." The prophet Isaiah cried to the Lord; and he brought the shadow back the ten intervals, by which the sun had declined on the dial of Ahaz.

At that time King Merodach-baladan son of Baladan of Babylon sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.

Hezekiah welcomed them; he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses; there was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

Then the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, "What did these men say? From where did they come to you?" Hezekiah answered, "They have come from a far country, from Babylon." He said, "What have they seen in your house?" Hezekiah answered, "They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them."

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the Lord: Days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord. Some of your own sons who are born to you shall be taken away; they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, "The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good." For he thought, "Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?"
The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Last month I was at Montreat, just outside of Black Mountain, for a preaching conference. I'll return to Montreat later today for a conference on Peacemaking. One afternoon I found myself sitting in a rocking chair beside Lake Susan. I watched the water roll down the wall of the damn onto the stones in the creek below. The trees were lush green, birds were chirping, ducks were quacking, frogs played in the water, and a swan was swimming.

As I watched and listened, a sermon was born, a sermon in praise of creation and the One who could created it. I scarce could take it in. So much beauty all around me. I felt like those who wrote in the hymn "How Great Thou Art," "O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder, Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;/ I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed./ Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art./ And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;/ Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in."

When I was a child I never ventured far from North Carolina but was in nature all the time, playing with caterpillars, making mud pies, climbing trees, and trying to dig to China. We took vacations to Black Mountain and Ocean Isle. I often visited my grandparents who lived in Burlington. Whenever we pulled up, we smelled flowers that lined the beds on the side of the driveway. In the spring, bright red roses climbed up the side of the house. Whatever the season, sheets waved in the breeze on the line and often my grandmother would peek around the sheets with clothes pins in her hands and say, "hello" or really "yoooo." My grandfather had a garden across the street with sweet potatoes, corn, green and lima beans, tomatoes, and cabbage just to name a few. He'd work in the garden, while we looked in the creek for snakes.

Once my grandfather took me to the outskirts of Alamance County to show me my roots. It happened to be the place of Alex Haley's roots, too. Papa showed me where my family worked side by side with slave families (the same land that told the story of Kunta Kinte in the epic "Roots"). He showed me a church in the middle of the woods-Crossroads Presbyterian-and told me that some of our family members (though he probably said "kin") were charter members back in 1783. Then he drove me around the rolling hills and told me that it was the most beautiful place on earth. . . and he should know because he'd been to England and France.

We've been enjoying the television series "Planet Earth" at our house recently. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It has the most amazing scenes of nature filmed all over the globe. My boys watch it and gasp, "I like howler monkeys, look the frog can fly, and there are waterfalls in the trees." The show is a great reminder that the earth is beautiful. It's breathtaking and majestic. It's easy to see with so much beauty around why the Psalmist who wrote Psalm 104 cried out, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless God's holy name." It's a love song to the God of creation who "stretch[es] the heavens like a tent, set[s] the earth on its foundation, make[s] streams gush in the valleys, water[s] the mountains. . ." The psalmists are filled with praise for the work of God's hands and for all that God does to sustain what God has made.

The passage from II Kings is a wonderful parable for today. Hezekiah was king of Israel when Assyria was knocking at the door of his kingdom. Death was knocking too. The prophet Isaiah came to tell Hezekiah that he was going to die. Hezekiah's response was to appeal to God. . . to pray. Hezekiah reminded God how faithful he had been and how he had done right by God. And before Isaiah was able to leave the royal grounds, God sent him back to tell Hezekiah that God heard Hezekiah's prayer and saw his tears, and that God would heal him and give him 15 more years. And God would save Jerusalem from the Assyrians.

Hezekiah wanted a sign, and the sign was for the sundial to be altered, which God did. Hezekiah was a faithful man. So much so, that God listened to him and God's mind was changed because of his prayer. God altered time on the sundial and slowed down time to give Hezekiah 15 more years.

In those 15 years Hezekiah showed Babylonian royalty all that he had-every treasure in his house and in his realm. Isaiah didn't think this was such a good idea and questioned Hezekiah about it. Isaiah gave Hezekiah a warning from the Lord-a day would come when all everything in his house would be taken to Babylon-even his own sons would be taken and would serve another king as eunichs.

What was Hezekiah's response? Sadness. Prayers and tears again? No, Hezekiah told Isaiah that it was a good word that God had given him. Because there would be peace and security in his days. What? That doesn't sound right. Hezekiah's kingdom was going be laid to waste by the Babylonians. His sons were going to become eunichs, and he was happy to have peace and security while he was alive. Hezekiah was a faithful man but he was a shortsighted one, too. Perhaps God would have listened to Hezekiah's prayers for future generations.

So, why didn't Hezekiah pray and work so hard to secure for future generations the same kind of future he had secured for himself?

I've got a simple answer for that. It's something we've made up in my family. Just three simple letters-NHP. . . NHP which stands for NOT HIS PROBLEM. For Hezekiah the future was not his problem. It was someone else's problem to deal with.

Let me tell you how we came up with the idea of NHP. With two children four and under, we face impossible situations every day. Every day they want something that we can't possibly do. But that becomes our problem, not theirs. I'll give you an example: my two-year-old son Sam is always trying to load too many things into a small space. So, here's the situation. Sam wants to fit 20 matchbox cars into something about this big [hold hands up]. He's cramming them in, saying "this won't fit, this won't fit." The cars are heaping over the top. He begins to yell and cry, and tells me to fix it. I say it can't be fixed because there are too many cars. His crying escalates to a near tantrum, and he yells, "make it stop. Fix it." The fact that they won't fit is NHP-not his problem. He's pushed the problem off to me, and it has become, MP-my problem to deal with.

The future didn't affect Hezekiah, so it was NOT HIS PROBLEM, even though it meant hardship and calamity for his family and future generations. But the future did matter. It mattered a lot to the generations who spent their lives in exile.

All too often, we can think that issues surrounding the care of the earth are not our problem. They don't affect us. They're problems for the future. . . or problems for environmentalists or politicians. But caring for the earth is our problem. Because before it's a political issue or an environmental issue, it's a theological issue. Taking care of the earth is a theological issue because God loves the world and we love God.

Psalm 24 tells us it's a theological issue because "the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and all those who live in it." As Christians we care for creation because the earth belongs to God and everything in it-all the land, all the water, the animals, the trees, the stars, all of it belongs to God. The earth is not ours. We are part of the creation. We love and care for creation because we love God, and God has asked us to do it. We're supposed to nurture and care for creation, the way God nurtures and cares for us.

Caring for creation is a theological issue, one of the biggest of our time, because as John's gospel says, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." Jesus came for the love of the world, not just for the people in it. He came to bring redemption to our whole planet. Remember the lilies of the field? Or the birds of the air? God doesn't forget them. God clothes them with beauty and honor. (Matthew 6:25ff).

We're supposed to care about creation because Paul's Letter to the Romans tells us that all of creation is groaning in labor pains awaiting redemption. (Romans 8:22-23) We see creation groaning right now, not just because of normal life on our planet but because we're pushing it to its limits. According to scientists, heat is rising because of the amount of carbon we're putting off in the air. We've heard a lot about this lately and seen lots of statistics about global warming, which don't come without controversy. Some other statistics about our overuse of the earth, about the amount of waste we generate in the United States are staggering:

Americans throw away enough aluminum every three months to rebuild our entire commercial airfleet. [1] The average person receives 6 times as much junk mail as person mail. 100 million trees are used to make junk mail every year. [2]

Americans use grocery bags for 25 minutes or less and throw 14 billion plastic bags in the trash each year (recycling only 2%). That's not even counting all the paper bags and trees used to make them. [3]

And if you think that's a lot, we throw 25 billion plastic water bottles (just water bottles) in the trash each year. That's 70 million water bottles a day. These take only minutes to drink. . . but like plastic grocery bags can take 500-1000 years to decompose. [4]

Future generations inherit mountains of waste, not so majestic. We can do better by those to come than Hezekiah did. We don't have to leave a legacy of waste and overuse.

But sometimes, caring for God's world can seem like a huge task, too big for little me to take on. There are so many things we can do that won't disrupt our lives too much, fairly simple things. I've given you a list of 12 things we can all do in the form of a bookmark. It's more than twelve, really. If we all did just these things, imagine the cumulative effect of a congregation of 1100. And then if you shared these ideas (and your own) with a few friends, imagine the possibilities. About 33% of the earth's human population is Christian. Imagine if all 2 billion of them did a few things to help take care of the planet. What a world this would be!

I know that trying to get our arms around caring for the planet can be a lot to think about. I didn't really know anything about caring for the earth two years ago. I recycled curbside, and that's about it. But in the past couple of years, God has put it on my heart to care for this most valuable resource that we have. I practice doing what is on that bookmark and am listening to God for other ways that I might care for God's creation. What I've learned is that we just need to start somewhere, and this bookmark can be as good a place as any. The single best thing we can do is think about what we're doing-make conscious decisions about what we buy or consume and think about where it will go when we're done with it.

If you're like me, some of your best, most significant memories involve nature. I heard my call to ministry when I was sixteen under a blanket of stars in the Colorado Rockies. And grew in my understanding of what it means to serve God in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee when I saw poverty for the first time. My engagement ring was surrounded by dozens of rose petals when Bart asked me to marry him. And I sat on the screened in porch with Sara and Phil Saunders talking about anniversaries and kids and life the week before she died. What are your memories?

God's world speaks to us and shows us a reality and a majesty about God that we just can't get sitting behind a computer or anywhere else. God uses nature to call us and transform us. Through creation, God reminds us what is really important, simple things, life and love, beauty and sustenance. When we care for God's creation we're giving back to God, giving to others here and now and to those yet to come, and we're helping God's vulnerable creation that cannot help itself. God has designed the world for us to help God in caring for the earth and all its inhabitants.

Francis of Assisi took this idea very seriously. When he was in his 20's, he left his wealthy, consumptive lifestyle because he heard a call from God to repair God's house, which he saw falling in ruin. Francis saw that the household of God included old church buildings, and the poor, the creatures of the earth, the afflicted, every one and every thing. "Francis believed that this home rested in the hollow of God's hand." The sun and moon and all of nature were his family, and the prime responsibility of all family members was to praise God. [5] That's why he wrote the Canticle of the Sun (which is on the other side of your bookmark). When we care for God's creation, we join with all of creation in the praise of our Creator. I'll close with praise to God from the Canticle of the Sun:

Be praised, my God,
for all your creatures,
and first for brother sun,
who makes the day bright and luminous. . . .

Be praised my God,
for sister moon and the stars,
in the sky you have made them brilliant
and precious and beautiful. . . .

Be praised, my God, for our sister, mother earth,
who. . . watches over us
and brings forth various fruits
with colored flowers and herbs. . . .

Praise and bless my God
and give thanks to God and serve God
with great humility. Amen

[1] from Good Morning America's My Life in Garbage by Diane Sawyer, April 10, 2007
[2] from Nativeforest.org
[3] from Good Morning America's My Life in Garbage by Diane Sawyer, April 10, 2007 & Sundance Channel's Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Paper or Plastic, 2007
[4] from Newsweek, July 9, 2007, p.14
[5] from the sermon "The Family of All Creation: by Tanya Marcovna Barnett, Bayview Manor, Seattle, WA, fall 2002.