Climate justice sermon pack
Thank you for downloading this climate justice sermon pack for use during Christian Aid Week and throughout ‘We preachers have an the year. We hope it inspires and helps you undertake the opportunity to declare that urgent task of preaching about climate justice. there is another narrative out We offer three sets of sermon notes to assist you in the of which we can live our lives. task of declaring another narrative. The first set of sermon It is a narrative of generosity, notes is based on the Revised Common Lectionary for and freedom, and forgiveness, Christian Aid Week Sunday (9 May). The last two sets are based on the Old Testament prophets of Micah and Hosea. and hospitality, and justice. An accompanying order of service on the theme It is the narrative of the future.’ of the Song of the Prophets is also available, as are Walter Brueggemann many other resources exploring climate justice, at Old Testament scholar and theologian caweek.org/resources
Contents
1 Stories page 2 Kenya stories for Christian Aid Week
2 Sermon notes page 4 Water, praise, love and joy
3 Sermon notes page 6 The Song of the Prophets
4 Sermon notes page 8 Apocalyptic lament and hope
5 Action points for response page 10 1Stories Kenya The climate crisis is having a significant impact on The coronavirus pandemic has only increased the communities in Kenya. The main problem is the lack urgent need for families to access a reliable source of of access to a reliable source of water to help them water for handwashing. withstand the unpredictable weather made worse through the climate crisis. In Kitui county, eastern Kenya, 8 out of 10 people depend on water to grow crops, for food and to earn The weather has become more extreme. Drought a living. Without a reliable water source, staple crops has become more frequent and intense, resulting like maize and beans are damaged and destroyed. in millions of people being short of food as they are unable to grow crops. In parts of Kenya in 2020, The lack of water forces people to walk further and drought was followed by relentless rainfall and further to find a dependable source. Cows, sheep and flooding, which damaged crops that had struggled goats are becoming weak without access to water, and to grow. can’t produce milk or be sold. People are struggling to cope. Lives are at risk. With no access to reliable water sources or a way to capture rainfall, many communities are struggling to survive. Rose Rose is caught in a cycle of climate chaos. From severe ‘We have to walk long distances. We are suffering,’ drought to flooding, extreme weather robs her of what she Rose said. needs to survive: a reliable source of water. Without water, every day is a struggle. Without water, Rose is thirsty and While she walks, her stomach gives her stabbing pains. hungry. This is her climate crisis. She feels weary under the hot sun. But if she gives up, her grandchildren will suffer hunger and thirst. ‘When I was a young girl, there was plenty of food,’ Rose says. With a dam full of water, Rose would be free from her long, painful journeys. She’d have time to grow fresh vegetables Now, the rains are totally unreliable. The climate crisis for her family to eat. And she could see her grandchildren has galvanised extreme weather and Rose’s community grow up and live life in all its fullness. are feeling the brunt of it. For months at a time, Rose lives with drought.
‘I often feel hungry,’ Rose says. ‘Because of climate change, I worry a lot about food. I pray to God that the rainfall will become normal like it used to be.’
In recent years, the drought has been so bad that it’s caused a hunger crisis. Crops wither and die. Rivers run dry. People struggle to survive.
Rose strives to provide for her grandchildren who live with her. She does all she can to give them happy childhoods, but the climate crisis is driving her to the brink.
In times of drought, Rose sets out on a long and dangerous journey every morning to collect water for her family. She walks on an empty stomach.
2 1Stories Florence Florence is full of life, love and laughter. The women in help of our partner Anglican Development Services – her farming group look up to her. She’s courageous, Eastern (ADSE), just a short walk away from her village. kind – a survivor. With this dam, Florence can grow tomatoes, onions and A few years ago, her husband died, leaving her a widow. chillies on her farm. With this dam, her children can eat At that time, she had no water to grow crops. Her children healthy, nutritious vegetables. It’s her source of life and joy. were hungry. She had to walk for hours on dangerous journeys to collect water. ‘Life was miserable,’ she told us. Florence also uses the water from the dam to keep bees. She sells the rich, golden honey for cash at the market. But things have changed for Florence. Next to her farm, Now, Florence is reaping a good life for herself Florence is proud to show us something remarkable – and her family. a dam, full of fresh water. The dam gives Florence strength to withstand even the It’s thanks to your donations that Florence and her most unpredictable weather. It’s a reliable water source, community have built this water dam, with the whether she faces long drought or relentless rainstorms.
Sadly, millions of people in Kenya are desperately struggling to survive climate chaos. You can help another community build a dam. Many more people will have the water they need to sustain their families. By encouraging your congregation to give generously, we can help more people like Florence to thrive.
If you’ve ordered the church collection envelope for Christian Aid Week, you’ll see there is an option to find out more about giving regularly to Christian Aid. Regular giving is vitally important because it is your chance to stand together with the communities we support worldwide and make a lasting difference. A regular gift from you would help us be there for people like Florence in the long term.
3 Sermon notes 2Based on the Revised Common Lectionary for Christian Aid Week Sunday (9 May)
Water, praise, love and joy These sermon notes weave together the stories for caused by climate change. Rose has to walk further and Christian Aid Week that focus on climate change in make harder journeys to get the water her family needs. Kenya with the themes from the lectionary passages of water, praise, love and joy. We hope they will help you In baptism, water is symbolic of new life and the believer in your preparations for Christian Aid Week Sunday being baptised dying to the old way of life and being sermons, whether online or in person. You will find worship raised up to something new. The water provided by the resources, including a reflective film and a prayer sheet, dams in Kenya has been a source of new life through the on our website for you to use in either setting, along with a transformation it has brought to their communities. film about Christian Aid’s work in Kenya. The astounding thing for us reading or hearing this passage Acts 10:44-48 today is not the inclusion of the Gentiles, but that it may be no less holy to sprinkle water on thirsty, much-needed The theme of water runs through the Christian Aid Week crops than it is to sprinkle water on a baby’s head or fully stories from Kenya – both a lack of water and a destructive immerse an adult at baptism. abundance of it. Drought and flood are part of the climate This Christian Aid Week, we can be part of the answer to chaos and the associated erratic weather patterns being Peter’s question. Through our generosity, we can help experienced by communities in Kenya. These communities ensure the much-needed water is not withheld from Rose’s depend on a reliable water supply for their livestock and community. Through our actions for justice, we can help livelihood, as outlined in the stories on the previous pages. ensure that the systems that perpetuate climate injustice (You may wish to include Rose’s story here.) are changed and a reliable supply of water can be made The theme of water takes on a particular significance in the available to all who need it. passage from Acts, in light of the climate chaos in Kenya. Psalm 98 The astounding event of the passage is that even the Gentiles have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is the new song we can sing together this Christian This makes clear the generous and inclusive work of the Aid Week? Whatever the song, it is one that that we sing Holy Spirit. with the Earth. Throughout Psalm 98 – and particularly in verses 7 and 8 – people are just one of the many Peter then poses the question: ‘Can anyone then withhold participants in praise of the presence of the Lord. Let our the water for baptising?’ Can anyone deny the right to make new song be part of creation’s praise. visible the work of the Holy Spirit? Augustine described sacrament as ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and In verses 7 and 8, ‘the world and those who live in it’ are on invisible grace’. a par with the roaring sea, the clapping hands of the floods and the singing hills in the joyful anticipation of the Lord, Water then makes visible the work of the Holy Spirit. coming to set things right in the world.
For those of us who live in the UK and Ireland and To understand floods and sea as a source of creation’s experience a plentiful supply of rain, it may be harder to praise may be something of a stretch when we consider appreciate the true blessing of water. Rain as a blessing is the turbulence of migrant sea crossings and the chaos of particularly understood by communities who experience destructive floods. Is it perhaps that with the coming of drought and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns due to God even the danger of the sea and the destruction of climate chaos. floods are to be brought under the creative administration of God’s will? This emphasises that there is nothing in all The water of baptism emphasises the importance of the of creation beyond God’s redemption. Even now, floods physical and embodied life. can renew soil with nutrients and the sea teems with an abundance of life. How then ‘can anyone withhold the water’ needed for thirsty animals, crops and people across the world? Water This Psalm invites us to hope and work with creation for is being withheld from Rose’s community by drought that day when the rightness of God will reign. 4 The judgement of God in the context of climate chaos may way, but the way of Christ. This is the love that disarms evoke in us a feeling of concern for the complicit actions of through the vulnerability of an infant in a manger. A love people who are enslaved in a consumer system that has that endures and breaks the power of death through fuelled ecological destruction and climate breakdown. suffering and brokenness. A love that exposes the false The world and some who live in it might be the subject claims of a superficial life and reveals the truth of life in all of God’s judgement. its fullness.
Such feelings of concern might lead us to confess and A love that we participate in bringing to reality as we love in repent of complicit actions, and cause us to lament what truth and action this and every Christian Aid Week. we have no control over. Our lament becomes an act of resistance and solidarity with those who suffer most but John 15:9-17 are the least complicit. ‘I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in Creation’s praise and rejoicing in anticipation of the you, and that your joy may be complete.’ John 15:11 judgement of God is a reminder that God’s judgement is This verse is the purpose statement of this long parting an act of liberation. Romans 8 reminds us that the creation speech from Jesus to his disciples. To speak of joy when he that is in bondage to decay will be set free. As we hear the himself is on the threshold of deep trial and suffering is an groaning of creation in labour pains, as participants in and indication of what joy is. with creation, we may become midwives of love, bringing that better world into view. It was for the joy set before him he endured the cross. Despite the suffering of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Even our guilt and shame is something for us to be Saturday, this is a joy that believes that Sunday is coming. liberated from, so we can speak truth to power to bring This joy does not deny sorrow or suffering but co-exists about the transformation needed for all of creation to fully with them. flourish and glorify God with a new song! Jesus’ parting words to his disciples are an encouragement 1 John 5:1-6 to abide in the love of God and dig deep into consistent, This is the final chapter of a long exhortation to love. The uncircumstantial joy. And he knows that they are going to tenderness with which this letter was written is an example need each other to get through. Their love for one another to all of us who may wish to urge and cajole people into the and their sacrificial giving for their friends will strengthen work of justice and giving this Christian Aid Week. them to endure. It is not duty, obligation or command that will enable them to remain faithful and bear lasting fruit. It This part of the letter is written to address the doubt and is love, friendship and joy. uncertainty about the Messiahship of Jesus that has crept into the community. Taking John’s lead, we might offer Love, friendship and joy is what we hope lies at the heart words of tender encouragement and reassurance during of our experience of Christian Aid Week. We hope that it is our own days of uncertainty and shaken faith. our love for one another that inspires our generous giving. That it is our friendship with communities we get to know John’s response to question and doubt is not to rebuke or through the stories of Rose and Florence that motivates us reprimand, but to address the community regularly as ‘little to sacrificial acts of solidarity. And it through our generous children’. To emphasise that faith is lived out in active love, giving and sacrificial actions that we bear lasting fruit and love of God, love of Jesus, love of one another and love of know complete joy. all God’s children. The joy that we participate in and experience in and Our faith may have been shaken by the turbulence of through Christian Aid Week does not lead us away coronavirus and the reality of climate chaos. May John’s from suffering and struggle, but towards it. We choose words bring comfort to us now as to those first listeners. to look towards the pain and see the possibilities for God is love, and it is in and through God’s love that we are transformation. Jesus goes on to explain to the disciples compelled to live lives of love. To fulfil the commands and that even pain will turn to a joy that no one can remove will of God is an act of love, not a burden. (John 16:20-22). Alice Walker wrote ‘resistance is the secret of our joy’. For those of us who feel burdened by the prospect of Christian Aid Week collecting or fundraising, may John’s This Christian Aid Week, as we choose to enter into the words speak tenderly to our weariness, reminding us of struggle with Rose and celebrate transformed communities God’s love for all his children – a love that we demonstrate with Florence, may our joy be complete. by our love in action this week.
For those of us who feel concerned by the language of conquer and victory in John’s letter, may we read it in the light of all that has gone before about love. It is love that overcomes the world, not in a colonising and conquering
5 Sermon notes 3To accompany the Song of the Prophets order of service
The Song of the Prophets Readings • As with Micah, so too climate injustice feeds upon the Micah 6:1-8 prolific idolatry and fallen principalities of money, power and rapacious self-interest, fuelled by the myth of perpetual growth. These false gods continue to Source of hope entice the world away from a biblical vision of peace and justice and finding our place within the well-being Christian Aid has long encouraged the Church to find • of creation. sources of hope so that we might be inspired to take action on the causes and consequences of climate • If we are to imagine the better world presented to us change. (See The Song of the Prophets at in The Song of the Prophets, then we need to begin with caid.org.uk/song-prophets-report) naming and engaging the systemic powers that have led to the injustices that now mar creation and threaten the The biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann has shown • survival of life. us one of the tasks of such prophets is to inspire our imagination, to offer an alternative vision in which the Earth might be a different and better place, and then Creative campaigning live that envisioned world into a reality. • We do this not necessarily to condemn specific people, • Micah is one such biblical prophet, but we might wonder companies or practices, but to reveal their destructive if someone writing millennia before greenhouse gas consequences and engage them in an imaginative and emissions and ecological breakdown has anything to prophetic return to their true vocations. contribute as a source of hope and inspiration for action • Micah does this memorably. Early in the prophecy, his on the climate crisis. incisive metaphors and subtle innuendo play on names of the towns that perpetuate these injustices, leaving Naming the powers the message of judgment abundantly clear. Other prophets were known to resort to creative measures to Much like climate scientists and eco-activists have been • getting their point across: Jeremiah smashes jars, Ezekiel clamouring for the attention of the world in the past few digs through walls, and Isaiah walks around naked – decades, Micah begins his prophecy with a message to name just a few ways they grabbed attention and that is intended to go global: ‘Hear, you peoples, all of emphasised their message. you; listen, O earth, and all that is in it.’ (Micah 1:2)
• Micah names and shames the corruption of the political Trouble is not just ahead leaders, the dishonesty of the merchants and greed of those who control the use of land. He denounces their • According to Micah, there’s a lot of woe coming to those exploitation and oppression of people and land, he sees in power who plan injustice and plot ‘evil deeds on their these social injustices as integral to the idolatry of the beds’ (2:1), and even more trouble is on its way for those people of Israel, the misplaced worship and devotion to who are bribed to proclaim that everything on Earth is greed that religious leaders of his day have allowed to just as God would have it and ‘no harm’ will then befall happen on their watch. us (3:11-12).
• The work of theologian Walter Wink has shown us that • Climate chaos is not only coming, it is already upon such naming of the systemic ‘powers’ of injustice, along us, not as punishment from heaven but as a direct with a deliberate engagement with their spiritual and result of our behaviour. As ever, those harmful actions material manifestations, is a necessary step towards originate predominantly in the global North, but most their redemption and establishing a vision of shalom. perilously impact the poorest people on the planet. The evidence Christian Aid has gathered from places like the Philippines, Kenya, Bolivia, Bangladesh and El Salvador is indisputable.
6 Song of the prophets • While we might look to our own resources and solutions in response, God presents us with a more radical Here are four different prophetic statements. You could challenge in those familiar words of Micah 6:8: ‘what have four different voices read these from four different does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to locations around the church. (See the related order of love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’ service at caweek.org/resources)
VOICE 1: ‘I am 19-year-old Glory, from the Philippines. I Do justice live on a small island of Tabugon, Carles with my family. It’s beautiful and peaceful, with fresh air, coral reefs, and • God requires us to do justice with those who are fresh seafood. But it is changing. Living on an island is very the worst affected yet least responsible for the challenging. I really feel the impact of climate change. My climate crisis. To amplify and join with their voices message for the world is that we must act on the crisis of in the call for climate justice, go to caid.org.uk/ climate change. We need to be responsible. We should be climatejusticepetition concerned on protecting our surroundings because this • To do justice also requires justice for the Earth, to has been created for us. We have the wisdom to know what acknowledge that the raging fires, flooding rivers, is right and what is wrong.’ devastating typhoons and species extinction are a result (Glory, the Philippines) of the grave injustice of exploitation and neglect of the natural rhythms we must learn to live with in harmony. VOICE 2: ‘Only the willingly ignorant continue to deny the link between our consumerist lifestyles, climate change, Love mercy and suffering in the developing world. Promoting economic growth as the answer to all our problems, and in particular • God requires us to embody loving mercy and kindness. global poverty, is irresponsible. We need to recognise that While this, of course, demands that we act with our current growth-oriented system is driven by powerful compassion for the wounded creation and for its economic interests set on making profits, however short hurting people, it also begs what may be the more term. difficult question: how are we to engage the fallen powers in such a way that show redeeming mercy to ‘... And it is just plain wrong to ignore the suffering of those who continue to reject the radical changes that the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the are needed for a climate crisis to be averted? world especially when they are the least contributors to climate change.’ • Is it to believe with hope that perhaps even the most ardent climate change-denying politician, or the (Katalina Tahaafe-Williams, a theologian writing from most active carbon-emitting company has the potential Australia and the Pacific Islands.) to change? It also offers an invitation to show ourselves VOICE 3: ‘O my people, what have I done to you? In what mercy for any guilt we may feel for our own carbon have I wearied you? Answer me! Can I tolerate wicked dependency. Such mercy might save us from silent scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are shame and allow us to loudly call for the system full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of change needed. deceit in their mouths.’ (Micah 6:3 and 11-12) Walk humbly VOICE 4: Drought drives people to the brink. Storms tear families apart. Raging waters show no mercy. Our world • Walking humbly means turning to God in prayer, in is in crisis. We have the power to stop it. People living in continuous and collective prayer for the planet. This poverty are on the frontline of this climate crisis. They year, we invite you to join the Christian Aid prayer chain are losing food, water, homes and family. Every day, they where Christians across Britain, Ireland and the world walk further, dig deeper and build stronger to survive. will bring our prayers of lament, confession, repentance, Unrelenting. Determined. They battle the worst of a climate petition, intercession, praise and thanksgiving. Sign up crisis they did not create. This is unjust. But a better way is at caid.org.uk/prayerchain or caid.ie/prayerchain if possible. A way that restores justice to our broken world you’re in Northern Ireland. today. A way that protects the future for all of us, our children and grandchildren. (Christian Aid) • Joining with sisters and brothers across the world in prayer, we remind ourselves that the Earth is the Lord’s. In setting our hearts to seek God, we galvanise our The earth as judge courage to do justice and love mercy as we respond to • God calls upon the mountains and the hills, the the challenge and join in the mission of God in restoring foundations of the Earth itself as witnesses for the the Earth. prosecution of Israel. Back then, nature was only called With thanks to the Rev Dr Craig Gardiner, tutor in Christian to testify to the selfishness of the people and the Doctrine at South Wales Baptist College, for his input on these injustices visited upon the poor. Now creation might be sermon notes. summoned as a wounded and feverish victim too.
7 Sermon notes 4To aid preaching on apocalyptic passages of the Bible.
Apocalyptic lament and hope Readings A warning: Hosea 4
Hosea 4:1-3 and Hosea 2:18-23 • Hosea 4 directly links violence among the people to the reversal of the order of creation. It mirrors the Apocalyptic texts for today creation stories in Genesis. Genesis 1 describes God commanding life to come forth from the sea, and the air, • We are entering an era of climate chaos. The news is and the land. Hosea describes death coming to each of increasingly dominated by extreme weather events. these groups in the reverse order. Anxiety, grief and anger related to climate breakdown are at an all-time high. • We are part of a wider community of creation, and our violence and greed has far-reaching consequences. • Recent years have seen an increase in dystopia/ apocalyptic stories in popular culture, especially on • For the prophets, the land is not a silent recipient of our television and in film. sin. The land is noisy. It is not only a vehicle for God’s judgement. It cries out in its own right: ‘the land mourns’ • The prophetic apocalyptic texts in the Bible are part – a word that also means ‘dries up’ in Hebrew. The land of the word of God. They can speak to us today, if we doesn’t just mourn in this passage in Hosea, but on let them. eight other occasions in the prophetic literature.
• The land lamenting makes an observation about the Background to prophetic apocalyptic writing way things are – greed and violence trigger further in the Old Testament violence, food scarcity, and animal death.
• The book of Hosea is one of several prophetic books in • The prophetic apocalyptic writings can teach us how the Old Testament which draw on apocalyptic themes in to tell the truth – about the violence around us, the order to reveal God’s purposes for God’s people. consequences of that violence, and the anger and grief we feel. • Apocalypse means unveiling – not necessarily offering strict predictions of the future, but a vehicle for revealing the way things are: the apocalyptic offers a A promise: Hosea 2 God’s eye view. • The role of the earth in prophetic apocalyptic writing • These visions have power because they capture our does not end with de-creation. Images of destruction experience of the present, offer a vision of where that and re-creation go hand in hand. The promises in Hosea present might lead us, depending on the choices we 2 parallel the warning of Hosea 4. make, and where our hope lies. • Is this vision realistic? Prophetic hope insists that a • The prophets in the Old Testament structure their different world must be possible, and then insists we visions in similar ways: announcing the sin of the people, live as though it must be possible, even if it seems painting a horrifying picture of the consequences of that totally unreasonable in the present. Violent language, sin, and reminding them of God’s promises (see other and language of grief about that violence, is a suggested texts to explore at the end of these notes). reasonable, appropriate, and realistic response to the state of the world. But visions of peace did not likely Apocalyptic writing isn’t just a dialogue between • look reasonable, appropriate, or realistic to the people humans and God: it encompasses all things in heaven of Israel. and on Earth. The whole community of creation is caught up in the drama.
8 • It is the prophetic task to declare peace while telling Other examples of texts to explore the truth about the reality of violence. Realism is an this theme: important part of prophetic work, but it can’t end there. Prophetic apocalyptic writing expresses the material Jeremiah 4:19-28: The land mourns and falls apart truth of the danger we are in and the theological truth because of the sin of the people. of the hope of God’s promises. Isaiah 24:1-13: The sins of the people and the resulting • This promise gives us a vision of the world we work devastation of the earth. towards. In Surprised by Hope, NT Wright reflects: ‘What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the Amos 9: Destruction of the land because of injustice wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff… against the poor (see Amos 8 for context) and restoration you are… accomplishing something that will become in to the land. due course part of God’s new world. Every act of love, Isaiah 35:1-4: Restoration of the desert and the people. gratitude, and kindness… (every deed) that makes the name of Jesus honoured in the world… will find its way, Isaiah 11:1-9 and 65:21-25: The Peaceable Kingdom. through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.’ With thanks to Hannah Malcolm for the insights from Hosea. Hannah is currently training for ordination in the Church of England. She is also doing a PhD on theologies of climate/ How do we respond? ecological grief and published an edited collection of stories of grief and courage from the global Church called Words for a • Declaring God’s promises of peace needs our grief Dying World (SCM Press, 2020). and anger. Grief and anger imply an awareness of an alternative. Anger and grief are not just accurate expressions of the state of things but also a tool to provoke changed behaviour. They remind us that this violence is the result of a choice, of sin. This means it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to turn back.
• Grief and anger must be accompanied by declaring the world of peace God has promised. The world of peace painted by the apocalyptic prophets gives us the courage to change.
9 5Action points for response
Pray Pray for climate justice. Join in with our powerful prayer movement for climate justice at caid.org.uk/prayerchain or caid.ie/prayerchain if you’re in Northern Ireland.
Act Take action for climate justice at caid.org.uk/ climatejusticepetition
You can also find printable petitions and other resources at caid.org.uk/climate-justice-resources
Give Give for climate justice. Regular giving enables us to stand together with communities worldwide at any given point and make a lasting difference. A regular gift from your congregation or individuals in your church would help us be there for more people in the long term, wherever the need is greatest. Donate at caweek.org
Other climate justice worship resources are available at caid.org.uk/churches or caid.ie/ churches if you’re in Northern Ireland.
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