Celebrating Earth Day at Church

I wish I had pictures. Or video. Or some visual record of what happened at church yesterday.

It was awesome. Here's what we did to mark Earth Day at NDPC.

This is the 2nd time we've tried a version of liturgist Claudio Carvalhaes' moving (and oddly controversial) "Plant Confessional." We move all of our sanctuary plants to the middle of the worship space. These plants are large potted palms that sit quietly every Sunday in the corner of the worship space. They are, put bluntly, decorative. But they are lovingly watered by volunteers and a few times a year, we pull them into the center of the sanctuary and declare: "these are members of our congregation!"

The point is to get us to see, think, and act differently toward non-human creatures. Plants are part of God's good creation, but human beings have developed social ethics that make plants less-than--expendable. We've also developed forms of worship that are completely blind to the natural world--ensconsed in climate-controlled indoor spaces, with ordered rows of chairs--nothing about worship invites us to consider the graces of the Creation. The church must challenge that conceit, and affirm that plants are unique beings, bearing the "image" of the Creator; beings without whom human beings would cease to exist. They "belong" to the congregation as much as any person.

In addition to pulling the plants into the middle, yesterday as people came into worship we passed out a "natural object" to each one. Each person held a blossom, a pinecone, a nut husk, a leaf, a stick. During our "confession," each was invited to meditate on their object. The question I asked everyone to consider was: "what is the quality of your relationship to the natural world?" The same way we reflect on our relationships to people--our spouses, parents, children, friends--we benefit by time spent reflecting on the quality of our relationship to nature. What was that relationship like when you were a child? Has it changed over time? When have you "fed" this relationship? When have you violated it? What wisdom does the natural world offer you about God, if you listen? At the end of the silent meditation, we shared the Peace of Christ, but I specifically invited people to share the peace with the Sanctuary plants. If Christ's death and resurrection reconciles us to one another, it also reconciles us to Creation itself. Many did--they came forward to the large mound of greenery and gently touched the leaves, admired their shape, and talked with the flora. It was gorgeous and silly, and I guarantee you that those people will think differently about their relationship to plants going forward.

Following a reading of Psalm 96, and 3 moving 5-min reflections by church members on the book Refugia Faith (which had been the focus of a Lenten study group, sponsored by our Creation Care team), we invited the congregation to walk outside. 

It was a beautiful spring morning in Georgia, and gathered in a semicircle around a pre-dug hole, an elder of the church offered prayers for our congregation and for the earth. Then, we blessed a beautiful native fringe tree. I invited a brief reflection on the proverb (common to the 3 Abrahamic faiths), "if you knew the world would end tomorrow, today you should plant a tree." We invited everyone to consider the soil--our kinship with the soil is established in Genesis 2. We celebrated that there is a "time to plant" (Ecclesiastes). We welcomed the grace of rain and the growth that God gives.

As this was all going on, something magical happened. The kids came forward. Without being summoned, as the anticipation around the planting grew, the kids in worship left their adults and wandered in close. So close, that they were crowded right around the tree. When the invitation finally came--when the tree was in the hole and the congregation was invited to grab handfuls of dirt and pack it around the roots, the kids were the first to join in. They reached for handful after handful. The kids all took home plenty of of dirt under their fingernails as a memory of the day. The kids poured 4 large baptismal pitchers of water over the roots. We sang, shared a benediction, and many lingered around the tree in the sun-dappled shade as worship ended.

Ritual is the most beautiful language we have in this world. But ritual that speaks the same notes over and over--ritual that never asks anything different from us--is a dead language (think Latin). In this moment of ecological catastrophe, ritual should awaken us. In this case, the vision of the ritual was not to induce us to shame (though that would be warranted), but to inspire us to deeper love--to be in love with the Creation.