For the Beauty of the Earth
Isaiah 65.17-25
NPC Earth Day & Capital Campaign
April 18, 2010
Dr. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience The Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Speak Lord, your servants are listening. Amen.

This coming Thursday is the 40^th Earth Day celebration. As such, I was asked by the Witness and Evangelism committee in conjunction with the Worship and Music committee if we could celebrate Earth Day today. And I figure that not only am I Pro Earth, but really, everyone is Pro-Earth. No matter what you think about Global Warming, or whose understanding of what that all means, everyone is pro-Earth. No one is really saying, “I hate me some Earth, want to find a way to destroy it.” No one who isn’t an evil cartoon villain, that is.

And this is especially true for those of us who take scripture as an important factor. In the first couple of chapters of Genesis, we read that humans are given dominion over all of creation. In the same way a parent is given dominion over their child. Dominion comes with responsibility. Loads and loads of responsibility. We are to care for creation the way a mother cares for her child, from the time when that child is an infant through when that child is an adult with children of their own.

To that end, as you know, we will be planting as part of our worship today. As we end what we normally do in here, we will move outside, and for those of you who are interested and/or able, we are going to be planting the Easter flowers, and for a big new thing, we will plant a tree with Chris Freeman, who is our landscaper. Chris is donating a Japanese Maple, at no cost to the church, for this occasion. We hope that it will be a joy for years to come, providing beauty in the Spring and Fall, and shade for cars that park under the blistering Atlanta heat in the Summer. We hope that it symbolizes a work that we do now that will be enjoyed for generations, starting with ours, through the participants in the Children’s Sermon, through the children yet to be born. After the planting and tree dedication, you are invited to stick around for cookies and lemonade. The whole thing promises to be a wonderful event.

The other thing going on today is that it is the next to last Sunday before I leave for Sabbatical. Next Sunday will be the last one where we will see each other for 3 months. Don’t get too excited.

My first Sunday back with you all will be August 1. On that day, as a way to mark a new beginning, our new pulpit will be here. One of the things that I have mentioned in the past, and something that the session has been hearing about, is the desire to do a capital campaign. We need to raise enough money to pay for that pulpit. Not by August 1, but soon after, since the artist, Mr. Gilmartin, is being very gracious and letting us pay as we get in the money.

When thinking about those two things, care for the Earth and new beginnings, which are very related in my mind, Isaiah 65 came to mind. So, hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Isaiah. Listen for God’s word for you today. Isaiah 65.17-25.

17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice for ever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity;*
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord — and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

The great thing about spring is the cyclical nature. The flower that has been dead now awakens. The grass that has been dormant, will grow green again. The tree that let all of her leaves go, will bloom afresh. And we read from the mouth of God, “I am about to create new heaven and a new earth.” Hopefully we are thankful that God is a God of continual new life. “Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.”

One of the things that we are going to do in the capital campaign, other than pay for the new pulpit, is renovate the kitchen. And boy howdy, is that ever long overdue. I thought about showing you pictures of either what it looks like now, or how it generally looks, but I didn’t want to depress you. Before it got cleaned I was fond of saying that calling it an awful mess is offensive to awful messes.

And if you want to talk about the lack of functionality of the kitchen, well, I’m not sure where to start. Is it at the ovens too small to fit the pans we have into them? The solution to that was two portable ovens. They are great, but the byproduct of having 4 ovens is that the two portable ovens clog up the area, or get in the way of the serving bay? Or is it the stove that regularly switches which eye is going to work this month? Or maybe it is the constant stack of dirty dishes? Or the freezer that about once every 8 months decides that being cold is over-rated? But I don’t have to tell you this, you all know, it is time as far as the kitchen is concerned.

But one of the most depressing things is this. Up until recently, we used Styrofoam plates, bowls, and take out containers. These things sit in landfills forever, and might decompose in 2,000 years, if we are lucky. So, the same amount of time since Jesus has been on this earth is the amount of time until this bowl will decompose. Now we use paper plates, in part because the Session unanimously passed the Commitment to Peacemaking, which includes as one of its objectives a continued move toward care for the earth. The problem is, these plates are more expensive, and tax our thin budget. But when we get the kitchen redone, we intend to have a Hobart, which is a professional dishwashing appliance that uses less water and energy than a regular dishwasher, and the simplest of models can do 37 loads in an hour. Not only will this make keeping the kitchen clean something within our reach, but it will make it possible for us to buy some dishes and some bowls and use and wash and reuse those items so that they won’t sit in a landfill for the next two millennia. I think that is not only a wonderful thing, it is also consistent with our mission as a church.

So, and we will talk about this more next week, and then again when I come back in August, I want us to get excited about some new things here at NPC. Or, as we find in Isaiah, “Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I am about to create…the people as a delight.”

It was at Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church. It was a meeting of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, the largest Presbytery in the land. The moderator of the Presbytery, Mark Roberson, called up Norcross Presbyterian Church to give us a certificate signed by Grady Parsons and Mark Koenig commending us for adopting the Commitment to Peacemaking. This is it here. It normally sits in our narthex. My guess is that you haven’t even looked at it. But our church, our little church that resides in the largest Presbytery, the same Presbytery that includes Peachtree Presbyterian and her 8,000+ members, and First Presbyterian and her 2,500+ members, and who sits close enough to Pleasant Hill Presbyterian and her nearly 1,000 members, we were honored by the national body in front of the Presbytery last year. Mark Roberson, the moderator, said this, “We are hoping more churches follow the example of Norcross Presbyterian.”

Standing there, in the sanctuary of Pleasant Hill, the church where I grew up as a teenager, the church where my father is Pastor, and having the Presbytery hold us up as an example was a great source of pride for me, and hopefully for our elder commissioners who walked up with me. I am very proud to be a part of a church that is on the leadership frontier in the largest Presbytery.

And part of the commitment to Peacemaking is the call to care for the world. Which is why planting trees is important. It is also why creating a Kitchen that is more Earth Friendly and enables us to keep landfills a little more free of these plates and bowls is important.

Amen.