Every Species Has a Sacred Role – Holy Ground Sermon Series Week 5 (Matthew 6: 27-34)
After a couple weeks where we moved our worship focus to special services and to talk about ideas specific to those services, this week we will be returning to our Holy Ground sermon series. We’ll close it out this week and next week with the final two worship themes. This week’s theme is Holy Order, meaning the idea that every species -plant and animal- has a sacred role in God’s creation. We’ve touched on this idea very early on in this sermon series, when we considered the special role that has been entrusted to the human species. We have been given the role of caretaker of this beautiful and diverse creation. We will also take a closer look at that idea again next week.
This week’s theme, focused on the belief that all species have a role in creation, brings to my mind a story I read recently from the Cherokee people. At the beginning of this story, the people are misusing and mistreating the land. They were killing the animals indiscriminately, taking the best parts of the meat and just throwing away the rest. The animals were becoming angry at this behavior, and so they gathered to discuss what they should to stop the humans. First, the bears said they would take care of it. They realized that the humans were killing animals with bows and arrows, so they decided that they would use bows and arrows to get back at them. So, they made themselves a bunch of bows and arrows, but when it came time to use them the bears realized that their claws were getting in the way. They made it very difficult to shoot the bow, and so arrows were flying all over the place. None of them were hitting their target. Squirrels and rabbits and birds were scattering all over the place to avoid the bear’s stray arrows. They thought maybe they could fix the problem by cutting off their claws so they could better handle their weapons. But then, one of the bears pointed out to them that they need their long claws for digging for grubs in the ground and climbing trees. So, that idea wouldn’t work.
The bears were saved when the inchworms came forward with a new idea. Their idea was that they would stop the humans by carrying diseases for the Cherokee to catch. So, they started carrying all kinds of diseases and the Cherokee began catching them. Then the people started dying from these diseases. First the young and then the old, and then the men and then the women. Finally, the Cherokee came to the animals and asked them to stop spreading these diseases and to spare them. The animals refused.
Meanwhile, all the plants got together, and they were feeling sorry for the Cherokee. So, they devised a plan of their own. They began visiting the people in their dreams, telling them which plants they could use to cure which disease. The Cherokee listened to these dreams and began curing themselves with plant medicine. After a while, all three groups came back together and came to an agreement on how they would live together in harmony. From then on hunters looking for food would first pray and sing a song, asking the animal to give itself up for food. If the animal said ‘no,’ the hunter would move on. If the human did find an animal to kill, they would say a prayer of thanks, and after they killed it they would put some tobacco down on the ground, and thank the Earth and thank the Creator. The plants thought this was a good way for humans to understand that when they took something out of the earth, they needed to put something back. So, creation began to live in harmony. Each creature or plant serving a purpose and helping to sustain the welfare of the others.
In today’s scripture reading from Matthew, Jesus is touching on the human tendency to worry and to sell ourselves short. So, he points out that God loves each unique and divinely made thing. In these words from the Sermon on the Mount, he is giving guidance on how to live in the world without being subject to it. The key to this is living in the world as we were meant to. There is no reason to worry when God’s unique creations live into the harmony of their sacred roles. Here Jesus is speaking to an audience that has reason to worry. As with the plants and the animals and the people in the Cherokee story, things in Jesus’ time were out of balance, not harmonious. First, he is speaking to his disciples, who have dropped everything to follow him. Who have decided to listen to Jesus and live their lives in a new way, a way that is counterintuitive, even in those ancient times. And, of course, he is also talking to a crowd that is made up largely of the poor and the oppressed. He is speaking to those in society that live lives of great difficulty. They live in poverty, on the edge of the knife, about to fall off. These are people with reason to worry. People who are told they are not enough. But, Christ reassures them that they were enough, and that we are enough.
Jesus tells us to consider the lilies of the valley. They are beautiful without trying or worrying. They are beautiful because they were made that way by the creator. They survive and thrive without worry because God made them, cares for them, and gives them what they need. So, if God cares that much for the flowers and the birds and the other creatures of the Earth, Jesus asks us to consider that maybe that extends to us humans as well, the species God created to help in the care of this creation. God provides in God’s way, the problem is when we horde the resources God gives us, or we overextend ourselves. We run into trouble when we do not seek God, but instead we seek the satisfaction of our own egos. This is what leads us to fear and worry that there isn’t enough or that we don’t have enough. So, humans tend to worry, and humans tend to want more. The holy order of life is a give and take. The Earth provides for our needs and we care for the Earth so that plants and animals can thrive alongside us. However, when our cultures become focused on consumerism and the accumulation of wealth, there starts to be a lot more taking than giving on our part. That’s when things fall out of harmony.
The point is not that wealth in itself is bad, or that worry is completely avoidable. If we are fortunate, we have some wealth or some possessions, and they give us some comfort and security. We work to acquire these things because humans have wants and needs in this world. However, what Jesus is warning his disciples -and us- about is the risk of elevating our concerns or becoming fixated or consumed with a quest to have more and achieve more and be more. We should not trust or rely upon these things as a God. Only God can fulfill our need for a God. When Jesus tells us not to worry or be anxious, he is calling us to put our trust in God. Not in our possessions or our accomplishments or our ambitions or even in the fulfillment of our human needs. Instead, we put our trust in the one who created all things with purpose, and with the dignity and assurance that comes with purpose – especially divinely given purpose. Therefore, to trust in God is to trust in yourself. To trust that you are good enough, wise enough, strong enough, gifted enough for this moment.
After all, what God gives us is the present moment. We can worry and we can ask for more as much as we want and as loudly as we want, but the only way we will experience happiness, or the absence of worry, is in the moment. The past is over, and the future isn’t here yet. However, God has already given us what we need. Now, that isn’t to say you should just ignore your troubles and the troubles of the world and instead simply trust the power of positive thinking. Not at all. Sometimes bad things happen. Some circumstances are hard. Some events are tragic. Some systems are unjust. When we see how far we are from what we want, or from what we believe is right, we start to worry, and get inside our heads and our emotions. Still, even if what we want is righteous, to make a better world for ourselves and our children and our communities, that journey can only ever start with what God has given us in this moment. The past is over and the future hasn’t happened yet. Worry and anxiety take our attention away from this moment, but this moment is where God is. So, trust in God brings us back to the moment. If we trust that we are enough in God’s eyes, we can act in this moment from a place of peace in knowing that everything has a sacred role.
Or think of it as a moment of joy. Perhaps that is God’s gift to us. Here is a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the Earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” There is joy to be found in the world God created, and there is joy to be found in our place in it, but this joy cannot be found in worrying about the past or the future. It can only be found in who you are right now, with God.
This brings to my mind a song that my dad would often sing when he would play his autoharp. I don’t play the autoharp, and I’m not going to sing it for you acapella, so I will just share the lyrics. The song goes, “All God’s creatures got a place in the choir/ Some sing loud, some sing higher/ Some sing out loud on the telephone wire/ Some just clap their hands or paws or anything you got now…” All God’s creatures have a place in the choir. As we know, for a choir to make beautiful music it takes several voices all singing different parts to make the music happen. For four-part harmony, you will need to people singing soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. These groups all sing different parts -singing different notes at different times, but it all comes together to express the composer’s creation. So, it is with God’s choir. We all have our part to sing to express the wonder and beauty of this creation.
However, I would say, the difference is that God’s choir performs with less precision. In the choir of God’s creation there are far more than four parts. As the song I quoted says, all creatures have a place in the choir, but some are louder than others, and some sing higher than others. Some birds sing from their birch on the wires, and some can only clap their hands. This creates a cacophony of sound, and sometimes that can be noisy and unpleasant. But to God, this sound is Good. The creatures are making the noise God intended them to make, whether that’s loud, higher, or on a telephone wire. Whatever role we have or noise we make, we are contributing to the harmony of God’s creation. Let us find the joy in our part of God’s choir. The joy in the sound we can make, the sound God gave us to make. It is pleasing to God, so let it be pleasing to us.
Amen.