The Rev. Daniel Lennox, June 27^th, 2010

Addressing the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster

“foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Luke 9:51-62

We have an apparent contradiction. For we are faced, everyday, with the sad and tragic idea that, for the time being at least, foxes have not their holes and birds of the air have not their nests, and fish of the sea have not their sea to see to it that they thrive; and that all of the animals and creatures of the Gulf are without a place to lay their eggs, their heads, their dreams. 

            With the Gulf oil spill, of course, we are confronted with the heart-wrenching story of seeing innocent creatures relegated, as the Son of Man--to a place without comfort. And we are faced with the challenge of waiting, watching, to see what will unfold; and, as we know, there is nothing worse, than waiting in uncertainty as to the fait of life and death, survival and salvation. 

            I was in Borders the other week buying a book and I was confronted with the cover of Time Magazine while in the checkout. On it: the image of a pelican soaked in black oil. Its white feathers now gold. Its clean lines, jaded. Its thoughtful eye turned to a vision of fear and anxiety. I went to the parking lot following the encounter with the bird--a grown man--and wept like a child. 

            Nothing, I would say from my perspective, at least, hurts more than to see animals suffer. Innocent creatures, ones without words, save a solemn eye, say a thousand words to us. They say help me, free me, leave me be to my own task! They say nothing. And so, nothing stings more than to see animals suffer and nothing weighs heavier than to be part of the anthropocentric world which, by our rational nature, is nearly unavoidable. After the tiers dried, I started my car--fuel injected into the engine--I zoomed into the gulf of life and void.

            How are we to combat the plight of care for the creatures amidst an anthropocentric world? How can we sleep when animals have not even a place to rest their head, lest it be swallowed up by black crude? How can we find a glimpse of light in the darkness?

            The answer: perhaps there is no answer. Perhaps silent tears of regret and guilt suffice. Perhaps there is no answer to confront the stifling problem that even Jesus is contradicted by the plight of modernity. Or perhaps there is an eternal answer--that is to delve into the soul of the Christian life and find nourishment in the God that brought us this land to begin with and honors us by ensuring it to us as guests on a quest to make it heavenly.  

            Part of our task of being Christians in these difficult times, is to work to find the theological grammar necessary to spring forth clarity amidst the crudeness of life. The task is to wrap language and idea around God’s already abundant action in the word and find relief from it while amidst it.

            In doing so, we are relieved because we are reminded that God’s initial action after the creation was to flood it. God created, then God flooded. But before God spills upon the creation, God, you recall, gathers the animals. God gathers the great creatures of the creation, two-by-two, and they process safety into an ark so that they have a place in God’s re-genesis after the flood. Two-by-two the creatures walked, slithered, flew, trotted, swung, clung, galloped, into the ark so that they would live and thrive.

            If there is anything to say this morning it is that God loves God’s animals. God sent Noah to free first a bird once the rains had subsided. God set an animal free first after the great flood and, I have no doubt, that God will free first those pelicans, fish, creatures of the deep flooded out of house and home. Whether in heaven or on earth, God will grant wings flight and fins to swim. God is a God that loves God’s creation. 

            I imagine, that you, as do I, wonder from time-to-time why it is that Jesus was crucified. Why such a sacrifice? If God is God, God ought to have come up with a release from such an ungodly death? Yes! If God is God is God, why die such a miserable blood sacrifice? Could not the Lamb of God take away the sins by living eternally? Surely and logically so.

            The answer to the Cross is ten-twenty-fold. And I suggest a few--Jesus died at a young age in a horrific sacrifice to show us that God cares not about the body but about the placement of soul in rightness to the divine will. God died a blood sacrifice so to ransom sin-for-sin, to match suffering-with-suffering, son for the sake of salvation for all. God died so that God comes to a place, like us, where theology runs out of rope in the face of tragedy. And, God dies in a blood sacrifice so that no more animals need ever to be sacrificed to God because God loves God‘s animals. The lamb of God dies so that the lambs of the word can live.

            In the old world, animals were sacrificed to God as offerings, but the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, dies in the same sacrificial blood offering so to solidify the idea that this sacrifice will be last of its kind. It is the ultimate sacrifice of the ultimate Son, Jesus, and therefore it can never be replicated. It is a sacrifice that washes away the blood and sin of all other sacrifices.  

            God loves God’s people. God also loves God’s animals and God sacrifices his Lamb for the sake of the other lambs, colts, critters and creatures of the deep that at one time died at the hands of mortals seeking to please the immortal that is now well pleased with His sacrificed Son. 

            There is that scene which is foreshadowed in the today’s Gospel of Luke in which Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem and processes to the city of David to be handed over to death. You recall the scene. Jesus processes from Bethpage to the grand theatre of Jerusalem mounted on what else but a donkey. I would have demanded more; yet, Jesus, seeking to show creation that He is of the creation, rides a lowly donkey. The Lion of Judah, the Good Shepherd, rides a lowly creature as if a chariot of fire. Indeed, this is the Messiah--the one who goes after the one lost sheep amidst ninety-nine others, the one born in a manger amidst animals, the one who cares for all at all costs. 

            I will never forget picking up my sidekick Sandy from the shelter. I was with Abigail and we were looking for the “perfect dog“. Terry and Nancy had lost their beloved Belle and we wanted to save a dog in the wake of the loss of a great one--an eternal exchange amidst heaven and earth. So we headed into the shelter and from the cavern of a cage emerged a sad, underweight, under-loved, under-nourished, overwhelmed creature and we looked at her and she at us and then very quickly she crawled out of the cage and up into our car and was surfing the console waiting to drive home before the ink had dried on the forms that said saved!

            God loves God’s creatures. Anthropocentricism can sway and Sandy can save just as she has been saved. For she has done more for me than I for her because all animals have a special gift of grace given by God because God loves God’s creation. 

            A last point: I offer this word as a thought of hope to all suffering because of the suffering creatures in the gulf. It is this: The Book of Revelation, in its 19^th Chapter, reads, “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True.”

            Jesus Christ, the Faithful and the True returns in the end riding upon a white horse. Nothing is so right!. For if there were ever a line to assure us that those animals covered in black oil will be safe, it is that God returns riding a white horse--cleaned of the oil, the muck of the earth, its crudeness, now strong, now in control, now at home with its master, Jesus.  

            God will make things right. I have no doubt, that tonight in heaven, the lions will lie down with the lambs. The crude covered pelican will be made again white as snow. The foxes will return to their holes and the blue birds and bald eagles will soar in the skies of heaven with wings as light as feathers--free from the crude, cruel and all too gravity based world.

            And amidst all this, the Son of Man, Jesus, will lay his head. As He did in the manger, surrounded by the creation. He will do so now because He loves and lays down His life to save. AMEN