The Sermon

Visits to church services have differing layers of meanings for congregants and visitors, and the impact depends on their current spiritual needs and interests. Grace, Faith and Love are often the focus, and those who occupy the pews usually leave the service motivated and inspired by the wisdom, guidance and clarity of the message - often an uplifting experience.

In pondering the processes at work during most of the sermons, research suggests three key aspects:

• Reaching the Heart

• Purpose

• Action and Living the Message

Regarding the Heart, Tim Keller believes,

“A sermon is a place to wake people up to realities they have assented to with the mind but have not grasped with the heart.”

On the Purpose of Preaching, Dustin Benge offers, “What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God.”

On Action and Living the Message, George Whitefield maintains, “It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher.”

At our church sermon in early September, the essence of the message was a particularly powerful call to mend our polluting ways if we want our planet to survive. The graphic handout used, depicting the heinous and almost sacrilegious crimes of pollution of our towns, cities and the planet, should appear on every classroom wall, office noticeboard, home refrigerators … be available to everybody. The handout (credit to Chip, the illustrator) contains SEASON OF CREATION as heading and LIVING WATER as sub-heading. The content of the cartoon-form illustrations - in anything but cartoon spirit - Includes key statements: WATER IS LIFE, COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE, WATER IS SACRED, STOP POLLUTING and CLEAN RIVERS. Never has our planet been in more dire need than now to take radical remedial steps to address conservation vs pollution and environmental denudation.

A combination of ignorance, greed, overexploitation and non-compliance with preservation and conservation practices and laws are at the core of our pollution problems. Education at all levels is essential. World focus should crucially be on conservation, preservation and sustainability. Current generations are seemingly experiencing the ‘tipping point’ of the survival of the natural world. 

Amongst the many and powerful quotes, admonitions and cries to mankind to see the realities of our headlong and unabated rush into ‘day zero’ regarding water pollution and the health of our planet, the following stand out:

From Sylvia Earle: "No water, no life. No blue, no green.”

Jacques Cousteau: "We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."

Kahlil Gibran: "In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans." 

The infinitely more ‘planet-aware’ and ‘earth-sustainable’ philosophy of the indigenous citizens of our planet is reflected in The Indigenous Peoples’ Water Declaration:

“We, the Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world, reaffirm our relationship to Mother Earth and responsibility to future generations to raise our voices in solidarity to speak for the protection of water. We were placed in a sacred manner on this earth, each in our own sacred and traditional lands and territories to care for all of creation and to care for water.

“We recognize and respect water as sacred and sustains all life. Our traditional knowledge, laws and ways of life teach us to be responsible in caring for this sacred gift that connects all life.”

A well-known and frighteningly sobering reality check is reflected in this American Indian prediction:

“When the last tree is cut down, the last river poisoned, the last fish caught, only then will the white man (or any man) realize that money cannot be eaten.” - Cree Indian Proverb

Many researchers and experts in the fields of conservation and sustainability are responsible for the global clarion call to ‘right planet earth.’ We ignore that call to our detriment and could realistically reach the ‘money cannot be eaten’ stage sooner than we think.