16 Feb Austin Preach-Off on Climate Change Video: Inspirational Hour 10 Faith Leaders

Austin's 2nd Annual Preach-Off on Climate Change was an inspiration.

Ten faith leaders gathered from all over Austin at The Sanctuary, February 8th to speak clearly of their faith's perspective and response to the climate crisis. Here's a quick link:

http://bit.ly/Preach-Off-2015

Watch the full video below:

Here are the speakers, in order of appearance, with brief excerpts of their remarks. See the video for the whole message.

And if you are inspired, join with Interfaith Environmental Network of Austin (IEN) and carry the work to your congregation or community.

Also, if you'd like to hear more, here is a link to the 2014 Preach-Off held and Congregation Beth Israel:  http://bit.ly/Preach-Off-2014

Rev. Kyle Walker, Faith Presbyterian

I do want to focus us in on Jeremiah Chapter 10. I believe reminds us that there is no more fundamental violation of our relationship with God than to disregard creation and to have the audacity to repurpose creation to serve the gods of greed, power and convenience. We take fossil fuel, for example from the earth, forget justice toward creation and Creator and cash in at the bank as if we were entitled to it in the first place. How dare we usurp God’s creative justice and ignore our responsibility to care for creation.

Low cost living is clearly a high carbon footprint activity. Until that changes, we can’t have justice for everyone and for creation.

Shaykh Mufti Mohamed-Umar Esmail, Nueces Mosque

Today environmentalism is studied solely from a secular perspective, oblivious of any religious connection. It is an undeniable fact that religion plays a motivational role in the life of its adherents. The Koran mentions that the environment glorifies and hymns the praises of its creator.

The Prophet has emphasized that all of you are responsible, every one of you are responsible. So let’s fulfill our responsibilities as human beings and play our role in protecting the environment.

Natalie Briscoe, Southern Region, Unitarian Universalist Association

Her husband’s statement changed her life forever. “You know the Earth, she breathes.” He took me to my computer and pulled up NASA and showed me the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at different times of the year. During the spring and summer months, the Earth herself inhales and the leaves in the trees spread open like the alveoli in my lungs and become colorful. And then in the fall and winter the alveoli shrink and fall and release gas into the environment, just as my exhale does. And at once I knew where my place was in that ongoing part of creation with God. Because just as my children were born out of my body, I was born out of my Mother Earth’s body.

Rev. John Elford, University United Methodist

As the prophets of old might say, “It is time.” The alarm bells have been sounding and we keep reaching over and setting it on snooze. It’s time for people of all faiths everywhere to rise up and take on what is the justice issue of all – the care of the earth.

Turning around, repentance, changing the ways that we think. Realizing that we are all implicated in the mess made of this planet.

How do you talk about all the awful changes going on our planet without ending in depression and futility? Isn’t hoping against hope, in the long run futile? If it’s just up to us, we’re lost. But I think all of us believe in something stronger. That’s the power of God in every moment to call us out of despondency, to do what we can and to trust that it will become something even greater through the work of God’s spirit, for She is already at work. Moving, coaxing, luring us, and all of her creatures, to a new heaven. And praise be – toward a new Earth! Amen.

John Snyder, Plum Blossom Sangha

When the Buddha himself describes his awakening, he said that he awoke to three things. First, he awoke to a startling vision of a universe as a place where everything was deeply connected. A place where everything was always in flux, coming into being when the causes and conditions where right, disappearing when they were not. A universe of change, in which everything impinged on everything else. Now, let me ask you, if you can see how a vision of radical interconnectedness, which my teacher calls interbeing. And a profound appreciation for the radical contingency of things. Do you see that could prepare us to receive the reality of global climate change?

My teacher, Thich Naht Hanh, says that if we are to find the will to deal with climate change, we must all fall in love with the earth.

Vicki Merriwether, Mt. Zion Baptist

There were times that I would despair. I’d say, “Lord what are we doing to the earth? What are we doing to mankind? How are we treating each other? And how are we treating your world?”  And then I began to think, “It’s hopeless.” And then something came to me and I said, “Can we change this world?” “Hmmmmm” And then I thought again and I said, “You best believe we can! We can change the world. It starts with one person at a time. It starts with me!”

If God created this world, He’s going to keep this world. He’s going to keep us and teach us, to do what He wants done in this world, if we listen. One person at a time.

Rev. Felix Malpica, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran

Thank you for having this conversation. It’s really important that we have this and understand that global climate change is a matter of faith. I just want to paint how that works out from my perspective as a Lutheran. I want to start with what sin is. . . as I would say, “Staring at your belly button.” That’s what sin is. It’s this distorted relationship where we’re stuck, just staring at ourselves, looking at our belly button, and we can’t look up. You can’t see your neighbor with love. You can’t love the environment that’s around you. What is sin? Sin is distorted relationships.

Let’s look at climate. What is climate? Climate isn’t just the weather that’s happening, but it’s actually relationships. The relationship between the water, the earth, the ice of the earth, the living things and the air that’s all around us. These four spheres in relationship with one another. Global climate change is the distorted relationship of that. This living sphere where we live has taken on too much power. We’ve distorted that relationship. We’ve changed what the air is like. We’ve changed the temperature of the waters. The ice is going away because of that and now this turmoil is happening and we call that climate change. I might call that the physical manifestation of our sin.

Rabbi Neil Blumofe, Congregation Agudas Achim

I scrapped what I had written for today, because I was thinking about the Jewish teaching about planting a tree, not just for our own sustenance, but in the hopes for our children. I called my oldest son, who’s twenty. He lives in Brooklyn. I said, “I’m doing this thing, maybe you could write something based on Psalm 24. You have an hour.” He did. I’d like to share his words with us, interwoven with Psalm 24.

As is typical in a Jewish presentation, we generally end with a question. My son Elijah will end with a question, based on Psalm 24. “As we gaze upon a smoke filled horizon, the decay of ice thundering in our ears, we must ask, “Whose world is this?” When our lungs lust to be filled with sweet air, instead must feast on rancid ash, we must ask, “Whose world is this?” Surely, it is not God’s.

Pastor Sharolyn Browning, Gethsemane Lutheran

Ten days from now, Christians will come together to receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Ten days from now is Ash Wednesday, which begins the season of Lent, a time of fasting and repentance. Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.

In a far, faraway place in the most northern part of the United States, in the northern most reaches of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is Shishmaref, Alaska. The town is about 600 people and sits precariously on an island made of sand and ice only about one quarter of a mile wide. In the center of the town is a little white church. They’re a lot like us. In ten days they will be marked. “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The people of Shishmaref don’t need this reminder of finitude, because they face it every day. The melting ice is lapping at their heals. The land that they live on has no protection from these new storms. The sand underneath their houses is melting out into the ocean. The animals that they depend on for food no longer have ice bridges that connect them from the mainland to the island. And the hunters, when they go out, sometimes they fall through this every increasingly thin ice. As a community in Shishmaref, Alaska, their Ash Wednesdays are numbered. They are counting the Ash Wednesdays until the rest of us truly hear, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Rev. Brent Bowden, The Sanctuary

“It was too late, and all hope was gone.” They’ve said that about climate change. I’ve heard them. I don’t really know all the science behind the whole thing. I tend to trust those in our world who we’ve asked to keep an eye on such things. You’ve heard it hear folks, a Baptist who listens to scientists. But you’ve heard that too, I’m sure. Turning this massive ship of human political will, will be too slow. And we’re too far advanced in climate change. We’ll never turn it back. It’s too late.

But I think that the people who say that are wrong. Just as I thought that those in Capernaum were wrong. Because, you see, they weren’t counting on the community that was established there. Yes, Jesus, the great healer, had moved on. But he left behind a few. A few of those who had known healing. He left behind a community that had been marked by redemption. A community of those who knew how to speak of wholeness. A hope that might just see them through their work of restoration. It may have felt too late, but it wasn’t, thanks to a redemptive community that had already developed among them.

That’s why I don’t think it’s too late for climate change. Because there is within this world a community that knows what restoration looks like and is brave enough to speak of it at all times. And I know that community exists, because I’m looking at them.

Sarah Macias, The Sanctuary

The Spirit has blown in this place and voices from the faith community – that sometimes the world thinks are in conflict and in discord with one another – have spoken in harmony today. And it’s been beautiful. God is still speaking. And when that happens, we must respond. We can’t not respond. So the question to all of us is, “What’s next?”

What’s next is up to us. To you. And you. And you and you. And us. All of us, because we are a network. Interconnected and interdependent. Ecologically, environmentally and spiritually. We at Interfaith Environmental Network, along with our good friends at Interfaith Action of Central Texas are building an interfaith coalition of congregations and individuals who see protecting creation as a core element of their religious commitment. We depend on each other to sustain us in this work.

Rev. Tom VandeStadt

We’ve heard so many words and songs that were deep, and profound and inspirational, prophetic, and truthful and heretical, today, moving us to act. So I want to send us with a benediction, with a prayer. One of the messages we have heard over and over is that we are all interconnected. We are all related on one another and to everyone else and everything else on this planet Earth – our Mother.

Spirit who creates life, Spirit who is life, Spirit who heals life, Spirit who reconciles all that lives, who calls all that lives to justice, Spirit who loves, we open our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our souls to You right now. We feel you pulsating through our bodies, with every beat of our heart, with every breath we take. We feel your energy moving through the hands that we are grasping. We feel the energy moving up through the soles of our feet, and we give thanks to you. We pray that you will empower us. Make us powerful so that we never say never. So that we remain always open to a future that is sustainable and harmonious and just for all our children. For all people. For all creatures on this Earth. This is Your will. Let us do Your will. Amen.