Hosannah!

Image borrowed from http://blog.adw.org

Sunday was Palm Sunday the beginning of Holy Week. It is the day we remember how the Jews celebrated Jesus coming to Jerusalem riding on a donkey. They carpeted the road with their jackets and waved flags of palm branches as he rode past. They were sure that he was the Messiah and was going to save them from the oppressive rule of the Romans. They shouted “Hosanna” which means 'God save us'. And when Jesus saw Jerusalem he cried. He cried because even though the people asked to be saved, Jesus knew that in their hearts they would reject him. They would continue in their power hungry ways instead of turning the other cheek. He knew that Jerusalem was on the brink of destruction and without true repentance it was going to be destroyed.

The world is now also on the brink of destruction. Every pound of carbon we put into the atmosphere brings us one step closer to our demise. A demise that will cause severe famine, catastrophic storms, and permanent flooding of coast lands. A demise that will disrupt ecosystems, result in massive extinctions, wide spread plagues and severe pestilences. In our churches we shout “Hosanna”, 'God save us', yet ironically every Sunday we put pound after pound of carbon into the atmosphere getting to a building warmed or cooled by burning fossil fuels in order to ask God to save us. We want God to change our hearts, and yet we refuse to change our actions that will prevent our demise.

John the Baptist preached against a false repentance -a repentance without a change in action. He said “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Most Christians wouldn't claim Abraham as their father to think that they don't have to change their actions in order to be saved from destruction. Instead they would claim that they are saved by faith rather than works, Christ as their brother and God as their Father. They depend on their personal relationship with Jesus to save them from the coming earthly demise, and yet refuse to acknowledge their own destructive behavior.

In Romans, where Paul reminds us how we are saved by faith, he talks about how “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. In our society, we have scientists who have spent years reading the revelations from heaven and earth. They tell us the truth about the destruction burning fossil fuels is bringing upon us; how the consequences of climate change are apocalyptic visions in biblical proportions of God's wrath. But those who sell us fossil fuels also sell us lies that try and discount global warming and our responsibility as contributors. They try to further suppress the truth through financial influence in our political system.

Paul warns us about ignoring the truth. He describes how those who “neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him” became fools even though they claimed to be wise, how “their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened”. With our scientific progress we claim to be wise, but at the same time we use our scientific progress to ruin God's creation, the glory of God. Instead of being grateful for what God has given us, our unquenchable desire for more further rapes our planet and takes advantage of the poor. Our thinking becomes futile when we seek to compensate for burning fossil fuels through some new engineering way to store carbon from the atmosphere rather than avoiding burning fossil fuels to begin with. Our hearts become darkened when we wish to compensate for burning fossil fuels by taking away crop land and forests from the poor to grow trees that will consume the carbon from the wealthy rather than avoiding contributing carbon in the first place.

Paul describes the progressive degradation of those who refuse to acknowledge the truth and repent. First they will minimize who God is. Then they will become sexually licentious. Then their lives will revolve around material things. Following which they will further break down moral barriers in thought, word, and deed against authority, family, neighbor, and gender. Compassion will be replaced by lust and greed.

When we use fossil fuels, others suffer at our expense. We lose compassion for the poorest and the most helpless when we use fossil fuels in order to promote our agendas, to acquire more, and to bring comfort and entertainment to our lives at the expense of others' well being. When we lose compassion, we lose an awareness of the destruction we are bringing upon ourselves, we lose an awareness of the wrath of God.

Jesus cries because he sees the destruction we are bringing upon ourselves. He sees the ax ready at our root and he wants to save us if only we would repent. God wants to save us, not through the wisdom of our technological advances but through the repentance of changed behavior, through our willingness to walk the extra mile and turn the other cheek. He wants to open our hearts to forgiveness and compassion; a compassion that goes beyond the superficial donation when the news media broadcasts a natural disaster. He wants to give us a compassion that changes the very underpinnings of our society; a compassion that is willing to suffer so that others might have life. He wants to give us a forgiveness that owns the wrongs and is willing to die for righteousness.

Using fossil fuels to save our lives will only result in our losing our lives. But losing our lives because we refuse to use fossil fuels will save us, and our children, and our grand children down to the third and fourth generation. By refusing to use fossil fuels we will lose the material things around which our lives presently revolve, but we will gain a compassion for the creation that declares the glory of God. We will once again be able to enter into true worship with the wonder of a God who cares for the least of these with the grandeur of the universe. Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!