September 4, 2016

Linda Murphy

Ocean Sunday     Ordinary 23     Luke 5:1-11

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

It is spring and the weather is warmer, spring flowers are in bloom and our days are longer. On Friday we celebrated a ‘World Day of Prayer for Creation’, this is the beginning of the Season of Creation that continues to the 4th of October St Francis Day when we celebrate with our Blessing of the Animals Service.

Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches thorough the world are coming together to celebrate this time to encourage us to look at care of creation, and today is Ocean Sunday. We are surrounded by oceans and the sea is an integral part of our life whether we go fishing, sailing or just taking walks along our beautiful shoreline. Collecting kaimoana from the sea is a traditional part of life for us and it is threatened by lack of care and stewardship.

Bishop Desmond Tutu states that we face a human rights challenge with Climate change and the results of climate change are climate refugees to add to the overwhelming numbers of refugees resulting from political unrest. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby talked recently of inaction regarding climate change being potentially fatal to humanity. These are strong and frightening words.

Seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans which contain 97.5% of the water on the planet. It is estimated that the oceans formed between 4.6 and 3.8 billion years ago. Life began in the oceans because of the nutrients that were washed into the oceans and provided the content for primitive unicellular bacteria to develop, so one could say that the oceans are the primordial archetype of God as all life emerged from the oceans.

It is probably this archetypical power that explains why the sea holds such a fascination and sense of deep threat to us all. For us we awoke on Friday morning to a tsunami alert after an earthquake on the East Coast of the North Island, this sense of threat became very real, although fortunately short-lived. As Joseph Conrad has it, “The Sea has never been friendly to humanity. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.”

Today’s Season of Creation Gospel locates Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, although Luke refers to it as the lake of Gennesaret. At a literal level this is an account of the call of some Galilean fisherman to follow Jesus. However this is a story of faith, courage and transformation.

In 1st century Palestine fishing at night was normal as there was no means to keep fish fresh, it was then sold in the morning and eaten that day. Fishing at night must have been difficult and dangerous. Simon had been fishing that night and had not caught anything when Jesus says “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch”. Simon Peter must have thought Jesus was a bit crazy and after all he wasn’t a fisherman what would he know. However he did obey Jesus and caught so much fish that another boat had to help with this harvest.

Today if Simon Peter was to put his net down his catch would be significantly compromised. Overfishing has resulted in smaller and fewer fish. The nets would be heavy, not from aquatic life but from a disgusting array of rubbish, poisons, and toxic waste. Human waste chokes and poisons marine life in ways that cause immense suffering that most of us never see, nor want to face. We have a lot whale stranding’s here in New Zealand all too frequently. Scientists suggest that this could be a result of the rubbish that these mammals are ingesting.

Jesus’ teaching on the lake of Gennesaret is not just a metaphor for how the Kingdom of God will manifest itself. That teachable moment has important significance for this particular time of ecological destruction, because it shows us that the very illustration that Jesus uses – the basic, natural and life-giving phenomenon of fish thriving in a healthy aquatic ecosystem, that very process is under threat of annihilation.

In July a seven day consultation, “Encountering God in the Storm” was held in Suva, Fiji instigated by Archbishop Winston Halapua, Bishop of Polynesia. Archbishop Winston invited Anglican leaders to consider the implications of climate change for the church’s mission, in a place where they can ‘put their feet in the ocean’ and see the immediate effects of rising ocean levels. In our church mission statement the fifth mark of mission is: “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.”

Some 676 of Fiji’s villages are at risk of flooding because of rising sea levels. Several communities have already been forced to relocate. This year alone the nation of Fiji has contended with Cyclone Winston and numerous earthquakes making the people of Fiji among the most vulnerable to climate change.

This consultation looked at not only economic impact of climate change but also the social impact of increasing climate change pressures has on families. The impact of climate change is holistic; everyone and everything in our ecosystem is affected. Archbishop Philip reflected at the end of the consultation that the challenges are enormous but some creative responses are inspiring.

During the week I read of an innovative idea to save marine life destruction. A company in the UK is making the holders for canned drinks out of waste product from brewing beer. Instead of those plastic holders polluting the oceans and killing precious marine life. These holders break down and offer nourishment to marine life. We need significantly more sustainable innovations like this to make an impact to this global disaster facing our planet.

Just as Jesus’ teaching ministry in first century Palestine was meant to shake people up and get them thinking about things in a new way so that they could hear the Gospel clearly. We hear so many examples of what humanity is doing to desecrate the Earth, it is important for us especially as Christians to remember that God shows up in the last place you would think to look. To proclaim the Good News about what God is doing to restore the oceans, seas, rivers and streams especially as they connect to the human and other than human lives around and within them. A day of prayer is a start, supporting sustainable change, writing to political parties concerning environmental issues and being stewards of our own land are essential if we are to leave this planet in a condition that it will sustain life for our future generations.

The fishermen in today’s Gospel stepped into the unknown when they followed Jesus that day on the shores lake Gennesaret and became fishermen of people spread the Word of God. They faced the unknown, fear, hardship and exclusion nevertheless they listened and learned from the words of Jesus and we are still listening to the Good News. We need to continue to move from the comfortable shallow water into the deeper water to achieve change no matter what might happen. Doing nothing is no longer an option.

I would like to conclude with the words of Koreti Tiumalu, “We cannot build a Pacific Climate Movement without engaging our faith communities. Faith is pivotal to our people, and like the ocean, it connects us. In the face of the climate crisis, we need prayer to carry our people and faith to build resilience.”