Environmental Stewardship Commission (MEESC)

How the world blesses us

• Theme for Sermon series
• Blessing of the animals, we bless them
• But animals and plants are blessing us all the time!
• God gives to Adam and Eve the plants for food

• ¹⁴  You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, †
• to bring forth food from the earth,
• ¹⁵  and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine,
• and bread to strengthen the human heart.
• ¹⁶  The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
• the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
• ¹⁷  In them the birds build their nests;
• the stork has its home in the fir trees.

• Cedars, Symbol of the glory of the promised land
• Also a symbol of pride
• Not that a plant is capable of pride, as far as we know, but in their height and strength they look proud to us.
• Their destruction is an image of a land laid waste by an enemy
• No outsider is laying waste to the last old growth forests in the Unites States.
• Our own lumber companies are seeking permission to do it for us.
• We are not treating the rain forests and the old growth forests as if they were treasured companions on our journey through space.
• We are not returning their many blessings with kindness and blessings of our own.

• Maple across the street: Shades from light green through yellow to an almost fluorescent reddish orange

• Actually made possible the explosion of knowledge and technical skill
• Could pass on know how over generations, and over distance
• Founding fathers were students of Aristotle, Plato, and Holy Scripture
• Inspired by all three as they crafted our republic
• Of course the first papers were made from linen, but that is a plant product too.

• ²⁶ So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.
• ²⁷ And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’
• ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’
• ²⁹ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.
• ³⁰ Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”
• ³¹  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;
• ³² it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

And in Leviticus, Part of Celebrating God’s blessings:
³⁹ Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the LORD, lasting seven days; a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day.
⁴⁰ On the first day you shall take the fruit of majestic † trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.

Those of you who read Guns, Germs, and Steel learned about the various obstacles and time frames for the domestication of plants and the beginning of agriculture.

• For our purposes today, it’s enough to say that the Cultivation of plants revolutionized human life.
• Relatively few plants were worth cultivating: Grains with large heads; The lowly grasses provide about 50% of the calories consumed in the world today.

• Fruits
• Blueberries
• Vegetables
• Grains
• Food for meat and dairy animals
• Creators of virtually all food value on the planet
• They alone can capture the suns energy in a chemical form that every higher creature uses.

• A time when there was no oxygen
• Removing Carbon Dioxide
• No machine can do this for us on the scale required

• Trees clinging high on the mountain
• Crabgrass growing in the cracks in the pavement, ever so slowly breaking it up.

• Finding the moccasin flowers in the woods at the cabin.

Amen

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