(Genesis 1.1-10) Creation 1 – Oceans
1 September 2019 – ©Neil Millar
In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. You know, in all my years of church involvement I’ve never once heard or preached a sermon about the sea. And yet, here it is, mentioned in the first verse of the bible, with top billing in the first Creation story. Well, today, thanks to the guidance of our liturgical calendar, we’re invited to pause and pay attention to the ocean, to its place in the purposes of God and in the life of the world. In order to do that, I’m going to focus on three important features of the ocean – its beauty, its primal place in the ecology of life, and its state in our time.
1. The oceans are beautiful.
I wonder if you’ve ever walked along a beach in the morning or looked out at the ocean from a headland (or even at a picture of the ocean) and found yourself thinking, or saying (even to yourself), ‘Wow, isn’t it beautiful?’ If you’re like me, you’ve got many treasured memories of times at the sea – of holidays and trips to the beach, or maybe you lived by the sea, or maybe you were a keen sailor or surfer, or swimmer??
‘The sea is beautiful. Everybody knows that. One of the basic reasons Australians flock to the beach is that we find there a beauty that seems somehow primal and life-enhancing’, write my friends Graeme Garrett and Jan Morgan. I relate to their comment? I love the ocean, and, like so many others, I’m drawn to it. Think of what that phrase ‘ocean views’ does to the price of a house or hotel room. Why do people pay so much to see and be near the ocean? Well surely, in part, it’s because it’s beautiful. We human beings are drawn to beauty and oceans are beautiful – the sights and sounds, the smells, the touch; the mysterious depths, the spectacular life forms… beautiful.
I want to tell you a bit more about my friends Graeme and Jan. They live in Melbourne, but for three months during each of the past four years, they’ve relocated to Tathra Beach, where each day (rain, hail or shine) they’ve spent 30 minutes silently walking along the beach and a further 30 minutes standing at the edge of the ocean looking and listening – a practice they’ve come to call ‘sea se(h)earing’. Each day they journaled about the experience and, in those entries, ‘one thing stands out’, they write: ‘Whatever the day, sunny or overcast, whatever the water, wild or still; whatever the beach, populated or empty; our reports always (or almost always) contain the words, “it’s so beautiful”, “the sea is very beautiful”, or the like. Careful attending to the sea seems to confirm what common experience intuits. Beauty and the sea, the sea and beauty belong together.’ And this beauty calls forth our praise.
2. The oceans are essential.
Just over forty years ago, the now famous marine biologist, Sylvia Earle, visited Melbourne for a conference. She wrote about that trip, and recalls standing on the shore of Port Phillip Bay one day when a reporter thrust a mic under her chin and fired a series of questions. ‘Suppose the oceans dried up tomorrow. Why should I care?’ the reported queried. ‘I don’t swim. I hate boats. I get seasick! I don’t even like to eat fish. Why should I object if some of them – or all of them – go extinct? Who needs the ocean?’ Earle describes groaning inwardly, ‘is she serious; who needs the ocean? Who doesn’t need the ocean!’ Earle describes her interaction with that reporter: ‘Without the ocean, there would be no life – no people, anyway.’ ‘How so?’ the reporter quizzed; ‘People don’t drink saltwater’. Well, ‘Get rid of the ocean, and Earth would be a lot like Mars’, Earle replied – ‘Cold, barren, inhospitable.’ ‘… Or, how about the moon. There’s a place with no bothersome ocean. And no life. Or Venus. Yes, the beautiful – and lifeless – hot planet with no ocean. It doesn’t matter where on Earth you live, everyone is utterly dependent on the existence of that living saltwater soup’, Earle continued, ‘…The living ocean drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise provides the cornerstone of life-support system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea star fish to desert sagebrush. That’s why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we’ll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.’ In the end, Earle distilled it down to one simple refrain – ‘no blue, no green’. That’s it – no ocean, no life. Oceans, living oceans are absolutely necessary if life is to continue on this planet.
Now, we know, the oceans aren’t going to dry up tomorrow, or any time soon. But one thing’s become increasingly clear since Earle made that statement 40 years ago, and it’s that the oceans are under serious threat.
3. The oceans are under serious threat.
‘The ocean is sick. And we humans are the primary drivers of this illness’, Graeme and Jan write in the book that emerged from their time in Tathra. They continue: ‘we have taken and consumed vast quantities of fish, depleting, in some cases to the point of extinction or near extinction, certain species on a global scale (e.g., blue fin tuna). Almost half the coral reefs, nurseries of so much marine life, have disappeared. The Great Barrier Reef is now suffering severe damage from coral bleaching. Huge amounts of rubbish and toxic chemicals are dumped daily into the ocean. Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer-runoff spill from our agriculture and wind up in the waves. Dredging, drilling, mining – with their inevitable accidents – go on with ever increasing intensity and in ever more risky locations.’ This is bad enough, but ‘the greatest threat is coming from the gigantic flow-on effects from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Climate change is both warming and acidifying the ocean.’ ‘We are changing the physics, chemistry, biology and thermodynamics of the sea in ways that have never been possible before in the long interaction with the ocean’, Graeme and Jan write. In the past, it didn’t so much matter what we did or thought, the oceans we so vast and resilient that our human economies and industries were of little consequence, but that has all changed due to massive growth in population and industrialisation. Humans are now a significant planetary force, ‘a force which is having accelerating and … damaging effects on the biospehere’.
Now, I know, most of us don’t like to hear this, and there are still some who dispute it, who argue that the climate has always fluctuated in response to ‘natural’ processes. This is true, increases in volcanic activity, variations in the globe’s orbit, or in solar cycles, all affect climate. But that’s not the main explanation for what’s happening at present. The world’s best scientists agree ‘that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases… released mainly as a result of human activity’ (Laudato Si’, 2015:27). We must acknowledge this, it isn’t ‘greeny’ ideology, it’s fact. The practices of developed and developing nations are placing enormous strain on our oceans, even activities that don’t appear directly linked – like clearing the Amazon rainforest to graze beef and, closer to home, opening up the Galilee basin to extract more coal. The oceans are under threat, and things must change if our planet is to continue to be hospitable for life.
As I’ve said, it’s hard to hear this, I find it hard to say it; it’s hard to bear. I suspect that’s why we’re seeing such brazen push back at present – outright dishonesty and lies being told by political leaders, the undermining of scientific organisations and careers, the changing of laws to silence protest and so on. And part of what allows this is the inertia of the general populace. Inertia sustained by feelings of helplessness and overwhelm.
So, what to do? What does discipleship mean when it comes to care for the ocean? Most of us are familiar with at least some of the personal lifestyle changes we can make: reducing plastic use, eating less meat, planting trees, insulating homes, installing solar panels, buying hybrid cars and carbon credits, using public transport; practising simplicity and contentment. All of this is important, but individual change alone won’t do it, our whole society must change. We need ‘ecological conversion’ as many religious leaders are saying, including a transformation in the whole way our economy is organised and measured. Despite the slogans, it’s not just about jobs and growth, it’s about the well-being of the whole ecology of life, jobs supporting sustainable growth. How do we encourage this kind of change?
Later, this month, school students from around the world will strike as a way of communicating to government and business that they are deeply concerned about what’s happening to our oceans and earth. These students are asking us to join them in pressing for action on climate, including a serious commitment to transition to renewable energy. This is a significant opportunity to send a message to world leaders, to stand in solidarity with all earth’s creatures and with the earth itself. Our synod fully endorses this action. If you possibly can, will you come? And, even if you can’t, will you pray? Which brings me to a final important observation about social change, often overlooked. And that’s that so many peaceful movements of social transformation have been undergirded and sustained by communities of prayer – think the abolition of slavery, civil rights in America, the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa. Since transformation is at heart a work of soul and spirit, prayer needs to be a significant part of our participation in the reconciliation with Creation. We can all pray. And just as the spirit hovered over primeval waters bringing life from chaotic depths, so may our prayer, in the power of the Spirit, enable the restoration of our struggling oceans, that they might continue to support life for generations to come.
References
Morgan, J & Garrett, G (2018) On the Edge: A-Way with the Ocean, Morning Star Publishing, Reservior, Vic.
Pope Francis, (2015) Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home, An Encyclical Letter on Ecology and Climate, St Paul’s Publishing, Strathfield, NSW.