Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader today is the Rev David J M Coleman, environmental chaplain to the United Reformed Church.
Today is the feast of the Epiphany, which is the last blast of Christmas. It comes with very powerful stories attached, not least the story that people from another culture, nation and faith finally made their way to the infant Jesus by a combination of what we might call scientific observation and spiritual wisdom. They are known as the wise men, although in Christian history that has perhaps been a way of obscuring the foreignness, in both faith and race, of those revered figures in the Christian story. They bring to the house of a working family gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, which are gifts for prosperity, prayer and the acknowledgment of life’s changes and endings.
We may know them as “wise men”, but, in the first part of their story, and tragically, they turn out to be only clever rather than wise. Naively trusting protocol and procedure, they deal first of all with a corrupt ruler, whose violent response ensures that Christianity’s founder starts childhood as a refugee. The full story of Christmas cannot be told without a reminder of how the abuse of power can, and still does, kill the poor and—as science now insists—lead directly to the premature extinction of our fellow creatures to whom God gave the earth as a home just as much as he gave it to us.
I have been environmental chaplain since 2018, working with a wide spread of Christian traditions from the Borders to Shetland and cherishing dialogue with interfaith organisations. Since preparing together for the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—we have really got to know each other.
My particular calling is to uncover the buried treasure in the green field of scripture and tradition and to activate the spiritual resources that our particular faith has to offer in times of threat and turmoil, working like yeast in the dough of Scotland. To put it simply, I do that so that we, who are now bombarded with the terrifying facts about the crisis of nature and climate, may, with eyes wide open to the bad news that is now beyond reasonable doubt, both repurpose and share something more than facts and figures and be part of the discernment of daily life and community action.
Our grass-roots movement of environmentally committed churches on islands and in cities builds up the courage and resilience—and the joy—of faith communities without dishonestly pretending that the outlook for the coming generations is not terrifying. We do that because the wisdom that takes notice also gives hope.
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