IS ATONEMENT ON THE AGENDA AT COP 26?
Twenty-Six Times, every year since 1995, have thousands of delegates, representing the nations of the entire world, gathered to combat the ever more expanding CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL HEATING.
We have now come to the point of no return. Only a total change, what the Bible calls a METANOIA, can avert universal collapse.
This change must start with asking God for forgiveness. It is exactly for this very reason that the Lord, knowing human nature as no other, prescribed A DAY OF ATONEMENT, as outlined in Leviticus 35: 16, and I quote,
“This is a LASTING ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for the SINS of the people.”
I have emphasized two words: Lasting, and Sins. I sin all the time. My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak. At this point in history, where we all – except perhaps the Bushmen in Africa – pollute without letup: we have become “Carboholics”, and Climate Change is the inevitable outcome, and a direct sin against creation, God’s work of Art. Now more than ever do we need ‘atonement’ for our sins.
In connection with the upcoming COP 26, we, everybody, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, people of all stripe and faith, color and persuasion, need to gather wherever we meet, in an act of ATONEMENT, because only a universal confession of sin, and a consequent change of conduct will avert total annihilation.
Our challenge is to focus on the ancient concept of ATONEMENT, a feeble attempt to help our personal and communal struggles, by setting aside a period of lament before the COP 26 starts.
Here is a song I have modified that may help to set the scene: there is a tune to it. See below.
Where are the birds that sang in tall tree towers,
Why are the woodlands now full-soaked in ash,
Where are the eyes to see the fire showers,
Where are the tears when birds no longer dash?
How clean the water, how tall the grain?
How green the forest, can the earth renew again?
When will the deserts stop their massive spreading?
Where will we plant so food can freely grow?
When will we hear no more of species dying?
When will we care enough to cherish all?
How clean the water, how tall the grain?
How green the forest, can the earth renew again?
When will the sea be free from human binging?
Safe for the whales that frolic in the deep
Who will arise and send alarm bells ringing?
Now is the time and for our voice to weep.
How clean the water, how tall the grain?
How green the forest, can the earth renew again?
We can sing it in a 11.10.11.10 meter, based on TIDINGS: James Walch 1875. P.D.
We are not alone.
‘
The entire world is struggling with extinction. You and I are not alone.
Despair is mounting.
When anxiety for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and pray, Maranatha, Lord Come,
and visualize the new creation,
where all is at rest, where the wolf and the lamb feed
together, and swords have become instruments of peace.
I then see shalom emerge, everywhere
in earth and sky and seas.
In my dreams I see Jesus, walking hand in hand
with his woman friend, amidst a throng of children
Happily dancing around that pair.
I see flowers in manifold colors and shapes,
And I see above me the balmy sun,
with healing in its wings,
friendly, soothing, refreshing, blessing
those who have waited for the Lord.
O holy earth receive our tears
Console us, still our deepest fears.
We live as exiles in our land,
Oh, where, oh where your helping hand?
The people all are drunk with wine
In blinded daze see no decline
The nations’ rulers spread the lie
Insist all’s fine, the truth defy.
But one day soon God’s wrath will come
With death for many, life for some.
What evil thought gave life to birth
That made us kill God’s Holy earth?
(Tune: The Old Hundredth: O people that on earth do dwell)
I read last week that:
“Just as industrial civilization flourished at the expense of Nature and now threatens to cost us the Earth, an information civilization shaped by surveillance capitalism and its new instrumentarian power will thrive at the expense of human nature and will threaten to cost us our humanity”.
Yes, we are at a critical juncture, where technology bleeds the earth dry, and information dominance threatens to sucker our brains.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
WHAT MUST WE DO?
I know, the way to Hell is paved with good intentions. Yet, Atonement starts with verbalizing our intention, and, by the grace of God, try to act on them.
Here is a feeble beginning, based on Genesis 9:
“A Covenant between God, Humanity and all created matter.”
Atonement declaration #1
In our arrogance and pride
We have grabbed what was not ours
and have abused what was entrusted
to us only for safekeeping.
Forgive us for breaking our covenant.
Atonement declaration # 2
We have flouted your fixed order, and
In willful defiance and deliberate ignorance,
We have shut our ears
To the pleading of your people and
To the groaning of creation.
Forgive us for breaking our covenant.
Atonement declaration # 3
We have enslaved the poor of the earth,
Uploaded on them our surplus garbage
And our unwanted pollution,
Endangering their health and refusing
Their rightful place among us.
Forgive us for breaking our covenant.
Atonement declaration # 4
We have paved your planet with
our greed for speed and
our need to escape from ourselves.
We now have upset the laws of creation
at our own peril.
Forgive us for breaking our covenant
Atonement declaration # 5
We have done business
to enrich ourselves at the expense of all
creatures and creation and
now have imprisoned our souls and imperiled our planet.
Forgive us for breaking your covenant
.
Atonement declaration # 6
Teach us, Lord, to live again
the true life of joy and peace,
of loving you as you want to be loved and
truly loving creation and all creatures
and truly love ourselves.
Atonement declaration # 7
Teach us to live the true life of joy
and peace and justice
as your covenant children
in a life of obedience, in a true response to your
created and living word.
Atonement declaration # 8
Give us the courage and faith
to prepare ourselves to live the full life
in tune with creation, so that we can become
what we are when we see you as you really are.
Atonement declaration # 9
May we look forward to your coming
when all hurts will be healed,
when the total creation will again be
utterly good and pristine again.
Atonement declaration # 10
May we look forward to the time
when everything on earth and
everything in the starry expanse
will be made new,
when total justice will reign and
each eye will see at last that this world belongs to God.
IS ATONEMENT ON THE AGENDA AT COP 26?
No. Instead Psalm 2 applies.
The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
“Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”
(However) The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
Climate Change will persist because it is pure revolt against God and creation. It’s nothing else but an extreme effort to defy God and his laws.
Yes, The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.