How many of you recycle?  (some people raise their hands) Hands up higher (laughter, more people raise their hands).  Everybody – recycle?  Okay.  Our social justice group encouraged us this weekend to, oh, not only celebrate the fifth Sunday of Easter, but also we are encouraged to celebrate Earth Day, hence the readings and hence the second reading.  So, here are some commitments that I’m offering to you this weekend.

*       *       *

• I will reduce and reuse and recycle.  Sounds like I’m preaching to the choir here, that most of you are doing that and that’s good.  I will bring my reusable bags every time I go shopping to Safeway, Lunardi’s, Trader Joe’s - try to cover everybody.  So (holding up reusable shopping bags), do you all have these things?  Okay. (laughter) I have to buy one or maybe they’ll leave this one behind.  It’s kinda funny when, as a priest when I go over to Lunardi’s sometimes and go shopping and, especially if I’m cooking when Elizabeth’s not cooking, and it’s funny how people want to see what’s in your shopping cart.  I said the whisky is for Father Brian, not for me!  (laughter) 

• I will change to CLFs.  Ya’ll know what CLFs are?  The light bulbs - twisty light bulbs - they last longer and use less energy?  Did you know this?  You’ve heard that?  They’re not as bright?

Parishioner: “You can get brighter ones.”

You can get brighter ones, thank you.  (holding up CLF) You see?

• I will turn off and unplug appliances that I am not using.  You know, even computers and a lot of our electrical equipment go into sleep mode, but that’s also drawing a lot of electricity.  If everybody turned those off, it would really make a big difference.

• I will buy local produce and I will seek out organic products.  I don’t know how well this is regulated, all the printing is not regulated real well so you have to really read the labels and check it out.

• I will give up garden chemicals and grow organic, for all of you who have green fingers and do things like that.  Or you’re a gardener, if you happen to be rich enough to have a gardener.

• And I will plant native species plants in my organic garden.

• I will give up bottled water.  (pause) Last night after the homily, Father Brian’s sister was in visiting with him and she said, “I don’t trust those French and Italian waters and all those people.  I usually take the bottle and empty it out and then use East Bay MUD water.  I trust it more.”  (laughter)  So, okay.  I will carry my refillable water bottle, that’s something I think I need to do because I always grab those convenient little bottles running out to the gym.

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You may well ask why are we discussing, in a Catholic Church on a Sunday, this particular issue?  Well, there is no prism by which we cannot look at, or glasses that we can’t look through the gospel at every single aspect of life.  The reason that the first reading was chosen was because there is a wonderful biblical tradition, all the way through the Hebrew texts and, indeed, the New Testament that attests to, and calls us to be, stewards of the creation.  We heard about Jesus preparing this home for us.  God has already prepared a wonderful home and made us stewards of that creation.  Care for the earth is not a new-fangled thing that just has occurred because of global warming. 

On top of all of that, we are called to look at and renew our faith in every time and place that we find ourselves in and in this moment in time, it is very, very clear scientifically and on many different levels, that there is something happening to the planet.  It doesn’t matter where you are on the political divide, our bishops in the tradition of Catholic social teaching…Catholic social teaching has been around since 1870 and well beyond that but it was actually formulated in the great document in 1891 by the Pope Leo XII in the great encyclical “Rarum Novarum” which was this wonderful document that articulated all of the social teachings of the church, non-negotiable elements of the gospel.  Successive popes and the Magesterium of the church have thought, reflected and prayed on these issues from the right to life to the dignity of the human person.

Here’s what our bishops said just recently in a letter to the United States government regarding global warming.

“At its core, global climate change is not
about economic theory, it’s not about political
platforms, nor about partisan advantage or
interest group pressures.  It is about the future
of God’s creation and the one human family.  It
is about protecting both the human environment
and the natural environment.”

And then they go on to break that down into three different reasons.  One of the thoughts is that we are an inter-related planet and the more we are inter-related economically and on every other level, do you know that, for example, if the oil refineries that are not too far away from us, that whatever the carbon monoxide, whatever else they’re blasting into the atmosphere, it goes up into the atmosphere and takes three weeks to go right around the planet?  So that means that not only are we being affected, all peoples are affected around the earth.  Each of us is called to look at our carbon footprint and what we do and how we are.  We can make a big difference just in the little things that we can do, and so the invitation today is to look at what we do, even the very littlest things that we can do to protect our planet.

It’s kind of interesting.  There’s this huge problem, there’s a huge food shortage in the world this year, and it has had an adverse effect of us trying to look at our energy.  For example, corn in the United States is big business – many farmers are making h-u-u-ge amounts of money by putting it into ethanol.  Now ethanol in a sense can or cannot be good depending on how you look at it, but they’re making more money at it.  It’s not going into the food supply.  Corn and wheat are produced in the United States mostly, and Australia.  Australia this last three years has had a drought and has only been able to produce a third of what they usually produce.  The United States is putting much of its corn into ethanol and there’s this worldwide shortage of food.  Food prices are going up in the world and who does it affect the most?  The people in the Third World who are the most poor and the most vulnerable.

So, all of these things, there is a ying and yang to all of it, but I think what each of us is called to do is look at what we can do and what we are doing and if we can do better.  So let the church say Amen. 

Parishioners:  Amen.
Fr. Aidan, louder:  Amen! 
Parishioners, louder:  Amen!
Fr. Aidan:  Okay, let’s pray about it.

P.S. 
* Several people have pointed out other suggestions...and still others have pointed out the ill effects of some of our solutions to global warming, e.g. turning off your computer might reduce its life expectancy by 30% and so put more computers in landfill, or CLF's have mercury in them - what do you do when they are extinguished?  Unforeseen problems, but we are still called to do something and inform ourselves.

* Finally, the Bishops of the United States have a wonderful website where one can research church teaching on social justice and global warming/care for the planet.  www.usccb.org