Ode to My Outdoorsy Friends: Creation and Community

A week ago, I had the chance to get up to Mammoth Mountain for a last winter hurrah. My son, Brooks, two friends and I were able to enjoy the sunny beauty of the mountain that was empty of skiers but still packing nearly ten feet of snow.  Twas bliss for us.   

Now that summer is coming, my skis are being put on the rack, and the fly fishing gear and surfboards are coming out.  While I won’t be getting away anytime soon, I do have some plans to surf the local breaks of San Clemente this summer and get up to Oregon for a brief trip in August to wet a line on the Deschutes River.  I will also be leading the trip of High School Seniors to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite for the third straight year. 

Now the reason for this summer travelogue preview is to establish my cred with those of you who are concerned that a pastor may not really understand the allure of the outdoors.  The truth be told, the outdoors, nature, and the beauty of it is far more than alluring to me.  At times it has been so potentially seductive that it could take me away from my calling. 

In high school, I took up rock climbing and while I never did anything harder than one 5.10, a few of my friends are still regularly posting 5.10cs in their forties.  I still enjoy hiking and at one time dreamed of trekking the John Muir Trail.  In my life I have not only skied, fished, hiked and surfed (ok, badly…but I do it), I also have enjoyed backpacking, paragliding, snorkeling and scuba diving.  More recently I have been competing in triathlons so cycling, running and open water swimming are now regular parts of my routine. I have always had both a taste for adventure and an insatiable hunger (almost addiction?) to the outdoors. 

I love living at the beach and deeply understand why people would choose the sanctuary of the open air to a church cathedral on a Sunday morning.  But I am also a pastor and really do believe that there is a difference between the inspiration of a sunset and true worship of the God who made it. 

So, I think that I really do get it and am probably more disturbed by a divide that I see than many. In this series I want to probe two questions:

1. Why do so many people who love God’s good creation, struggle with worshipping and serving the Creator God amongst his people?
2. Why do so many of God’s people—believing Christians—who wholeheartedly affirm God as Creator, seem to have so little interest in caring for or enjoying creation.

If there are two things we can say about God pretty confidently from the Bible,   it is 1) that God is the Creator of all living, and 2) that God has chosen a people to glorify and reveal him within in creation.  So, why the divide? Why don’t creation and community go better together?

Hope you’ll read along and chime in…

Comments

[James Fletcher Baxter]

The Creator designed them to go together. However, he gave us the choice...

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
creative process, is a choice-making process. His
articles, constructs, and commodities, however marvelous
to behold, deserve neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not
his contrivance, is earth's own highest expression of the
creative process.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by nature
and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of Criteria.
Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive characteristic
is, and of Right ought to be, the natural foundation of his
environments, institutions, and respectful relations to his
fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom whose roots
are in the Order of the universe.

Selah

[Matthew]

We can't make the pictures larger...
I would love to be able to see them!

[Derek Simmons]

Tod:

Seriatim, my take is this:
1. We can--and do--enjoy Creation without Creation making demands on us except those we choose to accept. If a sunset inspires awe it is easier to make creation rather than Creator the subject of my awe. A Creator hangs around even after the sun greenflashlessly slips beneath the horizon. If I focus on the Creator He may focus on me in response. Creation just lets me drink my beer. Creation is just plain easier than Creator. It's easier to climb Half Dome for my sake than it is to carry an Aids ravaged child to a clinic for Christ's sake. Ski slopes allow me to get into me; the slippery slopes of working with Brothers and Sisters for Christ's sake requires me to get into God and into others. Loving The Creator requires me to do things--hard things--"creation" would never demand of me. The short plain answer is "it's easier to "worship" creation."

2. " This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore..."[This world is not my home.]

When Christians misundertand why God elected us unto Salvation, and focus too heavily on either our "right" to rule the earth or on our "Glory-Bound" detour through it, then we disobediently treat God's Great Earth as renters rather than landlords. We Christians are God's stewards--He is Owner/Lord of This Land, and as stewards we are to act on His behalf with respect to His Creation as if we were it's Owner.
The short plain answer is that if you are "just passin' through" it is easier to take something from tomorrow than it is to leave something for it.
Your Brother in Christ,
Derek Simmons

[bumble]

I envy you. I need to start exercise - never care for it much my entire life. Until recently I was invited to speak for a camp, and my body couldn't endure it. I was sick for most of the camp...

[bernie Wohlfarth]

you know i am going to have to be your accountability partner for "surfing the breaks of San Clemente"...