Ezekiel was a prophet. He was a priest born in Jerusalem and in the 6th century BC was exiled with thousands of other Hebrews to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar invaded and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel knew that the behaviour of the Hebrews was connected to what would happen next. He was like a moral policeman, trying to bring people back to God through his striking imagery and his accurate knowledge and predictions. His tomb is in Iraq.
33:7So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.
33:8If I say to the wicked, "O wicked ones, you shall surely die," and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand.
33:9But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
33:10Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel: Thus you have said: "Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?"
33:11Say to them: As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?
In the mid 1990s I had a student from Tuvalu on placement with me. Tuvalu is an island between Hawaii and Australia, It’s population is 100% Christian. I took my student to speak to a junior school in Selly Oak. She told of the devastating effect of rising sea levels and climate change on her island and that the rising ocean would eventually flood her home. The islanders at the time had a prayer vigil going 24hours a day. She was a messenger for her people. That was 30 years ago.
Some ten years later when I was working in Dudley I used to preach on climate change but one of the senior stewards at a Methodist Church in Netherton thought it was a load of bunkum and told me so. And I stopped.
In 2008 I teamed up with Friends of the Earth in Birmingham and became an ambassador for climate change. I wanted to run a Green Faith Day for Dudley in Brierley Hill. We had speakers from all the major faiths talking about climate change. The council refused to give us any money but the Sikh community gave us lunch and we had a speaker from Operation Noah Mark Dowd who was provided free. It was a great success.
As a result of this success, in 2009 the Dudley council asked me to chair Dudley Borough’s Climate Change Task Group. We had representatives from the major environmental charities on board and staffing from the council. We were working on 4 main areas; 1. Increasing temperatures and resulting fires 2. Flooding 3. Tropical diseases from rising temperatures 4. Educating the public about lowering their carbon footprint. We gave out long life light bulbs and leaflets at the main boat festivals in Dudley. In the early part of 2010, I was asked to see the CEO of Dudley Council, Mr Papadopalos. He told me that the incoming government would be less interested in climate change so they were cutting the Task Group budget. And so it proved to be the case! That was 16 years ago.
Ezekiel was a watchman for Israel. Today we have many watch men/women warning us of the devastating results from ignoring the climate scientists and carrying on as if business was as usual. It is not. This summer has brought home to many people the reality of climate change that is already a devastating reality for many people. We have reached a tipping point. It concerns our children and grandchildren and the world they inherit.
Ezekiel speaks of turning wicked men from their wickedness. Today we have men who have spent years trying to stop the world listening to the climate scientists because of money from selling fossil fuels. This continues to the present day. It is the reason the UK is so far behind other countries in developing sustainable energy from the sun, the wind and waves. Ezekiel says we have a responsibility to tell the wicked to turn from their ways. I believe he is right.
The passage in Matthew 18 speaks of going to your brother who has offended you and speaking to him. If he doesn’t listen you take someone else with you. It’s a good principle until you are dealing with people who do not want to change because they are paid not to listen.
Kosuke Koyama talked about the devastating effect of the two atomic bombs in Japan.
"For the first three days after her unconditional surrender, Japanese people felt repentant for what Japan had done to its neighbours and to heaven. In a state of shock, the nation repented. In repentance, time stopped flowing... I realized then, even though only vaguely, that what Christian baptism signifies can transcend even the divisions of humanity brought about by war. Being baptized I affirmed, in the midst of the context of international war and violence, the universality of the gospel message - the message of forgiveness…Hiroshima has done a rough job of levelling all to the same plane. None higher. None lower…Standing on the same plane, we now say together, "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12).
Sadly there are many Christians who have been taught that climate change is not real and they are supporting the continuing use of fossil fuels. It’s interesting how we respect science when we are facing a pandemic but not when we are facing the destruction of the planet. So we need to tell our leaders that they need to act. This is our responsibility as custodians of Gods earth. The science has been there for decades.
I believe it is time we turned to our elected representatives and told them that this destruction of the earth through heat waves, flooding, melted glaciers has gone on long enough and for the sake of our children we need to change direction. And we need to do it now.
There is a film you can watch called The Welcome Table and there are poets like the Hot Poets you can follow. You can also follow Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. You can learn much more about this by watching the film The Peoples Climate Emergency which is being shown in the UK at many venues. https://www.youtube.com/@nebriefing
The plight is not just about little islands like Tuvalu or the people of Nepal but of our families our communities which is in the balance. We are one world interconnected so what happens in Tuvalu, in Nepal affects us. The clarion call, the warning for decades has been to turn away from fossil fuels and to renewables to stop the heating of the planet and disturbing the balance of the ecosystem.
This is why we must act.
We must continue to live simply, recycle, eat less meat and to encourage one another. Our journey now is different, like Hiroshima, we have crossed a line.
We can send letters to our MPs, to the Prime minister, to the papers, we can post on social media. We are the watchmen/women of Gods creation. Everyone has a part to play. We can really change the outcome of our situation. If we don’t millions of people will die. And as the passage in Ezekiel says there is no pleasure in people’s deaths. We need to turn from our destructive ways and we need this to be the number one priority for the sake of our future generations.
You entrusted the earth to us
And we have destroyed it
The forests are burning
Animals are dying
Our world is sick
Forgive us
Restore our vision and help us to act bravely to save this precious world, Amen
