Sermon for Proper 11B
July 17, 2022
Texts: Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52, Luke 10:38-42
I was born just two years before the first Earth Day and three years before the publication of that timeless environmental classic: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Now, if you don’t know The Lorax, or haven’t read it for a while, it’s the story of an entrepreneur named the Once-ler, who sets out on an adventure in his wagon and hits pay dirt. As he tells his story,
Way back in the days when the grass was still green
and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean,
and the song of the Swomee-Swans rang out in space…
one morning, I came to this glorious place.
And I first saw the trees! The Truffula Trees!
The bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees!
Mile after mile in the fresh morning breeze.
Like many a good capitalist before him, the Once-ler looks at this beautiful landscape and sees a business opportunity. He can use the silky tufts of the Truffula trees to make thneeds. What are thneeds? Well, they’re the ultimate consumer product. They don’t really have much of a purpose other than to be purchased. “Everyone needs a thneed!” the ads proclaim—although exactly why anyone would need a thneed is a little murky. Somehow, the production of thneeds creates the demand for them. Sound familiar?
But back to the Lorax. The Lorax is a creature who speaks for the trees, and as soon as Mr. Once-ler starts production the Lorax has a lot to say. Apparently the most cost-effective way to make thneeds is to cut down the whole Truffula tree, not just to pluck off the tuft and let it regrow. Think clear-cutting. Think mountaintop removal. Think maximizing profits, by any means necessary. Over time, the Lorax not only has to speak for the trees, he also speaks for the animals who live beneath the trees, whose habitat is shrinking and food source disappearing. He speaks for the fish whose pond is being filled up with gunk from the thneed factory, and the birds whose air is being polluted by the factory’s smog.
The Lorax speaks for them all, and he keeps warning the Once-ler that his business model is killing them. To which the once bright-eyed and bushy-tailed businessman responds,
I, the Once-ler, felt sad as I watched them all go. BUT… business is business! And business must grow regardless of crummies in tummies, you know.
I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got.
I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads.
I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneeds I shipped out.
I went right on biggering…selling more Thneeds.
And I biggered my money, which everyone needs.
I won’t tell you everything else that happens in The Lorax, in case you want to read it yourself, or watch the cartoon version of it, which is actually great fun. But I do want to suggest that the Lorax, or maybe Dr. Seuss himself, was doing a pretty good imitation of an Old Testament prophet, and that seeing the prophets in this way—as people who speak for the poor, or the trees, or anyone who can’t speak for themselves and expect to be heard—might give us a better chance of appreciating what they have to say to us today.
I know it is hard to listen to Amos’ dire warnings and pronouncements and, honestly, some of the readings coming up in Hosea soon are even harder to hear. But we need to remember that Amos was not a vengeful man who enjoyed scaring people, nor was he speaking on behalf of a vengeful god. The God of the prophets is our God, the same loving creator and compassionate sustaining force that we Christians come to know most intimately in the person of Jesus. It’s important to have that love and compassion foremost in mind as we try to grasp what this passage is really saying, rather than being put off by how Amos says it.
When we first hear this passage, it sounds an awful lot like Yahweh, through Amos, is threatening to destroy the land of Israel as a way to punish his people for their sins. But honestly, the ecological devastation being threatened doesn’t need to be seen as divine retribution. It’s more a natural consequence of the way people are behaving, of what Dr. Seuss might call “biggering.” The people are being warned, not threatened.
Amos addresses them as “you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.” Their behavior clearly goes against all Jewish ethical precepts and moral teachings, by the way. A few thousand years before anyone had heard of the free market or the industrial revolution, there were already people in every society looking for ways to cheat and cut corners, people who were impatient for any restraints on their wealth production to be lifted, any barriers to constant work and progress to be brought low, no matter who got hurt. Business is business, and business must grow. There is nothing new under the sun.
But as The Lorax and our own history show us all too well, when you create an economy based on exploitation, extraction, and an unending need for growth, no corner of the environment is left unmolested. People suffer, the soil suffers, the air and water and all who live on this patch of God’s green earth suffer. You can’t keep biggering and biggering and think that it’s only the Truffula trees you’re using up and spitting out.
The thing that Amos is saying is that we just have to stop—not only for the sake of the poor, but ultimately for all of us. When the Once-ler cuts down all the Truffula trees, he can’t make thneeds anymore. Spoiler alert: he ends up living in a post-industrial wasteland, alone and unemployed, begging for handouts. That’s what Amos is warning the people about—this lifestyle is unsustainable. You have to stop.
And one way you know that you’ve reached that point where you have to stop is that you can’t hear God’s voice anymore. That’s the famine that is coming upon the land—there will be people running to and fro who are unable to hear God speaking to them. Perhaps it’s a stretch, but I wonder if that’s not a connection we could make to the story of Martha and Mary in today’s Gospel. It’s not that Martha was doing anything inherently wrong. Hospitality is important, and someone has to do the work that makes it possible. But she had become so caught up in her productivity, her work, her doing, that she didn’t see that it was time to stop, time to listen, time to rest at the feet of Jesus.
The Way of Love, a program of the Episcopal Church, reminds us that to follow Jesus involves an intentional commitment to some basic practices, which they sum up in seven words: Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, and Rest. Did you hear that last one? Rest. In commenting on the importance of rest, especially for those of us who are so defined by our achievements, our do-gooding, our desire to help others and right the world’s wrongs, Stephanie Spellers says,
“Rest in God’s grace, because the revolution is not ultimately up to us.” Rest in God’s grace, because only God is infinite. We are finite. Our precious time, our attention, our energy—all are finite. The trees are finite. Water is finite. Only God is infinite.
Good things take time, and a rhythm of work and play and rest. When we focus so much on productivity, whether because we’re busy making thneeds or we’re busy trying to change the world, we lose sight of our need to rest and find our rhythm. We forget how necessary and needful it is to sit at the feet of Jesus, to listen for God’s word in our lives and to see God’s beauty in the world around us.
God calls us to rest, so let us rest.
God invites us to breath, so let us breathe.
God longs for us to receive God’s grace and to dwell in God’s peace, so let us receive and let us dwell.
Then someday we too can exclaim, along with the Psalmist, “I am like a green olive tree in the house of God, trusting in the mercy of God forever.” Listen to that tree. Speak for that tree. And then enjoy the peace that comes only from silence and rest. Amen.