The Earth is the Lord's: Steeples, security and service
August 3, 2014 | Anita Retzlaff

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ and through the Holy Spirit who breathes life into this congregation. I make a departure today from my usual Sunday morning reflections by sharing some travel photographs with you.  The pictures that will cycle through in these next few minutes do not have any particular theological focus. They are representative of some of the sights of Europe that I enjoyed in early June and stimulated within me some reflections about the state of our world, its beauty, its turmoil and its complexity.  I will not make specific comments about any particular images except to say that very shortly you will see several pictures in sequence of weedy concrete bleachers and large brick buildings unfinished and in a state of disrepair and neglect.  These are photos of the Nazi Rally Grounds in Nurnberg Germany of which I will make some comment along the way. Otherwise what you are about to see are scenes from Prague in the Czech Republic and then a river boat tour of the Danube that took us from Nurnberg to Regensburg and Passau in Germany: then on to Melk, through the Wachau Valley, Vienna Austria and ending in Budapest Hungary.

These are the circumstances that took us on this particular journey. Until June of this year my mother had never ventured off of our continent but has always had a keen interest in geography and a lifelong desire to see something of Europe.  Because of a cancer diagnosis for my father some 6 years ago the trip she had planned with my sister had to be postponed indefinitely.  Now, more than a year since my dad’s death, the time was right. Three of us, my husband Ken, my daughter Alison and I, traveled with Mom to see and experience another land rich in architectural, political, religious and artistic history.

(turn out lights and begin pictures)

The wonder and beauty of this vast planet defies description. There is something so profound about actually being on another continent, hearing languages spoken of which I know next to nothing and to hear the sounds and smell the smells of so different a place. This is our world, such a beautiful world, the world that God created in hope and good faith that we would cherish and keep it. In framing our experience of creation within the grace and bounty of God's provision Psalm 24 came to mind over and over again. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it…” (Ps. 24:1) I remember these words best from the biblical translation of my childhood: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein."

Before there were churches, the likes of which you are seeing some here, before there were synagogues, mosques, ashrams and temples there was the creation: water and land, day and night, sun, moon, stars, vegetation and wildlife.  The foundation of the world was created by a God who longed for the companionship of human beings and so filled the earth with plant and animal life bringing the chaos of the waters into the boundaries of oceans, rivers and lakes.  Within the glory of such imagination the human race has been placed to live out its diversity on separated continents, within different tribes and in other times and places. And so we are reminded that what we call home, our place of residence, city, town or farm is the tiniest of habitations. All these multiplied exponentially exist side by side to make up our global life together. All of this is the Lord’s, shared with us, entrusted to us to care, nurture and protect.

We are not doing a stellar job with what we have been given. The noise of the news in the last weeks; bombs, plane crashes, threats, death and more death… this is what we have allowed to happen to our beloved world, the creation with which we have been entrusted. There is so much hatred, distress and mistrust on this planet. One need board only one airline flight and be deposited on “foreign” soil to experience the anxiety and uncertainty of being a stranger in an unfamiliar land.  When global conflicts are front and center in our consciousness the way they are today, we know that we are vulnerable and we certainly know when we are not at home.

And that is not a bad thing: that we acknowledge our vulnerability.  We are dependent on the good will of family and neighbours and of God, the Creator.  We are not self-sufficient in the ways that we tend to think that we are.  The world does not revolve around our expectations, ambition or need. Travel reminds us that we are all interconnected, related and dependent.  Any journey into the vastness of our world clues us in quickly enough to the truth that we are insignificant in the scheme of things however valued we are by the One who gives us life and breath.

Psalm 24 puts all these things into perspective.  As an entrance psalm, a hymn to be sung as the people enter for worship, relationships are laid out.  The earth is the Lord’s.  The faithful will be blessed, in other words will live in shalom, when standing in the presence of all creation with the intent to live in truth and good will. It is the Lord of hosts who is to be worshipped and acknowledged.  And so when one gazes upon yet another cathedral with its steeples; its spires, our attention is directed toward the builder of creation and the glory of God.

As I reveled in the beauty of some of these great stone churches that you see in the pictures I often wondered about the lives of those who built these edifices.  We know that the churches and cathedrals of Europe were built over hundreds of years and at the expense of thousands of lives and crippling taxation.  It makes me think of one of the history courses I took almost 40 years ago now: a course in medieval European social history that described the daily lives of ordinary people, “the everyman” of days gone by.  It was a hard existence.  Life expectancy was short; there were no frills for most people. They were born, worked incredibly hard, lived in grinding poverty and died young. Today we still marvel at the fruit of their toil when we gaze upon buildings that are 500 years old and more; and of course only those buildings that have survived the bombs of war. Many historic sites have been at least partially rebuilt. Then I ask the question: “and how is it that these grand buildings, these cathedrals, reflect the goodness of God, the challenge of Jesus and the vitality of the Holy Spirit?” Many of those who laboured on the construction of these churches did so with the understanding that they were building to the glory of God.  And still, I wonder….

And it is war that is the thing.  Always and throughout all time there is this human propensity to undo and destroy the beauty and harmony of what is created and built up.  War pits tribes and nations against each another. Neighbour kills neighbour in the name of the Creator.  Lives are senselessly destroyed: homes, public buildings and places of worship.  Forgotten is the unifying confession that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” The abandoned acres of marching fields in Nurnberg that once displayed the power of Nazi aspirations are chilling.  Here it is that an ideology, a powerful and poisonous theory was once paraded about designed to engender patriotism, national exceptionalism and Arian supremacy.  Sobering it is for us too for we are never all that far from a benign racism that lurks just below the surface of our consciousness. The holocaust that was never to happen again is being played out within a significant number of tribes and nations today.

Upon our return trip to North America we were sent through a bizarre array of security procedures at the Frankfurt airport.  We found out later that only a few hours earlier a bomb had been detonated in an airport in Iraq. The heightened state of alert was manifest in very particular ways as we observed the extra security checks that took place that day.  My mother was barely acknowledged as she showed her passport for the 3rd time before boarding the transcontinental flight. However every young man of a dark complexion was questioned repeatedly and treated with much less respect than Alison’s short white grandmother. Again, I have myriad questions and few answers.

Travel reminds us that we are all connected, related and dependent.  The fragility of our relationships seems so palpable to me when I am not “at home.”  It is good that I not forget this as I settle back into my own routine.  I come home and get back to work and it is as if I had never been away.  And yet I remember the staff on the boat on which we toured the Danube River.  The people who provided incredible service on this trip came from Eastern European countries and from the Philippines.  One young couple who provided service in the dining room were married with a three year old child.  Their little girl was back home in the Philippines being cared for by her grandmother while these two parents worked every day for 13 hours a day month after month with only a few days off now and then.  Carla and Cruz return home once a year for a few weeks to be with their daughter.  All this they do to provide a better life and education for their child. 

And so it was that we saw quaint villages along the banks of this famous European river, the Danube.  We heard delightful music, ate delectable food and heard stories of places that we had only ever read about in books. There were castles and government palaces, fortresses and bridges, great local restaurants tucked away along narrow cobblestone streets and grandiose statues, gargoyles and welcoming town squares. It was a feast for the senses. And it makes me wonder all the more about the complexity of our world and the relationships that need tending within it.  We have so much beauty and history and love to share but there is so much trouble.

My seatmate from Frankfurt to Toronto was a Pakistani Canadian man.  He was probably in his mid-40s and had a young family in Toronto.  He was a businessperson and been in transit for over 30 hours by the time he boarded this final flight home.  He was very antsy by now; sleep-deprived and somewhat frenetic as he squirmed in his seat during the final 10 hour leg of his ordeal.  He spoke of how his father trained him and his brothers to work hard and shared of his forays into business not all of which turned out well.  At the end of our flight he thanked me for talking to him.  I guess I must have looked at him in a rather peculiar way so by way of explanation he said, “Some people don’t treat me like I am human because I come from Pakistan.”

We share this world and as we are aware in 2014 we share it with a great deal of apprehension.  As people of faith we live in service to the creation and The Creator.  I believe that God delights in our delight as we explore the world in which we live. I believe that God trusts us to find ways to bridge the chasms of racism, mistrust and self-interest that tend to plague us human beings.  We live with hope and blessing. That is our spiritual heritage.  God gifts us with courage and love to change the small corners of the world in which we inhabit.  We live in hope that changing lives and circumstances in a redemptive way here at home will in some way make our planet a better place. We seek the face of God and live in service to that same Lord who founded the seas and established the rivers. We have a rich heritage to tend and nurture. Thanks be to God.