I make no apologies for having a cause which I pursue and promote in the name of Jesus, whenever and wherever I can. I imagine myself going about my daily task, not fishing from a boat, but responding to calls on my time, writing and preparing notes, sorting out agendas and meetings with builders – the usual tasks of ministers. And I imagine a man (or indeed a woman) walking towards me and asking me to leave all this and follow who knows where to give a message to people in need, people who need to know God in their lives, and to understand what God’s mission for us is in this 21st century world - and I wonder what my message should be.

Three years ago St James began a process which resulted in us being awarded Eco Church status. It has required us to make personal and corporate choices involving our purchasing policy, for example, and recycling, energy conservation, and protection of the environment. We are constantly monitoring our own decisions, and raising awareness of environmental issues in the wider context of church and community.

Today our planet is threatened with a darkness which is of our own making and more than ever we need to acknowledge our first calling, given to Adam in the story of the Creation, that through humanity the whole earth would be fruitful and the harmony of creation would be preserved.

Statistical analysis is not a precise art, but when we add up some of the latest figures, it leads to some worrying scenarios. Projections predict that there will be over 50% more people on our planet by the end of this century. 1 billion people currently have no clean water, and 2 billion no commercial energy supplies. But the developing countries of the world are putting these things right, and soon the over-consumption which we have grown used to in the developed world, will be multiplied tenfold by the demands of the developing countries.

Already the Arctic ice around Greenland is decreasing, year by year, as is the ice mass which forms the Antarctic. This is already leading to difficulties for polar bears who are having difficulty migrating to their feeding grounds as the ice melts under their feet. We are seeing species of birds in this country which appear in ornithological reference books as being confined to Southern European or even North African countries.

It is not just climate change of course, there is also greater pressure for agricultural land, leading to deforestation and soil erosion, and the consequent loss of bio-diversity, as whole species of mammals and birds disappear. And over-fishing of the world’s oceans is already creating issues for species of fish, and that is before we consider the effect of global warming on the seas.

We have choices to make – we can put our heads in the sand and say, well we can’t do anything about it, we shall just have to see what happens. Yet, how can we look into the eyes of babies born today and not do something about the planet which they will inherit.

As Christians, the doctrine of creation is a lens through which we see everything else. We refer back to the stories woven around our belief that God is the creator of all things. We look around and we recognise and appreciate the wisdom of God in the diversity of all things, and the way in which each creature, each formation of the earth, is a wonder, we are full of awe in the great powerful thrusts of the earth’s crust, and we are amazed by the delicate detail of insect wings, and microscopic plankton which sustains even the great whales of the ocean depths.

Perhaps part of our problem is the anthropocentric Christian view that we humans are the centre of all things: but surely this is not the true Christian view, for as we acknowledge in our creation stories, God created all things for God’s sake, not for humanity’s sake. In the most familiar of the creation stories, it was on the sixth day that God thought of man and woman. In the great scheme of things, the earth existed for billions of years before the first human footprint could be seen in the sand.

Yet we also understand that we are unique in our awareness of our place in creation. We know what we are doing and we know why we are doing it. We know what impact our actions have on our planet, and every day we make choices which affect our personal environment. In the natural order of things, God created humanity with the capacity to be self-aware, and God aware. We are charged with tending creation, which we understand to be the cherished possession of God. Nature is not mere matter to be manipulated, to be overcome and mastered for human purposes. God is the creator, creation is God’s. God has authority over it and we are stewards, not owners.

If ever we get above ourselves, we need to think of some other statistics, facts and figures which were not available to those who struggled to understand the relationship between God and nature, and constructed the creation stories to try to make some sense of it all.

I am grateful to Bill Bryson, who in his book ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ has gathered together some amazing images.

With a little bit of prompting, each one of us could probably draw a rough diagram of our solar system – the sun in the centre, and around it in concentric circles the planets with their moons, starting with Mercury and ending with Pluto, but what we never do is draw it to scale. Such are the distances involved that if you scale down the diameter of the earth to the size of a pea, Jupiter would be over half a mile away and Pluto would be out of sight, two miles in the distance. And on the same scale, the next nearest star similar to our sun, Proxima Centauri, would be over 10,000 miles away. In real terms, the average distance between stars is over 20 million million miles. And that is just in our own galaxy. Nobody knows how many stars there are in the Milky Way – estimates range from a hundred billion to perhaps four hundred billion, and the Milky Way is just one of a hundred and forty billion or so other galaxies.

That small step for mankind which we took on the Moon was minute. We will never understand the immensity of the universe, for it is beyond our comprehension, and so is God’s creative spirit. But in Jesus suddenly it is seems so real, for his God-filled spirit walked on this earth in human form, and in his humanity we can see and hear and touch the creative spirit. Jesus did not preach on conservation and ecological sustainability. These were not issues for his time, but in the parable of the talents, Luke tells us that Jesus taught about what it means to be a good steward – and the basic teaching is clear – much is required of those to whom much is given.

I must confess that I have some problem with the parable of the talents when it is seen in the light of modern economics and ecology. Those who were the most industrious, those who made vast profits, were welcomed and rewarded, and the one who was frightened even to spend what he had been given, and conserved what he had, was charged with laziness and condemned for his actions. But why was he so frightened. Did he fear that he could lose everything, was his experience such that as a poor man, he was ill-equipped to risk what he had been given. By what risks, and at whose expense, was the success of the profiteers based. Of course, the message of the parable as it is usually taught is meant to remind us that we have been given gifts and talents, and that each person is differently gifted. And whatever the extent of our talents we should seek to enhance them, use them and by them be fruitful. But there is another reading, which I believe Jesus would have taught had he been speaking to a 21st century audience. One of co-operation and shared responsibility, so that no one will feel intimidated by their responsibilities, no-one feel disadvantaged, no one be treated unfairly or unjustly. By sharing talents and resources, all would benefit and no one would go hungry.

Our three score years and ten, and every year beyond, are those in which we make an impact on our planet, and leave an inheritance for future generations. When God comes calling to us in the Garden of Eden, will we hide in shame because we have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and yet we have not learned what it is to be truly a child of God, created in God’s image. Are we so concerned with the petty politics of church life, that we fail to see the bigger picture, fail to recognise our calling to look towards those yet to understand the fullness of God. If we are to be fishers of men and women for Christ, then we need to cast our nets into the waters of environmental concerns where the weary world waits for light in the darkness. Amen.