Continuing our series promoting the Michigan Conference’s Earth Day of Action, Rev. Scott Marsh encourages us to be kingdom builders and hold on to hope in the face of widespread and harsher climate change.
REV. SCOTT MARSH
Coldwater UMC
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down’” (Luke 13:6-9, NRSVUE).
Justifying the occupation of space. Evaluating usefulness. Holding on to hope as we dig around roots. What does it mean to observe something’s value differently this Lent? How can we sustain hope amid widespread and harsher climate change? As people of faith, what is our role in this climate crisis?
Christ, in this parable from Luke 13, weaves a yarn about a vineyard owner and a fig tree that has been struggling. For three years, no fruit has come from its branches. The tree is living but not producing anything marketable. To the owner, it is better suited for firewood, and the space is better suited for another, hopefully more “productive” tree. Yet, the caretaker advocates on behalf of this tree. He does what every gardener worth their salt would do and feeds the tree a “little ’nure ’round the roots.” He believes in its growth, its becoming, and its future.
We, of course, are meant to be the tree in this parable. Bearing fruit is something God calls us to do, yet this production is far from how the Wall Street-minded world thinks. Financial production often takes resources, time, and life from its workers. Compare this to holy producing, which generates life and a future. This tree produces shade under which creatures play, water retention in the soil that supports new growth, and structures that give creeping vines a path toward the sun.
The landowner, so focused on financial productivity and justifying space, misses all the other parts of what this tree is doing and what it could do. Living in a production-focused way encourages us to forget that something else is working inside us, something the gardener saw, something God sees.
In his book Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen carries this thought of production and worth further: “The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. . . . Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’” Friend, you are worth more than what you can produce or how efficiently you can produce it.
From this place, we can begin to see the seed inside us grow. God hasn’t given us this life only to produce fruit for sale, sell our time, and wear down our bodies for the benefit of fat cats in high-rise towers. God has given us this life to live fully, to trust and apply our gifts to something far greater (and far more honoring of ourselves) than mere financial production.
We were made to be kingdom builders, not slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt pumping out bricks. As the caretaker in Jesus’ parable hoped for the tree’s future, he took steps to help it grow, believing it would be fruitful in time. So, how are we doing that in our own lives? How are we allowing God to nurture us? How are we hoping for tomorrow?
Before being called into ministry, I earned my bachelor’s degree in environmental and earth science at Western Michigan University. Climate change was always looming, and I thought the church would be the way to fix this crisis. In seminary, I started hearing the term “slow violence” used to describe the impact of this climate crisis. And now, six years into ministry, this globally driven, chaotically disruptive system of our making has only worsened.
Each year is the hottest on record, and each storm pushes the boundaries of severity. Each drought lasts longer. Our life, this tree that God has planted in our orchard of a world, was planted so that we may be active in the world’s stewardship and our own, not complicit in our destruction.
So, what does it mean to have hope amid widespread and harsher climate change? First and foremost, it means giving a damn. Give a damn to what we will have to endure. Care that the lives of future generations and their spiritual seeking will be colored by a world that is actively destroying them. All this will not be from their own doing but because we and our ancestors sold out to the myth of financial production as our primary purpose, making bricks rather than nourishing trees. An idea that we continue to promote as a “good life” at the expense of their future.
I invite you to sit with a truth I find troubling, presented by Greta Thunberg in a speech she made in Vancouver: “According to the Global Carbon Atlas, global CO2 emissions have increased by approximately 65 percent from 1992 to 2018. Around 50 percent of all CO2 emitted since 1751 have been emitted since 1992. . . . It is the year 2019 and the people in power are still acting as if there was no tomorrow. And we young people are telling them to stop doing that: to stop ignoring the consequences of their actions and inactions, to stop leaving their mess for someone else to clean up because we do not want to do it for them. . . . If the adults really loved us, they would at least do everything they possibly could to make sure that we have a safe future — a future to look forward to.”
So, what are we going to do about it? As Thunberg shared in another speech, “One hundred companies are responsible for 71 percent of global emissions. The G20 countries account for almost 80 percent of total emissions. The richest 10 percent of the world’s population produce half of our CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50 percent account for just one-tenth.”
It’s maddening. But being a people of hope, those who, like God, have decided to put a “little ’nure ’round the roots” to see what will happen, here are three practical tips:
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- Speak life. We are capable of great work and are made and held in great worth. We are called and honored as God’s loving kingdom builders, and let us never forget that, especially in our advocacy.
- Contact your legislators in Washington, D.C., and tell them to get the United States back into the Paris Agreement. Our nation must be a leader in this work if we are to negate the effects of this climate crisis. U.S. funding helps developing nations meet global climate goals.
- Rid yourself of the insulation afforded to us in this climate crisis and make the effects of our crisis personal.
Editor’s note: Join United Methodists all over Michigan on Saturday, April 26, for the Earth Day of Action. Worship together online and then plan to do one act of service to care for God’s good creation. Read this article to learn more and to register.
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Last Updated on March 24, 2025