Horizons — Intergenerational Justice

Patricia Tull’s Horizons Bible Study
Let Justice Roll Down: God’s call to care for neighbors and all creation
Lesson 8: Intergenerational Justice

What kind of future do we want for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren? What kind of earth do we want them to inherit?

I want an earth with clean air and water, a sizable decline in global warming, and animal and plant species protection. I want sustainable environmental practices that do not rely on harmful chemicals. What do you want for your family’s future?

What we do now affects our children’s futures. How are you and your congregation protecting God’s earth? What are we teaching children and grandchildren about earth care? When I ask myself, I respond that I compose, recycle and avoid fertilizers or pesticides made from chemicals that negatively impact the James River and the Chesapeake Bay. This year, I plan to donate to organizations with good track records of challenging companies that pollute, knowing that pollution is intentionally located nearer poorer neighborhoods. Like you, my efforts are small, and it is easy to wonder if what we do makes much difference.

I think of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” in which the character George Bailey receives the gift of seeing what his hometown would have been like if he had not lived. George learns that people would be poorer and more poorly housed. He learns that his kindness begets kindness, and mercy and compassion spread through his actions.

Our small actions can ripple out and affect change. Combining our efforts creates a greater impact.

Tom Stoval, chair of the Green Team at Westminister Presbyterian Church in Dubuque, Iowa, introduced me to the ways the team keeps environmental concerns in front of the congregation, and you can see their activities throughout the church. This Earth Care congregation keeps recycling containers and trash cans in each room. The fellowship hall has larger recycling containers for plastic, paper, medicine bottles and batteries. They stopped using Styrofoam, bought coffee cups with lids to avoid spills and stopped using fertilizers and pesticides. They planted native plants to conserve water and attract pollinators. They recycle food and yard waste for compost used in the church’s landscaped beds and garden. Yearly, the garden produces 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of produce for the local food bank. The Green Team ordered reusable tote bags for the congregation to carry to the grocery store. The values of the church influence all. Every Sunday, a three-year-old boy goes to the correct container to recycle worship resources or what he drew during worship.

Bon Air Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia, also an Earth Care congregation, does communion by intinction to reduce plastic cup use. On Palm Sunday, they use fair-trade Eco Palms. Gathering palms is typically a low-paying job, but Eco Palms pays a consistent, higher wage, and the palms are “sustainably harvested and managed, protecting the palms and the forests they need for shade,” according to the EcoPalms.org website.

We do not know how our actions affect those who come after us. Rachel Clark, a Black farmhand who worked on Earl Carter’s peanut farm in the 1920s and ’30s, would sometimes ask Earl’s son, Jimmy, if he would like to go fishing. Steeped in the Bible, Rachel taught Jimmy that we are to live “in God’s holy way, be stewards of God’s earth

and that the bravest and strongest need not fight,” according to the PBS documentary series “In Their Own Words: Jimmy Carter.”

Jimmy Carter, elected in 1976, was the first president to implement a comprehensive energy and environmental policy to conserve land and develop alternative energy sources.

Kai Bird, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, wrote in the 2023 “Unheralded Environmentalist: Jimmy Carter’s Green Legacy” that after President Carter’s 1980 loss for re-election, he “signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, creating more than 157 million acres of Alaskan wilderness area, national wildlife refuges, and national parks — tripling the size of the nation’s Wilderness Preservation System and doubling the size of the National Park System.

“It was, and still is, the largest single expansion of protected lands in American history,” Bird wrote.

We do not know the effect of being faithful stewards of God’s good earth on others, but it could make a world of difference.

You can purchase the PW/Horizons Bible study book through the PC(USA) Church Store.