Massege: We Belong to God / Romans 14:1-12

Today is the first Sunday in the Season of Creation. This season invites us to look again at the world we live in. Because it is so familiar to us, we often take the land, water, air, trees, and animals for granted. But our faith in the Creator reminds us that all these things are gifts of God’s love. We did not create this world, and we cannot own it forever. The earth and all living things come from God, who is Holy Mystery and Wholly Love. We are called to be stewards who value and care for all life.

But today, creation is facing many challenges. We are already experiencing climate change through heat waves, wildfires, floods, droughts, and changing seasons. Recently, many people died in a major landslide in Nepal. Disasters like this show how climate change, melting glaciers, and extreme weather can make our lives more vulnerable.

Canada is no exception. Canada’s Changing Climate Report says that Canada is warming about twice as fast as the global average, and the North is warming even faster. This is not only about melting ice. It is about the lives of people, animals, and entire ecosystems.

So, what should we do as people who believe in God the Creator? If we believe that God created this world in love, we cannot ignore this crisis. We need to pray, and we need to act. We can look at how we consume resources and use energy, reduce waste, and support communities and policies that protect the natural world. As a church, we also need to keep asking what we can do in our own community to care for creation.

Some Christians say that this earth is only a temporary place, and because Jesus will return one day, we do not need to care too much about environmental problems. But that is too narrow an understanding of Christian faith. No one knows when that day will come. Jesus did not ask us to spend our energy calculating when the end will come. He taught us to stay awake and to love and care for our neighbours here and now. Eternal life is not only something we wait for in the future. It already begins when we see someone wounded by the roadside and choose to stop and care for them.

For this reason, our time needs prophetic voices. We need to speak up when something is wrong, and we need to call for change. But we must not forget one thing. Justice must never become a tool for condemning others.

In Scripture, justice is not a cold sword that divides people into good and bad. Its deepest root is the love of God. The prophets were deeply connected to the pathos of God, to God’s compassion for a suffering world. They spoke because they could not remain silent in the face of suffering. Justice without love can easily become condemnation, and prophecy without compassion can easily create new enemies. Then we become more interested in defeating someone than in healing the world.

We can see the same danger in eco-justice. For example, choosing to eat a plant-based diet can be meaningful. But if we begin to judge people who do not make that choice as selfish or uncaring about the environment, something has gone wrong. People live with different health needs, economic situations, cultures, regions, and family circumstances. We can share the same goal and still choose different ways to respond.

The Christian community in Rome, one of the early Christian communities, faced a similar problem. Some people ate meat, while others did not. Some treated certain days as holy, while others treated all days alike. The problem was not the difference itself. Those who ate meat looked down on those who did not, and those who did not eat meat judged those who did.

In this situation, Paul did not try to decide which side was right. His first concern was not to defeat the other side, but to welcome them. “Welcome those who are weak in faith.” Paul understood that the first step in protecting the community was not winning the argument, but making room for one another.

Then Paul turns their attention away from one another and toward God. He says, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

We often ask, “Who is right?” But Paul asks a deeper question. “Who do we belong to?”

Our identity as Christians is not based on being on the right side. A political position, a lifestyle, or a theological opinion is not the deepest foundation of who we are. Being progressive or conservative does not make us righteous.

Calvin described the human heart as a “factory of idols.” Perhaps our hearts can also become factories of enemies. Sometimes we calm our fears by holding tightly to things we can see. Sometimes we turn people who are different from us into enemies. And in doing so, we build stronger bonds with those who think like us. The roots of idol-making and enemy-making may not be very different. Both can become substitutes when we fail to find our deepest identity and security in God, who is Holy Mystery and Wholly Love.

This insight is also important as we face the environmental crisis. No crisis is solved by dividing people into camps and condemning one another. If we truly want to respond to this crisis, we need more partners, not more enemies. We need open spaces where people from different generations, cultures, regions, and experiences can come together and talk.

That kind of conversation needs more than good communication skills. I would call it spiritual capacity. It is the inner strength to hear a different opinion without feeling attacked. It is an anchor in our hearts that allows us to truly listen without losing ourselves.

This spiritual capacity grows through a deep relationship with God. When our identity is rooted in God, we can disagree without hatred. We can learn something new without losing our direction. We can even accept the possibility that we may be wrong.

Convictions that are not rooted in God may seem strong, but they can be like a house built on sand. A small question can shake them, and then we may feel the need to speak louder and attack harder. But faith that is rooted in God can be strong and gentle at the same time.

One good way to grow this spiritual capacity is to spend time in creation. Nature can become a place of spiritual renewal. In rivers, forests, and hills, we can experience God’s presence beyond words and enter moments of wonder and reverence. We can encounter the mystery of the universe in a small flower and hear the song of heaven in the sound of a bird. Hiking, paddling, cycling, camping, or simply spending time in nature can become spiritual practices.

The environmental crisis is real. Many young people are very worried about the future they will inherit. We should not ignore or dismiss that anxiety. But we should not let that fear become a force that makes us hate and condemn one another. Despair can easily create enemies, but faith shows us another way.

We belong to God. And all creation we are called to care for also belongs to God. So, our calling is not to prove that we are more right than someone else. Our calling is to love what God loves, to care for what God has made, and to walk with others who are doing that work in different places and in different ways.

We pray because we love. We speak because we love. We act because we love. And because we love, we do not give up on one another. We remember who we belong to, and together we care for the world that God loves. That is where we are called to begin again, on this first Sunday in the Season of Creation.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Min Hwang