Blessings and Curses: A Sermon Starter
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“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” --Deuteronomy 30:19
In Deuteronomy, the blessings and curses of this life are acknowledged openly from the beginning. The Bible acknowledges that life here on Earth will not be easy but we are told to choose – choose life over death, blessings over curses so that our children and our children’s children may enjoy the bounty of life here on Earth. Two of these blessings are God’s Creation which the Lord pronounced “good” (Genesis) and our children, who the Bible reminds, are gifts to be cherished and loved.
Caring for both of these blessings involves being good stewards, or caretakers, of that which belongs to God. Too often today we hear about the problems we have been inflicting on God’s Creation – from poor water quality to endangered species and climate change. Our failure to be good stewards of God’s creation becomes more and more apparent. These impacts to God’s creation negatively affect our own lives, and particularly those of our children. Every year, more children are diagnosed with asthma in the US as a result of declining air quality caused by increasing emissions from cars, power plants, and transportation. More children in developing countries are suffering from malnutrition primarily due to an increase in droughts and floods brought on by changes in the global climate and poor access to drinking water. The impacts we are leaving on God’s Creation will inevitably shape our children’s future.
In Deuteronomy, we are asked to “choose life,” recognizing the blessings that God has bestowed on each of us and sharing these blessings with our children so that we can ensure the future that God intended for all of his/her children . As we reflect on this scripture with knowledge that God’s Creation is changing around us, it is important for us as people of faith to connect our impact on Creation to the impact on our children, realizing that we are all connected, are all part of, and affect and are affected by this world God called good. –