Sermon for Fossil Fuel Free Summit Service at Dunedin All Saints Anglican Church
by The Rev’d Denis Bartley 12th January 2014
Good morning and welcome to you all. I am Denis Bartley, Anglican Priest and
former oil company engineer.
I have not previously been involved in services here at All Saints – so it is somewhat
of a baptism for me as it is for all here who are not members of All Saints
congregation. I am coming to terms with the symbolism used in this church but if I
get it wrong please forgive me. Understanding the various practices within the
Anglican Church not to mention other denominations, can be a perilous journey, but
I hope and pray that you will be blessed in some way by this service.
The readings this morning are from Matthew’ gospel when Jesus is baptised in the
Jordan river by John the Baptist, and according to the writer of the the heavens
open and the Spirit of God (symbolised by a dove) proclaims him to be God’s
beloved son. Jesus’ baptism marked the beginning of his ministry. According to one
commentator - Jesus the one who will save his people from their sins, was baptised
to express his solidarity with sinners.
Catholic Priest John Dominic Crossan offers an alternative interpretation. He
suggests that for John, baptism was a re-enactment of the Israelite’s journey from
slavery in Egypt, via the wilderness, and then crossing the Jordan river, the final act
before entering, into the promised land. Crossan’s interpretation is that John was
trying to establish a body of people who would remember their history of coming out
of slavery in Egypt and into a land of plenty. A people dedicated to throwing off the
shackles of Roman domination and re-asserting Jewish sovereignty at the
appropriate time..
Pause
This sounds like a metaphor for the us today....a people coming out of slavery to
fossil fuels and a people dedicated to challenging the power of fossil fuel
corporations, neo-liberal governments and reasserting their sovereignty at the
appropriate time.
Jesus clearly claimed this symbolism for his own ministry. He was not trying to incite
rebellion, but he was trying to lead the people to a new kingdom ( a new way of
being) a new way of understanding, a new way of what it meant to be God’s
servants, a new “promised land”. And this understanding required a change of mind.
The Greek word used by the writer of the gospel was metanoia –which literally
means transcendence (‘meta’- above or beyond, as in ‘metaphysics’) of mind (‘noia’
from the root ‘nous’ of mind) - in other words a change of mind..... In English the
word used is repentance- from the Latin ‘paenitere’.
Donagh O’Shea, an Irish monk and retreat leader who was in Dunedin in
September- gave a spiritual reflection on Jesus’ baptism – He reflected that as the
Hebrew people crossed the river Jordan at a location close to Jericho, they were
concluding their journey from slavery to the promised land and had to make a
choice about which direction to go– If they went left/south they would go to the
area of the Dead Sea – a saline lake 400 metres below sea level which afforded little
life- if any at all – an ecological desert.....It may be of interest to you that the area
was full of bitumen pits(Genesis 14 v 10) into which the kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah fell.
.or they could go the right/North along the Jordan river to the Sea of Galilee an
ecological oasis. – with an abundance of fish, and plants and full of life. “He’s going
ahead of you into Galilee” is the announcement by the writer of the gospel of Mark to
the women at the tomb of Jesus after his resurrection.
Donagh O’shea suggested therefore that baptism represents a choice between life
or death.
This brings us to another metaphor about Fossil Fuel drilling, extraction and
production – the choice for drilling and production has risks which will lead to a
dead sea and shore – or we can choose not to drill and keep the promised land and
life – a land flowing with milk and honey- Southland and Otago as it is.
So Baptism is not so much as a moment in time when we have arrived but more the
beginning of a new journey.
Two of the five marks of Mission of the Anglican church, perhaps the two which have
received least attention are:

To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind
and to pursue peace and reconciliation

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the
earth.
Which brings us to the moral issues affecting our stance of opposing the proposed
deep sea drilling for oil/gas in the southern basin and the divestment of church
assets from corporations involved in extraction and production of fossil fuels.
We have all heard of any number of instances of large corporations demonstrating a
complete lack of moral responsibility and a lack of accountability particularly relating
to disasters involving the extraction and production of fossil fuel. Nigeria, Deepwater
Horizon, Pike River etc, etc,
....but those disasters seem to fade into insignificance when the prospect of large
amounts of money being pumped into the economy looms – words like ..’boom’ and
‘game-changer’ overshadow the tragedy experienced in places like Nigeria and the
Gulf of Mexico....and closer to home...Pike River.
John Ralston Saul says it well in his book ‘The Unconscious Civilization’
...’commerce has no memory. Its great strength is its ability to constantly start again;
a continual recreation of virginity. Commerce also has no attachment to any
particular society. It’s about making money..which is just fine...as far as it goes.’
So is fiscal and economic responsibility more important than moral
responsibility?....or should we be looking at ways to transition from where we are
now to where we need to be for the wellbeing of all humanity, not only those we see
fleetingly in extreme anguish on our televisions and then quickly forget but also our
children, grandchildren, great grandchildren to the 7th Generation
.............and then there’s the issue that affects all humanity... the morality of fossil
fuel companies proposing to spend $6 trillion on exploration, extraction and
production when they well know that burning fossil fuel is affecting our climate – and
there are already reserves five times the amount able to be burned for a 2 degree C
increase in global temperatures. If we continue Business as usual we’ll go even
higher and then it’s goodbye South Dunedin and Brighton and huge swathes of the
lowlying parts of our country to say nothing of Kiribati which will be long gone.
The question I believe is ‘It may be legal, in that the present NZ Government has
endorsed the proposals, suggesting huge economic gains, which at the very least
are questionable for a number of reasons.......................but is it moral???
20 years ago I asked that question of myself and the management team at the New
Zealand refining Company. It was a defining moment and life changer for me.
If we go back to the interpretations of the meaning of baptism referred to earlier –
baptism as a new way of being, a change of mind and a choice of which way we go
one way being life while the other death. It becomes clear that what we are seeking
is personal moral responsibility.....we have to stop taking more than we need...we
need to share what we already have and we need to work towards moral
accountability on behalf of those without a voice in the world today and those whose
lives in the future depend upon our choices today...
Jesus began his ministry by going through the waters of the Jordan. It is significant
that as he did so he should receive God’s blessing on himself and his work as God’s
hands and feet in the world...As we re-enact the baptismal rites this morning may we
receive God’s blessing and a blessing on the work required of us in this place to
seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind, to
pursue peace and reconciliation and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation
and sustain and renew the life of the earth.