Thanksgiving Sunday
Scriptures: Romans 12:4-8, Matthew 6:25-30
When we talk about ecological webs and the interconnection of things in nature, the striking example that’s made the rounds of late has to do with the wolves of Yellowstone. There are a few neat videos you can find on Youtube that tell the story, including one called: “How Wolves Change Rivers”. But I also found it here in this book by Peter Wohlleben called The Secret Wisdom of Nature – Trees, Animals and the Extrarodinary Balance of All Living Things. If you haven’t heard this one before, here’s the coles notes:
The grey wolf is native to the region of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. But already in the 19th century people began to eliminate packs from the park as nearby ranchers petitioned for the safe grazing of their livestock. By the 1930’s, the wolves of Yellowstone were completely wiped out. And the effect of their absence was felt pretty quickly. Without the wolves to keep them in check, the elk population in the park grew dramatically. Before long, the plentiful elk had foraged many sections of the park bare. The riverbanks were hit particularly hard, as juicy grass and young saplings were eaten away. Without fresh growth to replenish the trees along the banks, the beavers found themselves without much food or building supplies and died or moved on. Even the birds found little to nourish them, and the number of species in the park declined drastically.
But perhaps most remarkably, with the wolves gone the rivers themselves started to change. Shorn of plants and trees to provide stability to the soil, the rivers of Yellowstone began to erode quickly, and over time they meandered into bigger twists and loops.
This sad state of affairs continued in Yellowstone for many years. But in 1995, something changed. That year a pack of wolves caught in Canada was released in Yellowstone in an effort to restore the park’s missing balance. The return of wolves to this ecosystem had an effect just as dramatic and immediate as their disappearance. Scientists call this a trophic cascade – when a change at the top of the food chain ripples down across the whole system.
With the wolves back in play, the elk once more had a natural predator. The wolves killed some elk, and this reduced the strain on the local vegetation. But more significant even than the population control was the effect the wolves had on elk behaviour. The elk no longer hung around in the open river valleys foraging at their leisure. Their trips to the river were short and vigilant, retreating quickly back into the safety of the woodlands. And so the riverbank foliage had a chance to grow again, and within a few years the riverbanks had stabilized. The erosion of the river slowed and its meandering stopped. But even more significantly, the young trees in the river valleys brought the beavers back too. And they got to work engineering ponds that soon teemed once more with aquatic life and brought bird species back in much greater number. The wolves even had a positive effect on the health of the grizzly bear population in Yellowstone, as the elk left more of the berries that the bears depend on for their winter stores of fat.
What a complex web of interactions, and a delicate balance of forces that hold an ecosystem like Yellowstone together! Every plant and creature has its role, and changes in one little corner can have a big impact across the system.
But because it is so complex, it’s tricky to make the right interventions – even when conservation and species health is the goal. Peter Wohlleben tells another story about Yellowstone , this one beginning with fish. Lake trout are a North American species that has experienced significant population decline and are now considered endangered. A number of hatchery programs have been developed to help sustain wild populations. But rehabilitating the lake trout can’t be done just anywhere. At some point in the 1980’s lake trout were introduced into Yellowstone Lake, where this particular species had not been before. Yellowstone Lake had already been home to a smaller cousin of the lake trout called the cutthroat trout, and these original occupants were quickly out-competed by the larger new arrivals. And this time, it was the elk in Yellowstone that suffered from the change.
The key link in this chain are the grizzly bears that I mentioned earlier. In addition to berries, these bears love to eat the trout in the lake. The cutthroat spawned in small streams and tributaries, which made them an easy catch for the grizzlies during the season. But the lake trout which took over tended to lay their eggs on the lake bed itself, well out of reach for the bears. Their easy fishing gone, the bears looked for other food – and turned much more often to the elk in the park. And this has continued happening to such a degree that now the elk population is now in decline.
In light of the wolves’ story, you’d think this might be a good thing. More elk population control – just what was needed earlier. But the problem is that while wolves target older animals, the bears tend to pick off young calves. And that leaves an aging elk population which throws off the whole balance that makes this food chain work.
There’s an argument here not to mess with what we do not understand – keep our fingers out of the soup and let this holy order work itself out. Mark told the story last week about an introductory biology class in which the students could only imagine a negative and destructive relationship between people and nature. Does this have to be the case? Can we imagine rather relationships of love and mutual flourishing, a connection with the created world in which we also belong and are at home?
Human beings are also part of the holy order of creation. As much as we have made a mess in so many ways, we are not outside but within. We celebrate the sacred role of every creature and plant and rock and river in this wonderful and mysterious web of connections on our planet, but we bear a sacred role too. Not one separate from the rest, but tied in together so that our flourishing is shared. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
Paul’s words about the different gifts and roles of the body has resonance in this larger context too. He names gifts like prophesy, service, teaching, encouragement, generosity. And he reminds those in the community of faith to take up their roles, whatever they might be, to the very best of their ability.
On the one hand, we can see how Paul’s list of gifts in the church are dearly needed within the sacred order of creation. We need the prophets who can see where things are headed and call us to pay attention. We need those who dedicate their lives to serving creation, tending to forests and watersheds and their many inhabitants. We need those who teach, those who encourage us when things seem grim, those who will give generously. We need people who will take leadership and those who will simply show kindness to our neighbours of all kinds.
And on the other hand, we can imagine what it might look like to expand the context of Paul’s instructions from the church to the whole body of creation:
In his grace, God has given each created thing different gifts for doing certain things well. If God has given you the ability to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, then clean the air with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is digging through soil to loosen and nourish, then do that well. If you are a hunter, hunt well. If your gift is to provide food for others, do that with grace. If it is to build dams and create fertile wetlands, gnaw those trees with enthusiasm. If God has given you fresh water to nourish life of all kinds, then flow with joy to the sea.
With a little observation and imagination, we can see the sacred role of all these different parts of creation. Mosquitoes and blackflies might give us a bit of trouble, maybe poison ivy too. We might need guides like Peter Wohlleben to help us see the connections. And there is so much in this great web of connections that we will never fully recognize or understand. That’s ok too, and probably important to remember. This world is in so many ways a sacred mystery. And its divine order will never be captured by our most exhaustive of catalogues or hierarchies. Sometimes we just need to sit in the middle of it and marvel for a while.
But with all of these important gifts in creation that we might recognize, we do naturally wonder about our own. What is our sacred role? There are doubtless lots of ways to answer that. We talked earlier this fall about being stewards and trustees of God’s estate. We are caretakers and tenants. We are the bearers of the divine image within a world of divine order.
But on this Thanksgiving Day, I wonder if the gift we bring could be named quite truly as gratitude. As human creatures in this world our gift is to be grateful. Our special role and our daily joy is to take note of the wonders around us and appreciate the goodness that meets us around every bend. A posture of gratitude reminds us that we have much to learn. In the Genesis creation story human beings are the last things made. We come to life in a world already sparkling with wonder and wise with history. We receive our home as a gift, and we walk through it thankful for each object and experience that we encounter.
I think this is not far from what Jesus teaches about the birds and the lilies, too. These creatures entrust their lives to the holy order that sustains all of creation. They are fed and beautified not by their struggle to accumulate but by the offerings of the moment. The gift of this holy order that our plant and animal teachers know, is freedom and trust. Because every piece of this good earth works together in these complex and interconnected ways, all they need do is be themselves. Stretch their wings or their petals and exercise their gifts in a wild and joyful praise of their maker.
Do you think yourselves any less precious to God than these? We have our roles too, our gifts as creatures of this earth and as companions in the body of Christ. God has given richly and unsparingly, creating goodness and beauty that satisfies stomachs and spirits. And so we look out upon the holy order that extends far beyond our comprehension and we take up our special gift of gratitude. Thank you God for the wonders around us. Thank you for the connections between us. Thank you for the spirit of Jesus within us.
Amen.