My wife and I recently were planning a weekend trip in North Carolina. We had caught wind of a biodiesel co-op in Pittsboro named Piedmont Biofuels. We wanted to visit the co-op because we had purchased two diesel vehicles this past summer in order that we can drive on cleaner and renewable fuels. I have never cared too much about having a fast car or a behemoth truck, but I think it is really cool that people can get from point A to point B solely on the power of a restaurant’s waste vegetable oil.
At the co-op, we met Lyle. Lyle was covered head-to-toe in congealed fish fat, which was a result of working hard that day turning a nutraceutical company’s leftover and solidified fish fat into fuel. I had never thought of fish having a lot of body fat, but there are apparently scores of drums storing this stuff in a field somewhere, and instead of letting it go to waste, Lyle is turning it into fuel that is cleaner to burn than petroleum.
Although Ginger and I were only passers-by and not members of the co-op, Lyle graciously agreed to let us top off our Beetle and fill up some jugs for our other diesel. A conversation ensued in the midst of all this, and when we mentioned that we were both on the path to become Lutheran pastors, Lyle responded, “When is the faith-based community going to get on board with this stuff?” He was referring to projects that seek to care for the environment, and not destroy it. “When are you going to shift from dominion to stewardship?”
I knew exactly what he was critiquing, and I agree with him. How many times have we thrown away food that either could have fed someone or turned into compost for our farms? How many times has a gathering of a couple dozen people generated so much trash that we need to make a few trips to carry it all to the dumpster? Yet, because we recycle some office paper, we say we are good stewards. I feel that it is too easy for us to follow the ways that society teaches us, yet we as Christians are called to live out the New Creation here and now, which inevitably is a call to think creatively in the midst of this world. One example of that is creatively thinking of ways to be better stewards of God’s creation.
“I’ve been to churches that host protests against the building of an impending landfill nearby, yet at these protests the churches will serve all their snacks on Styrofoam plates and aluminum cans that go directly into the trash,” Lyle continued.
The prescribed gospel lesson for this Sunday is Matthew 25:31-46; it’s the story about the king and his separating the sheep and the goats. Too often we hear this story and we are told, “Therefore, act like sheep.” Yet, that misses a central point of the story: we will all be surprised. Both the sheep and the goats (who, by the way, looked so similar to each other in Israel that it took a trained eye to distinguish them) are surprised to learn how their actions have and have not served the Lord. It is true that the king in the gospel lesson does not say, “Truly I tell you, just as you dabbled in congealed fish fat to steward the least of my creation, you did it to me.” However, in the creation-stewardship sense, all of us may one day be surprised to learn how some people have been walking closer to Jesus this whole time.
rumination
biodiesel, care, co-op, community, coop, creation, diesel, environment, fish fat, Jesus, Matthew 25:31-46
