"God's Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action" is a pastoral letter from the Council of Bishops to The United Methodist Church. (You are encouraged to Google the four-page statement and to read it in full.) Adopted by the Council on November 3, 2009 at Lake Junaluska, this letter declares that "God's creation is in crisis," that "God's creative work continues," and that "God calls us and equips us to respond" (emphasis in the original).

According to the Council, "[o]ur neglect, selfishness, and pride have fostered: pandemic poverty and disease, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons and violence." Even so, according to the Council, "God still invites each one of us to participate in the work of renewal." So, the bishops suggest, we are to blame for the crisis of creation, and yet we are responsible for helping to lessen or eliminate the crisis (in part, by practicing "environmental holiness").

In asserting that the Gospel encompasses all of creation and all of history, the Council of Bishops is faithful to the Church's large, comprehensive faith. For this, the Council is to be commended. In stating that United Methodists have a direct role to play in renewing creation, the Council might well be advocating an all-too-positive view of human possibilities and powers.

In elevating human possibilities, the Council appears to limit divine possibilities. After all, "God's Renewed Creation" does not explicitly mention the coming of the Kingdom of God in glory. The statement does refer to "God's holy vision" and to "a promise of renewal and reconciliation" (emphasis in the original). But these seem rather weak references to the God's glorious future for the world, when creation will be thoroughly and perfectly renewed.

In "God's Renewed Creation," the Council of Bishops is trying to tell "the story of the world" (Dr. Robert Jenson's wonderful phrase). But the Council's telling of the story seems to revolve around our rather prominent role in the story.

There is another way to tell the story of the world that recognizes God's primary, sovereign role and our secondary participation. The story of the world, following the Bible and the Church's Tradition, might be outlined like this:

*God creates heaven and earth.

*When Adam falls, all history and all creation fall.

*God elects Israel to be in covenant and frees Israel from slavery to become a witness to the nations.

*God becomes flesh in Jesus Christ, who announces the Kingdom of God, suffers death on a cross for the salvation of the world, defeats (though does not destroy) the forces of evil, and is raised out of death to rule the world, though His rule is now contested by the defeated evil forces.

*Along the way, God's Spirit gathers and sustains the Church to sight, signal, and embody the Kingdom to come. That is, the Church shows the world its future.

*In the fullness of time, God will bring down the Kingdom in all power and glory, and Christ will rule perfectly for ever and ever: "[H]e will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4, RSV)

Until then, "[w]e know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail..." (Romans 8:22) Even so, in this age, the Church's privilege is to live "for the conduct of worship and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments, the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline, the edification of believers, and the conversion of the world." (The Baptismal Covenant III) A part of the Church's witness for the conversion of the world, of course, is to minister to and protect "the least of these" (Matthew 25), by seeking their peace, justice, and freedom.

Allow two more comments. First, the Church always sees people as more important than the environment. The Church is always to stand "in defense of people," In the words of Rev. Richard John Neuhaus' book title. Citizens, companies, corporations, and countries are certainly charged to be good stewards of creation. But the Church carefully places the interests of people, especially struggling people, above the interests of the environment. And second, the Church is not captured by any political party or ideological agenda. The Church will support some objectives that are conservative and others that are liberal. The Church, at her best, is politically and ideologically unpredictable in its service of peace, justice, and freedom in this world.

The story of the world. It is a big story. It is a good story -- even good news or gospel. And it includes a role for The United Methodist Church to play. But the leading part in this story is played by the God whose name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For that, we can give thanks, even as we together continue marching to Zion, toward the Kingdom to come.