The environmental cost of war

When Jesus says “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions,” I used to think that meant I needed to sell everything I have, which was a terrifying idea—how am I supposed to live with nothing?   

I now think that what Jesus actually means is to give up control of your possessions: treat everything as if it belongs to God, as if all of your things are merely borrowed (which is true—anything you can lay your hands on, you cannot take it with you when you die).   

And to go a step further: giving up your possessions does not mean giving up only tangible things.  Be ready to give up the ideas that do not contribute to health and healing, including giving up your ideas of what it means to feel safe in the world, what it means to have a legacy, what it means to win.   

You know: just give up everything to God, turning everything you have over to God’s mission of healing.  Well, that’s preposterous.  Of course it is.  Jesus is very clear about the cost of following him as a disciple.  It will cost you everything, and it will set you absolutely free.   

In the sanctuary and in the bulletin, you may have noticed a creation theme.  For the next five weeks, we’ll be honoring a Season of Creation, which is a time to look at Scripture through the lens of creation and how we interact with all that God created.  Today’s Scripture readings are about choosing life and choosing freedom.   

In the Hebrew Bible reading from Deuteronomy, Moses is reviewing the Law with the people of Israel just before they are to enter the land that has been promised to them.  After 40 years in the wilderness, their lives are about to change: they will build houses and plant crops and settle, instead of setting up tents and camping in the wilderness.  However they are cautioned against forgetting the God who freed them from slavery and supplied all their needs.  They will be tempted to follow other gods, which will lead to their downfall, but Moses pleads, “Choose life.”   

And in the New Testament reading, Paul writes to a slaveholder named Philemon to implore him to set free his slave Onesimus and to embrace Onesimus as a brother rather than as his human possession.  Paul uses all the tools at his disposal to convince Philemon to do the right thing—approaching in vulnerability, reminding him that Paul himself taught him about Jesus, appealing to his leadership skill set that setting Onesimus free would set a good example for other believers, and essentially saying that God is watching what you do, and Paul pleads, “Choose freedom.”   

Then Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship, using war as an example—how does one count the cost of war?  What does this look like through the lens of creation?  What is the cost of war for creation?  How is the earth impacted over the long term?   

We tend to look at things like war in terms of the immediate emergencies that happen: the weapons that injure and kill humans and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools and everything they have built.  Those costs are terrible enough, but when do we consider the cost to future generations?  When do we consider the cost of war upon creation: the land scarred by trenches dug for fighting battles, the unexploded land mines still able to harm, the drying up of water sources, the lingering effects of radiation?    

This isn’t merely a problem for people far away, disconnected from our own daily lives.  Even though nuclear bombs were never dropped on our city, local companies were involved in the development of nuclear weapons and land in the city was used for dumping radioactive waste, which seeped into Coldwater Creek and remains stubbornly difficult to clean up.  This waste has harmed the health of people living in the area, increasing the incidence of cancer in people who have lived there even until now.   

Just last month was the 80^th anniversary of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended a war but did not end the suffering and the effects of those bombs on human life and on God’s creation, even here in St. Louis.   

Just a few years after the end of World War II was the first meeting of the World Council of Churches, which addressed the new nuclear era by noting “the discovery of atomic and other new weapons renders widespread and indiscriminate destruction inherent in the whole conduct of modern war.”¹  The World Council of Churches continues to meet and to advocate for countries to work together against nuclear threats.  In an article last month in Sojourners magazine, Jonathan Frerichs writes:  

“In 2009, thanks in part to advocacy by the WCC, Burundi ratified the Treaty of (peh LEEN dah bah) Pelindaba, which brought the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone into force.  Africa joined other such zones in Latin America and the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and Central Asia, plus Mongolia and Antarctica.  The entire Southern hemisphere has agreed not only to refrain from developing or buying nuclear weapons but also to prevent nuclear testing or radioactive waste dumps in their territories.” 

The United States, where we live, is not part of any such zone aiming to be nuclear-weapon-free.  Frerichs writes, “The twin existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate change interact dangerously.  The production and upkeep of its nuclear arsenal helps make the U.S. military one of the largest institutional polluters in the world.”   

But that doesn’t mean we are doomed.  It does invite us to lean into the life that we know God wills for all of creation.  There are groups all over the world organizing against nuclear weapons.  Just this spring, an interreligious group brought a message to the United Nations gathering of parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying: “Nuclear faith is a faith that secures death.  We want to pursue a faith that leads to life.”² 

A faith that leads to life—where do we put our faith?  Do we trust in God, or do we trust in nuclear weapons to keep us safe?  This is the kind of possession that we may need to give up in order to follow Jesus: this idea of what keeps us safe.   

Walter Brueggemann, who died earlier this summer, wrote about prophetic imagination, saying “prophets are able to imagine the world other than the way that is in front of them.”³  We can develop our own prophetic imagination.  We do not have to settle for a world full of hatred and destruction, spewing contamination all over humanity and destroying life and destroying the earth.   

Even if we can’t fix every single thing that is wrong in the entire world, we can show up for the things that are important.  Brueggemann, in an interview just a few years ago, noticed the rise in resentment among people in our country, contributing to division and partisan politics.  And I love what he said, quoted in Sojourners magazine: 

“We have to give thought to how we respond to people who are set deep in resentment. Our work in that regard has to do with generosity, with paying attention, with hearing the narrative of resentment and outflanking that narrative with generosity.”⁴ 

It got my attention that he used the military word “outflank,” which describes a maneuver where two groups going to battle each other on the ground are facing each other but one surrounds the other to invade where the defenses are not as strong, to strike where the enemy is vulnerable.   

Just imagine outflanking resentment with generosity, essentially attacking with generosity instead of weapons—who’s ready for that?  It’s foolish and vulnerable, which means it requires faith in God.  This is what it means to choose life, to choose freedom, to follow Jesus as a disciple.   

Look around this week—where do you see generosity flowering?  Where do you see anger dissolved by a spirit of generosity?  Where do you embrace generosity in your own life, receiving God’s goodness and letting it spill over onto others?   

May God bring healing to the earth, and by God’s grace, may we be blessed to receive and to share God’s generosity. 

Amen.   

Pastor Cheryl

[1] Quoted in “Time for the Nuclear North to Stand Down,” by Jonathan Frerichs, in Sojourners magazine, August 2025, page 13.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Sojourners magazine, “Living by the Promises of God,” an unpublished interview with Walter Brueggemann, August 2025, page 35.