I’ve been reading a wonderful book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ Indigenous wisdom, Scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants’ It’s author, Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of the Potawatomi people of the Great Lakes of North America.

Braiding Sweetgrass describes a ritual ceremony at harvest time as the stalks of wild rice are braided into long plats used for basket weaving. But it is also metaphorically used to illustrate the bonds that bind people and place them together in a landscape. These bonds she describes as ‘Gratitude’, Reciprocity’ and ‘The Honourable harvest’.

Gratitude for the gifts of creation that sustain us. Reciprocity so that we give back to the earth what we have taken out ensuring an abundance for future generations and the ‘Honourable harvest’ which takes no more than is necessary from the earth. This is what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls Indigenous wisdom but it is increasingly the wisdom of today’s sustainable agriculture.

As a botanist she sets out to contrast the scientific explanations of the world over against the ‘mythical’ explanations given by religions. Both scientific and ‘mythical’ explanations have authority but see the world in different ways. The scientific worldview sees things as objects to be studied, anatomised and explained. These explanations, scientists would claim, carry more authority because they are evidence based whereas ‘mythical’ explanations are based in speculation and cannot be proved.

Robin Wall Kimmerer would wish us to see indigenous wisdom as a way of relating to the world not as ‘Object’ but as ‘Subject’. In the Potawatomi language everything is addressed as a person, a living being, to whom one owes respect and gratitude for what they give us. So for instance the Potawatomi talk about, the Bear people, the Beaver people, the Tree people and so on, all are equally sharing in the abundance of the land and dependent on each other for survival. 'One bowl, and one spoon' as she describes it.

The question of ‘by what authority’ is very much at the centre of this debate. The scientific worldview is guided by objective knowledge derived from human observation and the ‘Mythical’ worldview is guided by an understanding of the world as ‘Enchanted’ and derived from an understanding of the world as a living ‘Being’. They are two valid worldviews and if used together can help us care for the earth.

Olive Groves. Vincent van Gogh 1889

The artist who best expressed the idea of the earth as a living thing is Vincent van Gogh.

‘In all of nature, in trees for instance, I see expression of soul, as it were.’

‘When I am in the country, it’s not so difficult for me to be alone, because in the country one feels the bonds that unite us all the more easily’

Vincent van Gogh in the last years of his life painted nature with an intensity that turned cypress trees in living flames, skies into firework displays, and olive groves into little old men. He loved this olive grove so much he painted it three times, once for his mother, once for his brother and once for himself!

In the scene that we enter today we find Jesus in the Temple surrounded by the crowds. He has just driven out the money changers and is approached by an angry contingent of Priests who ask him by what authority he is acting. They had controlled what went on in the Temple courts up until that moment, and they are now outraged by this upstart.

Only the Messiah himself would have the authority to do such a thing, and so they ask him:

“By what authority are you doing these things?” Matt 20: 23.

Of course they would like him to answer directly and so allow them to charge him with blasphemy, but his answer turns the question on them.

‘John’s baptism – where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from men?’

Matt 20: 24.

Now they must face the truth, John the Baptist was recognised as a true prophet and he had pointed to Jesus as God’s Messiah. The Chief Priests had already lost their authority as the common people turned to the God they saw and recognised in the preaching of John and Jesus. The parable of the ‘Two Sons’ illustrates this dramatic turn of events. The son who says ‘yes’ but does nothing represents the hypocrisy of the authorities who pay lip service to God, whereas the son who says ‘no’ represents the common people who had turned to God in repentance and faith.

The modern debate between science and religion, as presented, is indeed a struggle over what authority should determine the lives of men and women. The distinction we must make concerns the boundaries around which science and religion operate. When science becomes a religion that proposes to give meaning and purpose to life mysteries we end up with a world in which the authority of mankind determines all. Science can indeed give an explanation of how we came to be here, but the question of ‘why’ cannot be answered by science.

When the scientist begins to claim the same authority as God we cannot be far away from the horrors of ‘Social Darwinism’ - Eugenics and Euthanasia.

The common people recognised in Jesus someone they could trust with such authority, the Messiah who alone gives meaning and purpose to life.

Prayer for Ukraine

God of peace and justice we pray

for the people of Ukraine today,

and the laying down of weapons.

we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow,

that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them.

We pray for those with power over war and peace,

for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions

Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear,

That you would hold and protect them.

Rev. Simon Brignall

I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.