Blessing of the Mountain
Sermon by Reverend Stan Holmes

We have gathered here this morning on this hallowed mountain. I say hallowed because several months ago, back in November, many of us who are here today came here at this very place and we blessed this place. In the name of the very God we serve we set this hallowed place aside for the glory of God. We stand this morning on sacred ground. We stand this morning on the created majesty of God’s creation.

Our misery, our grief, our frustration, our confusion is, we as a culture, we as a people as a whole have lost that since of awe, that since of respect for this wonderful place we know as home. This planet earth is the perfected expression of the majesty of a God who so loved us he gave us this place to call home, and look what it has become.

I don’t need to remind you of what is happening to our home. Fr. Roy clearly painted the picture in November of what we have done and are continually doing to our home. We can look across this valley and see what is happening. In just four short months we see so much more devastation that wasn’t there four months ago.

These mountains cry out to us today, How much more can we take?

My friends, the sad truth to this, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are reasonable alternatives of extracting coal from these mountains. But we, and I say we, have allowed things to get to this place.

We have idly sat by and witnessed the greed of a few big coal barons come to our home and convince us that in order for them to create jobs and provide us with electricity and steel, this is what we must do. The real truth is we let it happen. Big coal has held us hostage in this state pretty much the whole time coal was a commodity.  We are just coming to the reality that it’s one big lie.

We are now mining more coal in West Virginia than ever before. And guess what? With a fraction of the man power the coal industry had just twenty years ago. And guess what else. Coal companies using mountaintop removal methods of mining are experiencing record profits by using this method. It’s not the only way. It’s the cheapest way, and the hell with what’s left behind.

Do you realize mountaintop removal has already mined over a million acres in West Virginia. Can you fathom in your mind how much that is? Varying on what statistic you believe, there have been between 700 to 1200 miles of headwater streams covered up. Gone!! Never to stream down that precious commodity of fresh water to us again. To straight thinking people. To God fearing people, this is madness. We are witnessing exploitation of our home, our home planet earth.  Our home West Virginia.

We are just in the past decade or so coming to the reality that Mother Earth is saying ouch. We are hearing her cry all around this planet. And it’s getting to the point where her cry is becoming a cry of excruciating pain. She’s not going to be able to take much more and we be able to enjoy this wonderful gift of home God graciously entrusted us to be steward of. And mountaintop removal is a big player in all that. Not only are we destroying the beauty of God’s creation, we’re destroying the very existence of His creation.

So what can we do? Is there anything we can do?

I say to you today on this hallowed mountain. Yes. And not only yes we can do something, our  faith, our belief in a Creator of our planet home, demands we do something. Me personally as a

Christian calls me and I think you too, as good stewards to stand up and deny ourselves and take up our cross. I think one of the crosses we are called to bear is to bring a public awareness of the ramifications we are suffering because of corporate greed and a disregard for our planet home.

We must organize our concerns and our plight into a mission of healing. Healing of hearts and minds and understandings that get the attention of leaders that have the conviction that if we don’t change and understand we all are going to have to make sacrifices to reverse this madness, we are not going to leave our home as a place that will be habitable for future generations. And I believe if those who now lead us don’t want to think of our future, and they are only concerned with their tenure and their life, we have the power to vote them out. We can find leaders who want to lead us into all righteousness.

Now I know this is not a popular mission. But Jesus clearly taught us that taking up a cross is  just that. We know what that image is. What we have to ask ourselves is “are we truly willing to do  that?” Ironically, public opinion in West Virginia is that most West Virginians are against mountaintop removal, but when the rubber meets the road we don’t find many who will stand up for Christ’s sake and say enough.

(Pause)

I ask you all here today to ask yourself if you’re willing to stand up for doing the right thing. It’s going to cost you something, but we can take comfort in the words of the Apostle Paul that we heard read a few minutes ago. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecutions or famine, or nakedness or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Please see yourselves as more than that. May we together stand up for Christ’s sake and stop the madness.

Yesterday we recognized a day of remembrance of a great man who forty years ago stood up for an injustice that plagued our culture. Dr. Martin Luther King stood up against injustice of a whole race of people in a non violent peaceful demonstration and brought an awareness to a nation of that injustice in a loving protest of the injustice. That began a renewal of the hearts and  minds of a whole nation. It wasn’t popular at the time but we now know the outcome. It brought a much needed change of heart for everybody.

Let that be a model for us. We can fight this fight. We can bring a change of heart. But let’s go out into the world with the confidence of knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Amen