We are a global network of people, learning together, to pray the prayers which are as real and urgent as the climate crisis. 

Jesus Wept (Jésus pleura), by James Tissot (1836-1902)

More details and April themes below

Climate Intercessors is administratively/fiscally supported by Eden Vigil Institute @ William Carey International University, a not-for-profit institution, located in Pasadena, CA USA

Lazarus’s Sisters Emote over the IPCC Report

(John 11)

Climate activist Bill McKibben recently wrote in The Guardian, “The brutal truth is that last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report didn’t have the effect it should have had, or that its authors clearly intended. Produced by thousands of scientists who synthesized the work of tens of thousands of their peers over the last decade, and meticulously drafted by teams of careful communicators, it landed in the world with a gentle plop, not the resounding thud that’s required.”

It resounded with McKibben however. He apparently felt anger, enough to organize his new initiative, Third Act, to protest outside a JPMorgan Chase bank branch in downtown Washington, DC.  He writes, “And that’s because Chase – and its brethren in the big four, Citi, WellsFargo and Bank of America – are the largest lenders to the fossil fuel industry on Earth, funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to the expansion of oil and gas extraction. As the IPCC report puts it, ‘private finance flows for fossil fuels are still greater than those for climate adaptation and mitigation.’”

McKibben protested while sitting in a rocking chair because Third Act is made up of activists over age 60, which suggests another emotion that McKibben seems to be processing: shame.  He writes, “One of the features of the IPCC report is a nifty diagram showing how climate change would affect those born in 1950, 1980 and 2020. Not surprisingly, those of us of a certain age get off pretty easy. We, the lucky ones, will be dead before the heat truly becomes unbearable.”

I shared McKibben’s anger and generational shame. I also felt sadness.  You can read the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers for yourself, and I also recommended Greenpeace’s excellent summary. The scientists had a lot to say about a 1.5°C average global warming above pre-industrial levels. They said that even a temporary failure to prevent a 1.5°warming would have devastating and irreversible effects. They said these impacts are even worse than previously projected, and they said our breach of the 1.5° target, at our current rate of emissions, can be expected in the near term, which they define as before 2040.

They tell us all of that, but then they say, here in the words of Greenpeace’s paraphrase, “1.5°C is still within reach: With urgent action, the Paris long-term goal can still be met.” Really? At that point, the emotion I was feeling was disappointment.  But disappointment with whom?   In the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, as recorded in John 11, both of his sisters, Mary and Martha, approach Jesus as he arrives, four days late, and say to him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 

Something shifted in me when I sat with this particular graph from the IPCC report:

The rising black line on the left shows our experience with greenhouse gas emissions since 2000.  The statement posted above it explains that emissions have gone up, not down, since the adoption of the Paris Agreement.  The right side of the graph shows the discrepancy of what is being done (or at least planned, or at least committed to) and what must be done to limit warming to the Paris targets in order to prevent all the horrific suffering detailed in the rest of the report.  I see the blue line (what’s required to limit warming to 1.5°C) and it looks to me like the draping shroud of Lazarus as his corpse is lowered into the tomb.   This is in part because when I look at the most optimistic projections of the current reduction commitments (as pictured in the pink swath), it comes nowhere near what is required for the 2°C target, let alone the 1.5°C one.  In other words, this graph screams to me: “We need a miracle!”   I can grant that, as per the other statements on this IPCC graph, it “can [still] be achieved through strong reductions across all sectors,” but while the “rapid, deep, and in most cases immediate greenhouse gas emission reductions” may still be physically possible, it strikes me that only miraculous thinking can conceive of them as politically, diplomatically, economically, sociologically, or religiously possible—since it will seemingly take an abrupt divine intervention—a miracle-- working through people to make these rapid, deep, and immediate cuts across all sectors happen.

There is no doubt about it, John 11 is the story of a miracle.  Jesus calls Lazarus forth from the grave and it is another one of Jesus’s seven signs in this gospel that he is divine, another occasion for one of his seven I AM statements, in this case, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  I will begrudge no one in our Climate Intercessors prayer network who wants to pray for the miracle of preventing a 1.5°C warming.  Yet, as I read John 11, while it is obviously the story of a miracle, I don’t believe it is a story about miracles.  It is about death and life, and about how in Jesus we live, and breath, and have our being even unto eternity.  In my opinion, the best vantage point from which to read John 11 is from the imagined scene of the second time Lazarus dies, from that old-aged inevitable moment that comes to all human beings.  In other words, who is Jesus when there is death, but no miracle handy?  This substitutes for the question that Mary, Martha, and we normally ask: Where is Jesus when there is death, but no miracle handy?

My favorite rendering of this different vantage point is Darrell Scott’s bluegrass song “Lazarus Dies Again”: here on YouTube.  The last lines are about Lazarus and Martha’s life after Jesus has his own resurrection:

After the burial they just move away

Get an apartment in Cairo and live out their days.

He works on chariots and keeps his secret well hid

And never talks about what Jesus did.

The years roll along, they both get on the pension

And he often thinks of his former attention.

On the night he lay dying he calls out to his friend,

"Oh Jesus can you hear me?"

Then Lazarus dies again.

Scott’s mandolin sweeps in and under the sound of the guitar and fiddle, and then you hear the words of the final chorus, just two words this time: “Rise up!”  Our friend, who is the resurrection and life, indeed hears Lazarus, and he hears us.

The other great vantage point from which to read the miracle recorded in John 11 is that of emotions.  That’s how Scott starts his song, the first time that Lazarus was dead:

Rise up Lazarus, get out of that grave.
Rise and shine Lazarus, clean up and get a shave.
Martha is weeping, she's been gnashing her teeth.
Can't you hear her wailing, rise up and stop her grief?

The dogs are sniffing, the children are scared.
Now, Martha is laughing "brother you've been spared"
She's cooking a goat, calling all her friends
Oh rise up Lazarus and live again (again, again).

There is probably no chapter in all of the gospels more associated with human emotions than John 11.   Think of that one verse alone favored by Sunday School children eager to win a Scripture Memorization prize: John 11:35, “Jesus wept.”  But grief is not the only emotion that Jesus felt during this time.  Verse 33 says “When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.”  The English Standard Version informs us, via a footnote, that “deeply moved in his spirit” could also be translated “indignant.”  The New Living Translation comes right out and says, “a deep anger welled up within him.”  Who was Jesus angry with?  Mary?  Mary had just said to him, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  What emotion is Mary feeling?  Disappointment?

I am feeling disappointment when I stare at that graph in the IPCC report.  I am disappointed in the IPCC for dispassionately holding out what, seems to me, to be hollow hope for the 1.5°C target.  Like Bill McKibben, I’m disappointed in my generation that, having known about the target for so long, we’ve done so little to achieve it.  I’m disappointed that your hard work and my hard work will signify for later targets, but apparently not for the 1.5°C one, at least not in the way that I wanted our hard work to pay off.  In addition to disappointment, I am feeling sad, but I’m also feeling afraid of being labelled a “doomist,” or afraid that I am giving up on the 1.5°C target when maybe “it is still possible” or because “miracles do happen.”

Basically, I am emotional, which is just another way of saying that I am an emotional being; it’s part of being created in the image of God, as our incarnate Savior also knows.

Regardless of whether we breach the 1.5°C target before 2040 or ever, it has become  overwhelmingly obvious (and documented) to mental health professionals that we need to begin helping each other process the difficult emotions of climate change.   More and more professionals are stepping up to the task, and if you need help in processing who Jesus is when there is death, but no miracle handy—please reach out to a spiritual director, therapist, or eco-grief program. 

My wife, Robynn Bliss, is a certified Spiritual Director and she has joined me in offering, once a quarter, a 2 ½ hour webinar/retreat, “Hope and Hard Emotions: Processing Difficult Feelings in the Climate Crisis.”   You are invited to our next offering: April 24, at 11 AM- 1:30 PM PDT (2 PM - 4:30 PM EDT; 7 PM - 9:30 PM BST).  There is a “pay what you can” option for registration, so that all can attend.  Ben Richards of YWAM Scotland helped us schedule this next one for a time when youth in the UK might be available.  

You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
on behalf of the Climate Intercessors Leadership Team

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Major Prayer Theme for April: The impact of the final IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

Tuesday, April 11

• on-line Zoom intercessory meetings, facilitated and interactive. 
• four options (for various time zones); choose one or attend multiple ones.
• each meeting will be one hour  in length. 
• simply sign in at the proper time; no need to register ahead of time.
• invite friends by having them register at the website.

Climate Intercessors budgets US$300 a month/ $US3600 a year to operate.  Please consider donating.  Thank you.  Climate Intercessors is administratively/fiscally supported by Eden Vigil Institute @ William Carey International University, a not-for-profit institution, located in Pasadena, CA USA