The Disobedient Son Ends up Going to COP27 (Matthew 21)

Climate Bible Study: September 2022

It is easy enough—and perhaps something of a temptation—to think of intercessory prayer as the compiling of a wish list.  Of course, there need not be anything rude in children coming to their father, asking for their heart’s desires.  God in fact delights in hearing our requests.  Nonetheless, we can also imagine intercessory prayer as knocking on the backdoor of the farmhouse.  “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Mt 9:37-38).  We can show up at the backdoor of the farmhouse, informing God “Here we are,” and asking him for specifics about that day’s plans: to which fields today does he wish to send us?  What crops does he want us to plant where?  Or maybe it isn’t a season for sowing.  Does he want us to cultivate or harvest instead?  O Lord, what are your instructions for this moment?
 
As I was thinking about the impending COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt (6-18 Nov), Jesus’s Parable of the Two Sons came to mind from Matthew 21:28-32. 

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.

Perhaps I thought of this parable because of Australia and their new government.  Australia was an obstructionist force at COP26 in Glasgow and announced that they had no particular interest in anything more ambitious for COP27.  But now the newly-elected Labor government is packing their hoes and scythes for Sharm, ready to work in the fields.  Or maybe I was thinking of the United States, my birth country.  Could the world handle another year of US Climate Envoy John Kerry showing up at a COP to berate other nations for inaction while nothing substantial was happening at home?  But now President Biden has managed to get passed into law an implementable plan for carbon reduction.  (In other good news, California voted last week to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035).

The disobedient son always has a chance to change his mind and go work today in the fields where previously he had said, “I will not.”

Last year, in the run-up for COP26 in Glasgow, our network conducted a discernment project.  We asked God: “What are 10 strategic prayer requests for COP26?”  We didn’t lay claim to them being the “top ten” or the MOST strategic, but we wanted some sense that they had been given to us as a stewardship, that is, that we had inquired of God, and that we had hashed them out as a group in some sort of discernment process.  You can see the results here.  They were well received and used, even beyond our immediate network.  One of my favourite stories is of the network member, M.T., who last Spring, long after COP26 was over, nonetheless took our 10 Strategic prayers with her on the Camino de Santiago.  She featured one prayer for each of the ten days of her trek.

This month Climate Intercessors is launching our new discernment project for COP27 in 2022.  “O Lord, this is us knocking on the backdoor of the farmhouse: ‘what are the strategic prayers you would have us pray for COP27?’”  COP27 hasn’t been as high profile as COP26.  It will not be in the media’s backyard.  It doesn’t have a two-year run-up like COP26 did.  The prayer requests for COP27 don’t seem as immediately obvious.

We will begin releasing our results at the September 13th and October 11th global Zoom prayer meetings.  We invite you to please join us in this discernment process.  We’ve created a webpage here by which you can keep posted about our efforts and send us your own suggestions.   Thank you.

Jesus spoke the Parable of the Two Sons after his arrival in Jerusalem in the week before his crucifixion.  Admittedly the context of the Parable—and the final verse of it that we have yet to quote—feature the disobedient son, not the obedient one. In other words, Jesus is addressing the Pharisees and others who talk a good game about the kingdom of God but then never act on it.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him (Mt 21:31-32).

There is always a lot at stake out in the fields of the Lord.  There will be a lot at stake at COP27.  Let’s pray, but before we do: let’s knock on the backdoor of the farmhouse first.
 
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
on behalf of the Climate Intercessors Leadership Team