“Mad For the World”

Creation in Christ Sunday

September 6, 2026

Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934 - August 31, 2026)

Genesis 1:1-2:4

John 1:1-5

Wendell Berry was an author, poet, activist, and farmer who lived in Kentucky and died this week at the age of 92. I was introduced to him in seminary in my first preaching class. He was a force of nature—and a force FOR nature. His novels, his poems, and certainly his actions in response to the destruction of creation have informed and influenced my own understanding of life and the value of nature. The delicate balance of life here on earth.

So, I find it appropriate to share some of his work with you today. You see, the ELCA has added a new commemoration to the seasons of the church: Creation in Christ Sunday. That’s today—the first Sunday in September. And what better way to celebrate this day than to introduce you all to the late Wendell Berry.

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

― Wendell Berry, “The Long-Legged House” (1969)

John says the Word came to dwell among us, but we did not recognize God’s presence. We did not recognize it because God looks completely different than what we strive for. In Christ, God is not power. God is vulnerability. In Christ, God is not profit. God is self-giving. In Christ, God is not dominance or conquest. God is Love. In Christ, God is not ‘Lord-over.’ God is ‘Lord-with.’

This is why we do not recognize God when God is right in front of us. Because in the midst of vulnerability and self-giving love, we often respond with fear and desire. We fear loss. We fear death. We fear change. And we desire more of what gives us short-term comfort. Like a drug, we seek out the next hit of security, often destroying anyone who gets in our way.

We demand that people deserve what we offer them—and then withhold from even the deserving. And when we are the ones in need—of food, shelter, clothing, love—we don’t understand how everyone can be so cruel as to not give us from their abundance. Surely, we would be different, we think. Surely, we would have made a space in our inn for a newborn baby. Unless the baby is an immigrant. Surely, we would have welcomed the preacher who returned home with a word of grace. Unless the preacher was trans. Surely, we would fight for the life of the innocent person condemned to death. Unless the person was black—or brown or Latino or gay or had an abortion.

Surely, we would have told the serpent where to go and dropped the forbidden fruit immediately. Unless the serpent told us that we knew better than God how to mold the earth to our needs. And told us that we could be gods, ourselves—but being a god means putting ourselves first, above all others. Isn’t that what gods do? And then the serpent would challenge us with an unholy competition—that whomever died with the most stuff wins.

But the serpent wouldn’t have warned us of the cost. That we would sell ourselves to profit and destroy our only home just to win an unwinnable competition. And so, with every new hurricane, every random flash flood, every melted glacier and iceberg, every newly extinct species, every wildfire, the climate cycles more furiously into chaos. And we go with it. Some more quickly than others. And at the end of all things, someone will still cry out, “But I won!”

This is my heart breaking every time I hear of more audacity and arrogance and incompetence. As environmental protections are stripped away, national parks taken over by mining equipment, renewable energy buried. As disaster after disaster hits the most vulnerable in the world. And yet, IF we believe in the Christ who died and was raised, then we also must believe that death does not have the last word. What does that look like for a planet in the throes of death?

What does resurrection look like among people who so often feel overwhelmed by the scope of it all? I know that it doesn’t feel like enough, but it’s the little things that we do. We, alone, won’t save the planet. My efforts at recycling aren’t even a drop in that bucket. But I do it. I do it because I care. I do it because I refuse to give up on hope. I do it because God still promises life, even when all seems lost. I do it because I’m angry. I do it because, perhaps a little like Wendell Berry, I too am a ‘Mad Farmer.’

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (1973)

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go.

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE