The Glastonbury Festival is a music festival featuring artists from around the world performing on multiple stages. Those who are fortunate enough to have tickets are treated to a long weekend of music and specialty acts. This year Bruce Springsteen joined Paul McCartney on stage. Yesterday, festival-goers heard 19-year-old Greta Thunberg deliver a powerful warning about the dangers of climate change. The earth’s biosphere is “not just changing, it is destabilizing, it is breaking down,” she warned. She criticized world leaders for creating loopholes to protect firms whose emissions cause climate change. “That is a moral decision . . . that will put the entire living planet at risk,” she added.

Greta Thunberg has delivered quite a few powerful speeches in recent years and world leaders have taken notice. Many people like myself have been inspired by the wisdom, courage, and leadership of the teenager. In her Glastonbury speech she spoke of hope, saying, “We are capable of the most incredible things. Once we are given the full story . . . we will know what to do. There is still time to choose a new path, to step back from the cliff. Instead of looking for hope, start creating that hope yourself.”

There are many arenas in which I am deeply grateful for the leadership of young people. Climate justice and action to prevent further global warming is an area in which I feel the leadership of young people is especially crucial. We have already participated in activities and decisions that are wasteful and that put future generations at risk. We need to change and the time for change is right now, but people my age are not providing all of the leadership that is needed. In this cry for justice is is often true that youth are the leaders to which he world needs to listen.

In the 11th chapter of the book of Isaiah, there is a powerful description of a vision of a world at peace. The prophet comments that “A little child shall lead them.” It has always been true that faithful people listen carefully to the leadership of young people.

Today is one of two meetings held each year in our congregation. The annual meeting takes place in January and the congregation adopts its annual budget during that meeting. In our June meeting we elect leaders to serve on boards and committees and in the offices of the church. Both meetings are opportunities for the congregation to exercise vision and hope.

Included in today’s meeting will be the presentation of a letter that grew out of a faith formation group called “adult forum.” It is a small group who work together to study and learn about their faith. This year they invested several months reading and discussing the book “Climate Church, Climate World” by Jim Antal. They had the opportunity to visit with the author during a Zoom meeting in May. One of the challenges in the book is one of imagination. Readers are challenged to imagine what children and young people might say to the congregation in the future about the decisions that we are making right now. The Adult Forum group took up that challenge and imagined such a letter. Today that letter will be led by a young man who is among the newest members of our congregation, having just completed his confirmation preparation class and joined the church.

The reading of the letter is one more example of the leadership of youth in our church and society. Like the people who first heard Isaiah’s prophetic words, we are once again being given the opportunity to listen to the leadership of a young person on a topic of critical importance. It is a call to hope, but that hope must be built on decisions and actions that we take in our personal and communal lives.

Church meetings often do not hold surprises for me. I have been to so many that i have a sense of what to expect. This meeting is no exception. I am pretty sure about what will happen and how the congregation will decide. The reaction of the congregation to the letter, however, is something that I am unable to predict. I hope that the meeting will be the beginning of a renewed and re-energized commitment to responsible and moral choices by the congregation. This church already has a legacy of making important decisions in regards to climate justice. The time is right to build upon those decisions and becoming a congregation that is constantly aware of and responding to a call to creation care.

I am fairly confident that the congregation will give the young man presenting the letter careful attention. They have already heard him speak of his faith and his passion when he addressed us a few weeks ago. Now they have the opportunity to be moved by the leadership of young people in our congregation as they call us to make new and challenging decisions about our consumption of energy and other resources.

The BBC has reported that Greta Thunberg’s speech was warmly received by festival-goers, who joined her in a chant of “climate justice” at the end of her speech. I suspect that the response in our church’s meeting today will be not quite as loud or raucous as that of the audience at a music festival. I do, however, expect that a similar passion and energy can be stirred in our church. Amazing things can occur when we listen to the leadership of our youth.

I have wonderful opportunities to live in hope because I am able to spend time with my grandchildren. They inspire me and challenge me to think about my impact on their future and what kind of a world we will leave to them. Imagining how they will grow up and the world that we will leave to them when our time on this earth has ended is a regular challenge for me. May they and other children continue to inspire us to action to change our ways and contribute to a brighter future for all.