Touched by the Hand of God
Christ Episcopal Church,
Year A, Pentecost XIV, Season of Creation 1
Jeremiah 15:15-21, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-28
Friday was World Day of Prayer for Creation. It is a special day of prayer that seeks to remind us of our responsibility as caretakers of God’s creation and to renew our right relationship with God through creation. It was established in 1989 by Dimitrios I, Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.
The World Council of
Churches liked the idea very much and turned it into a movement and season, the
Season of Creation, which begins September 1 and ends October 4, the feast day
of St. Francis of
Today, millions of Christians of many denominations recognize and celebrate the Season of Creation as a time of renewal of our relationship with our Creator through creation and of our commitment together to be the worthy caretakers God calls us to be.
The movement has a website called “Season of Creation,” and every year a large steering committee of bishops and lay leaders devises a theme and a logo and develops a myriad of worship resources for individuals and churches to use. We will use one this morning—a special set of suffrages in place of the usual ones.
You might recall that I first learned about this movement one year ago and spoke about it the first Sunday of September from this very pulpit. And I must in fairness warn you that for as long as you are stuck with me the first Sunday of every month, you most likely will hear about it again when the season rolls around again!
So.. let us look at today’s Gospel lesson through a Season of Creation lens. Notice that it begins with Jesus summarizing his mission on Earth for his disciples. In just one sentence—a handful of words—he goes from life to death and back to life again. That was the path for him and it is the path for his followers. Jesus was about life, first and finally. The passage through death, the way of the cross, is neither beginning nor end. As he himself says in John’s Gospel, I came to bring life and to bring it abundantly.
From a Season of Creation perspective, what is striking about Earth is that it is teeming with life. Cosmologically speaking, it is a speck of rock spinning through the emptiness and darkness of space but through the miracles of atmosphere and water, it is crawling with and blooming with life in myriad and complex forms—biodiversity so rich and complex as to be declared “good” over and over again by its Creator (first chapter of Genesis) and to be loved by its Creator.
So here are a few
statistics, just because I happen to know them! In 2019, I went on a wildlife
photography trip to the
But unless you live under
a rock, you also know that we are losing the richness and fullness of life on
Earth at an alarming rate. I could stand here and cite dismal statistics all
day. Instead, I’ll refer you to a wonderful book called Rescuing Biodiversity,
Johnny Armstrong, retired MD, Wafer Creek Ranch near
And why is Earth losing biological richness at an alarming rate? Us. That’s why. Habitat loss, Invasive species (because we do dumb things), Pollution, Population growth (human), Overharvesting. (E.O. Wilson: HIPPO) Note that even though “human” is named in only one of them, we humans are responsible for all of them.
In sum, friends we are interfering with God’s plan for abundant life to flourish on Earth. We are not valuing, conserving, caring for what God declared to be “good.”
And that leads me to Jesus’ dialogue with Peter. It’s about values. It’s about priorities. It’s about where our heads are at! Which is fixed on human things, not divine things.
Our human minds are set on things like… making money. Not a bad thing in itself; we all need money. But when we look at creation through a lens of economics, rather than through God’s lens of “good” in and of itself, we destroy, we overharvest, we fill wetlands with dirt to build shopping malls.
Perhaps THE paradigm for
long-term destruction in exchange for short-term cash is the clear-cutting of
millions of acres of longleaf and shortleaf pine across the state of
We’re still paying for that folly. Today when I get home, one of the things I must do is write a letter from Louisiana Master Naturalist Association in support of a project Louisiana Dept. Wildlife and Fisheries is doing to restore longleaf pine savannah in an area that was clear cut all those years ago.
Another human mindset that leads to desecration of God’s sacred creation is.. convenience. We’re too busy to wash dishes! We’re in too much of a hurry to get to the next thing to be bothered with cleaning and refilling a water bottle.
Last week cleaning up
after
In other words, we stumble, like Peter. We get caught up in the destructive cycle of instant gratification, addicted to our busy busy life style, caught in the snare of an economic system that allows a small minority to over-indulge while the majority struggle to make ends meet, and nearly 800 million of our sisters and brothers – one out of ten! – go to bed hungry every day!
Jesus calls us to sacrifice, to generosity, to a simple life-style that values creation as “good” in and of itself. Jesus calls us to share, and of those of us who have more, to share more.
Care of creation is about responsible living. It is, of course, about big decisions—like working with other nations to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. But it is first and always about the daily choices we each make.. about what we buy, what we drive, where we set the thermostat, how we love our neighbor—and all of our fellow creatures on planet earth.
End with Brothers of
Creation–Jesus was intimately involved with the natural world. When he spoke of God and God’s Kingdom, he almost always pointed to the natural world: seeds, the harvest, the clouds, vines, weeds, sheep, fire, water, lilies, bread, wine. Walk out into God’s wonderful creation – and be touched by the very hand of God. –Bro. Tristam
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
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