Beauty surrounds us, but we usually need to be walking in a garden to know it - Rumi
Readings: Genesis 2:4b-19, 15-25, Psalm 65, Revelation 4, Luke 8:22-25 Last year I found an unmarked envelope at the back of the kitchen drawer. It contained some dry dusty seeds. I had no idea what they were but I scattered them in the garden without too much care. Shortly afterwards green shoots appeared heralding a fine crop of beautiful flowers! How did that happen? Nothing that I had done could have converted those dry dusty seeds into flowers. So how? The answer can be found in our Old Testament reading which describes the creation of the world. God had created the world but there were no plant or herbs growing yet as God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no one to till the ground. So, God provided the rain to water the earth and someone to work on it. That way the seed could grow. Yet that still doesn’t answer the question; how does the dry seed turn into a flower or vegetable? Again our Old Testament reading provides the answer: ‘then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being.’ Once again, it is God who breathes life not only into man at his creation, or birth, but into the seed as well enabling it to develop into a flower, fruit or vegetable! Now, whilst some may dismiss this version of creation as an out dated legend since scientists have shown that we humans evolved over millions of years, nevertheless someone or something must have breathed life into the first organism, whatever it was; a someone we call God, so maybe this is not so far-fetched after all. What is clear is that God loves all his Creation; including the human being he made to care for it. He showed that love by creating not only food for man to eat and birds and animals to help him care for the planet but a companion, in the form of a woman. The Lord God created you and me. How then should we respond to that love? This morning’s Psalm is a hymn of thanksgiving for the earth’s bounty. The opening words ‘Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion’ make that very clear right the way through the psalm, ending with the words: ‘the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy’, whilst the reading from the Revelation of St John the Divine, reinforces that response with everyone singing: ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things’ God created all things and God loves His Creation. In fact so much that in St. Matthew’s Gospel we learn that; ‘he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.’ Matt.5:45 NRSV. So that is why the weeds in our garden flourish! And so although Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the Garden of Eden, yet God still showed his love and compassion for them by providing them with clothing to cover their nakedness as they wandered the earth. Now, the one point is very clear throughout all three of our readings, and the psalm this morning and that is that God created Adam, and by extension us, to act as stewards of his creation but we do not own it. It is not ours to do with as we wish, it is God’s creation. Our Gospel reading tells us that when the storm threatened to sink the boat and drown the disciples, despite being experienced fishermen who would have known the lake like the back of their hand, there was nothing they could do to prevent the storm, only God, in Jesus could do that: ‘And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.’ God’s Creation, not ours, and we must respect that. Yet we treat it as if it were provided just for our own benefit. We mine for coal and other precious resources, we drill for oil and we tear down trees, we pollute the rivers and oceans with our discarded plastic. All to give ourselves a better standard of living with no thought about other people or future generations. As a result the earth is getting hotter so that we are experiencing more violent and devastating storms and floods as we have seen over the last few days and record summer temperatures. It is clear that as stewards we have not done a very good job so far, but time is running out for us to work for a sustainable planet, since climate change affects everything from geopolitics to economies to migration, shaping cities and life expectancies. We are quite capable of making the necessary changes to our lifestyle, if we have a mind to do so. But do we have the will to do so? Much was expected of the recent UN conference on climate change in Glasgow but whilst some progress was made, cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are still far from where they need to be to preserve a liveable climate, whilst support for the most vulnerable countries affected by the impacts of climate change is still falling far short. “The approved texts are a compromise,” said UN Secretary-General. “They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today. They take important steps, but unfortunately the collective political will was not enough to overcome some deep contradictions.” “They reflect the state of political will in the world today”. In other words it is someone else’s problem not mine. But, YES IT IS. Each one of us must play our part to show more respect for God’s Creation. So, what can we do? Well, we can lobby our politicians, and big business, to make a real commitment to the challenge. The Church of England has drawn up a Route Map to net zero carbon emissions by 2030. Now, getting to that level in the next eight years can sound a bit like pie in the sky but the aim is for us to do what we can, not what we can’t. We need to be realistic about what we can afford, and what is good value in environmental terms. So, as a church we at St Mary Magdalene must consider how we might become more environmentally sustainable. Prayer is, as ever a good place to start but the Diocese has a great deal of good advice on its website. Why not take a look? But how can we as individuals make a difference? How can we reduce our carbon footprint? I offer a few ideas for your consideration: Could we share cars, or maybe use public transport? Could we turn the heating thermostat down by 1°C or reduce the time that the heating is on by 15 minutes. (We need to be aware of the health and age of our family before turning the heating down too much. Hypothermia is a killer.) We might install low-energy light bulbs and think about switching to green energy. The Energy Savings Trust has some good advice. Again, we might look at how many air miles our food has travelled before reaching the supermarket shelf. Is there a more local alternative available? One of our neighbours eats a vegetarian diet one week but a meat diet the next. Is that an option? We need to remember that God loves each of us and we are called to love him in return. One way we can do that is by a more careful stewarding of his creation, because unless we do something about reducing our carbon footprint now, things will only get worse. By doing something, even something quite small, we will show our love for God and for our neighbour, whoever and wherever he or she is. So this week let us ‘sing and shout for joy’ in praise, gratitude and thanksgiving to our loving God and Creator for the beauty and bounty of His Creation. And let us take some positive step, however small, to care for God’s planet more carefully than we have done in the past.
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AuthorI am an Authorised Local Preacher in an Anglo Catholic parish church, in the Diocese of Essex UK Archives
February 2022
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