Every Sunday it’s our habit to say the Nicene Creed, which begins with the declaration that we believe in “one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen”. The Creed says a lot of things about God as Trinity, but it begins by describing God as creator of, well, everything, both the knowable, visible world of matter and physics and science, but also the mystical, invisible world of spirit, angels and heavenly realms. And, between those two worlds, is us, humans, the beneficiaries of God’s creative acts. So today we’re going on a little diversion and try to think through what it means for us to live in God’s creation.
I’ve chosen today because we’re at the start of what the Anglican Church of Canada calls the Season of Creation. The inspiration for this idea comes from the Orthodox Church custom of observing September 1 as the Feast of Creation. In 2019 our Anglican Church fixed Sept. 1 as the start of this season and extended it to October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis. Our national church website explains that the Season of Creation is meant to be “an annual season of prayer, education and action to protect the gift of God’s creation.” I’ll come back to the action and protection parts in a minute.
First, I think it’s fair to say that at some basic level, even if we aren’t theologians, we all know something about the Christian idea of Creation. I’ll prove it to you with a snap quiz.
I’m going to quote part of a line from four well known hymns and I want you to finish the line. Here goes.
- “This is my Father’s world, and to my list’ning ears ____________________________________
(all nature sings).
2) “All things wise and wonderful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, _____________________.
(the Lord God made them all)
3) “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder ______________________.
(consider all the works thy hand have made).
4) “We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is fed and watered ________________. (by God’s almighty hand)
Well done! Many of you I’m sure have been singing these hymns since you were children, and along the way these and other hymns have taught us about our faith. They’ve taught us something that theologians call the Doctrine of Creation, and even though the word Doctrine sounds dry and scary, it’s pretty simple.
As children, and indeed as seminarians, one of the first things we are taught is that our lives and indeed the world around us are part of a gift from God that we call creation.
We need to note right of the top that creation is a theological word. We might think it’s synonymous with nature or even the environment, but those words have a neutrality about them, whereas creation points to our belief that God’s first business is creation.
It’s also important to state that we as Christians can talk about creation without being anti-science. The debate between evolution and religion is an old debate and a false dichotomy. The creeds don’t require us to believe that the world was created in seven days vs seven billion years. I once heard a professor say that science can date the Big Bang to somewhere around 13 billion years ago, but what happened before that is a matter for theologians. That seems right to me. I think it’s possible to speak of the entire universe as being created.
One of the gifts of indigenous spirituality is that it has helped us see God first and foremost as Creator. The idea of creation being entrusted to us as stewards is there in scripture, but the indigenous world view of living in gratitude for the created world and in balance with the created world is a great gift.
I often hear your appreciation of creation as a gift thanks to our very talented and faithful intercessors. Our Prayers of the People often expresses gratitude for this beautiful part of the world that we live in, and we also pray for those parts of the world and its people that are suffering. We say these prayers because the church exists in the world, and we trust that God loves the world that God made and gifted to us.
You might even say that the world depends on God for its existence. Thomas Aquinas once said that the world "is less like a house that outlasts its builder, and more like a sunbeam, which would vanish the instant the sun withdrew”. So we believe that God is the creator and the sustainer, and that should give us hope when we are tempted to despair by the state of the creation.
I don’t need to go into detail about the source of that despair. We’ve all lived through days where the air was bitter with wildfire smoke. We saw the summer heat in Europe rise to the mid forties, temperatures that kill the poor and elderly. We saw the videos of the floods in Nepal caused by the collapse of a glacier. Can we prove that the Nepal disaster caused by climate change? Whatever the answer, it seems harder and harder to deny that human activity and fossil fuel has changed the world we live in.
Most of us here today won’t live to see how bad things could get, but our grandchildren will. Last week our federal government released a report which said that since 1947, Canada has warmed two degrees and Northern Canada about 2.6 degrees. If we do nothing, by the end of the century Canada will be 6.9 degrees warmer that it was before the Industrial Revolution. That means more drought, more wildfires, and the end of Western Canada’s glaciers. If we can reach the goal of Net Zero emissions by 2050, we can limit the damage, but that doesn’t look likely. This June the Carney government admitted that Canada will not meet its 2030 greenhouse gas climates.
So what can we do? I would say that the most important thing is not to lose hope. Politically, you’ve got voices and votes. Use them to show candidates that you care about renewable energy, green policies, and the future of the planet.
As Christians, I think we all need to be intentional about talking about the created world as a precious gift for all. Maybe that starts with a stronger appreciation for where we live. The late poet Wendell Berry put it well when he challenged words like “the environment”, a word which he said “refers to no place in particular”. Berry said that “The environment,” as we call it, is intimately with us. We’re in it. It’s in us. But also we are it, and it is us.”
As Christians, that means that we all depend on a particular place, a part of the world, to give us life, to share with others, and to pass on to those who come after us. One way to deepen that awareness might be to check out Creation Church, the initiative of our associate priest Amy as described in this month’s All Saints Alive. Praying and worshipping in nature reminds us that our connection with God exists extends outside of this church building. To quote Wendell Berry again, he said that he had to carry the gospels into the woods to see his need for them. You may find that to be true for you as well.
Caring for creation also means caring for our neighbour. We are somewhat protected from the climate crisis here in Canada, but other parts of the world feel it much worse, especially as first world countries cut their foreign aid budgets. One initiative that we our national church has launched through our Alongside Hope agency is the Solar Suitcase project for Mozambique. This project will provide small health clinics with a solar panel, lighting, and fetal imaging equipment to help women who give birth at night. Each suitcase costs $6500 Canadian. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if All Saints could raise the money for one of these suitcases by next Pentecost. Do you want to embrace that challenge?
Finally, I would say that it all comes back to our faith in Jesus. I changed our gospel reading for today to remind us that when we speak of God as Creator, we are speaking of the Holy Trinity. St Paul wrote in Colossians that “all things have been created through him and for him . and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:16). The hands that created the stars are the same hands that Jesus offers to us as our friend and guide in life. He has, as they say, the whole world in his hands. He always has held it. Which means that our faith and trust in the promise of the resurrection should give us faith and trust for the future of the created world that is our gift and our privilege to share.
That understanding of creation is part of the gospel. So is the idea that God is as present to creation now he was as at its beginning. The world is held in being at this moment as freshly as it was at the first moment of its existence. The cosmos is less like a house — as Aquinas put it — that outlasts its builder, and more like a sunbeam, which would vanish the instant the sun withdrew. God is not only maker, but sustainer. Another part of the good news of the doctrine of creation is, therefore, the good news of God’s presence.
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