Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 06 09 26
OLD TESTAMENT READING: Isaiah 55.12–end
NEW TESTAMENT READING: Colossians 1.15-20
GOSPEL John 1.1-14
The Church of England is celebrating the first Sunday of September as a festival to celebrate creation and the creator who is the living God. The festival is themed Christ in Creation.
We live in a world that is facing Climate emergency, glaziers are melting, seasons are changing. There is increasing numbers of drought and famine affecting all the people of the world. We are facing a situation where there are people who don’t care about what is happening around us and there are people who are alarmed about the rapid changes that are taking place affecting the entire eco system. We have just now witnessed the devastating impact of glaciers melting due to global warming, floods in Nepal and Tibet causing massive destruction. The Church of England and other ecumenical churches have woken up to this new reality and calls on all the believers to be concerned about the situation and do something about this.
St Augustine observes, in our self-obsession we often fail to make the connection:
‘Is there anyone who, contemplating the works of God by which the entire universe is governed and ordered, is not amazed and overwhelmed by a sense of the miraculous? The power and strength of a single grain of seed is itself an amazing thing, inspiring awe in its contemplation. But humanity, preoccupied with its own petty agenda, has lost the capacity to contemplate the works of God by which it should daily render praise to God as creator.’
Saint Augustine said this observing the mentality of people even in his time. People take creation for granted and are incapable to see that we cannot live without being in harmony with creation.
There have been great theologians in the early church who opened the eyes of the believers to the sanctity in creation. Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the fourth century, says,
‘All creatures praise you, both those who speak and those that are dumb. All creatures bow down before you, both those that can think and those that cannot. The longing of the universe, the groaning of creation reaches out to you. Everything that exists prays to you, and every creature that can read your universe directs to you a hymn of silence.’
One of the ancient churches, the orthodox church believes that the worship of the creator is offered by all the plants and animals all the time. We as human beings only join in the ongoing worship of God as Gregory of Nazianzus mentions.
St. Paul draws our attention to a sacred mystery in creation. While writing to the church in Colossae, he puts things in perspective by saying, ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.’
This amazing affirmation reminds us that everything that we see and don’t see are the handiwork of God, created by Christ and through Christ and for Christ.
We also heard a statement of Faith from John’s gospel. For John Jesus is the eternal word and everything that exists was created by him. The entire created order is sacred as it is not accidental but the outcome of a divine plan of life and Jesus is the source of that life. Therefore what we need to remember is that we live in sacred space. We are part of God’s plan created to experience his glory in creation.
‘But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’