September 1, Creation Day at the Nelson Church
Consider the Lilies of the Field”
Today September 1 is the World Day of Prayer for Creation proclaimed by the leaders of the two largest Christian denominations; Bartholomew, known as the Green Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, and Pope Francis of the Catholic Church. Both have been at the forefront of Christian concern for the Earth and against climate change. They have asked for prayer for the Earth. Also today also begins the Season of Creation for four Sundays in the month of September celebrated ecumenically by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches. My own church—the Federated Church is participating in the Season of Creation.
The UCC has defined its mission in the three loves. The love of neighbor, love of children, and love of creation. All three are interconnected loves.
First, I want to define creation. It is a theological term, not a cosmological word. Let me simply define creation as “the universe as God sees and finds delights in.” The universe is beloved—all of creation is loved by the Creator. When I speak about creation, I speak from a faith perspective. It is easy to talk the cosmos, the Earth, and the natural world. Many people consider the natural world as thing, an object to be This commodification of the natural world reflects a contemporary, emotional and spiritual apartheid from the natural world. Thus, they see the world as a thing to be used and exploited for profit. And this is one of the major points of view that has produced our climate crisis. Today I grieve with God’s Spirit at the massive fires around the world—the Amazon, Alaska, Western Canada and the US, Spain and Russia. Climate change is a deep personal concern on what humanity is doing to change the planetary environments.
But I have a different intention in sermon today. I want to further your love for creation, for our neighbors and children.
Let me start with an interesting, perhaps scriptural paradoxical notion. Let me quote Psalm 19:1-4.
The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard, and yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of world.
Before I talk about the meaning of the Psalm. Let me recite another passage from Job 12:7-10. God says,
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In the Spirit’s hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all humanity.
The Psalm tells that the earth has its own language, a voice not heard but yet a voice that goes out through all the earth. In Job, God instructs Job that animals will teach, the birds of the air will speak to you, and the fish will inform you. In both passages, God reveals that whole universe is God’s speaking in a language more ancient than any scriptures or their languages. Creation is a more primal scripture, and that is why Galileo speaks of the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture, both sources of God’s speaking to us.
Have you taken the time to listen to the natural world speak? Each morning I walk my dog, I take time to listen to biophonic sounds of life and/or the geophonic sounds of nature, the raining falling down, the brook streaming below our home, or the wind, sometimes soundless, or the trees rustling in the breeze. Have you taken the opportunity to listen to the Spirit speaking through the environmental souls of the natural world? For our indigenous peoples, the Earth and the web of life are our older siblings to us. They listen to the mountains, trees, plants, animals, the streams and lakes, and so on require that be attention to siblings around us. Belden Lane, a Christian theologian, who has developed a landscape theology, writes, “We’re surrounded by a world that talks, but we don’t listen. We are part of a community engaged in a vast conversation, but we deny our role in it.” He engages in ancient practice that goes back to indigenous peoples and the fourth century Sinai desert fathers and mothers, lectio divina, praying from the book of nature.
Let me address Jesus’ words on the lilies of the field. I confess that I love lilies. When I lived in St. Louis, I had hundreds and hundreds of lilies in my backyard. Each morning during the summer, the lilies would open to the sun and reveal their majestic beauty and colors facing the sun. But they became parables of living parables of the enfleshed presence of God’s spirit.
My husband and I saw on channel 9 that there was a place nearby with six hundred varieties of lilies. No we did not buy all six hundred, even though I wanted to one of each, but we bought only seven varieties this year. And there is next year.
This morning’s reading from Luke on the lilies of the field was inspired by the farewell party for Rev. Dawn. I fell in love with the beauty of the garden of flowers. They attracted my attention and sparked ideas for this Sunday’s sermon.
The poet Emily Dickinson, from her Congregationalist heritage, found God manifested everywhere in nature, and she considered her garden as church. Dickson had in mind these words of Jesus when she remarked, “Consider the lilies is the only commandment I ever obeyed.” The greatest commandment for Dickinson is consideration of the lilies of the field. It is not a commandment in words but a living parable. Lilies find God in the present moment, in the air they interbreathe, their presence and sheer colorful beauty speak of God’s amazing artistry in plant life. The lilies incarnate a spirituality for us by providing us physical and sensuous connections to God in nature. Ecotheologian Jay McDaniel observes, “But the lilies also have something important to say not in words but in sheer presence. In their naturalness and spontaneity, in their receptivity to the breath of life, they embody the heart of spirituality. They find God in their present moment.”
There is a lesson to be learned. Dickinson reminds us that are deepest calling is to be totally open to God in a distinctly human way as the lilies do in a lilies way.
Lilies transport us into amazement and wonder of our Creator. The lilies provide an example how to be open to God in their own flora ways. They are attentive to their Creator, dependent upon the natural gift of the Earth, sun, water, and often human care. They greet the sun with a burst of color, giving praise to God and totally dependent upon God’s creation gifts. Jesus instructs his disciples to imitate the lilies. Certainly, that is what caught the spiritual awareness of Emily Dickenson.
But a little more about Emily Dickinson. She often skipped Sunday morning at her Congregationalist Church for Sunday during the summer months for the church of her garden. She writes,
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.
I offer my own disclaimer that my words are not as eloquent in the brevity and beauty that God speaks through lilies. Nor is Dickinson’s justification excuse you to skip Sunday worship, for Dickinson makes the point that church is found outside these four walls. We might want to move Sunday church in the outside in the garden. Th Federated Church did that for sunrise service on Easter Sunday and moved to the ruins of the original town square of Marlborough and its adjacent cemetery. It captured an aspect of that original Easter morning with sun, trees, and the rebirth of Jesus as the resurrected Christ.
Back to Jesus’ words consider the lilies of the field that something to say to us this morning. The lilies speak to us in their presence and beauty, their naturalness to open to the sun during daylight and close at dusk. They witness to God in the present moment. Lilies, for me, teach me how to listen and pray in the present. Teach me how nforgo be anxious, or at least, remind me of a larger presence here and now.
Jesus teaches his disciples how God’s providence and abundance within creation. Life in God’s kin-dom is sufficiently abundant. God’s creation is a pre-original grace where we live and abide. When I use pre-original, I mean the created Earth, its evolution of the conditions for life exists. It is a gift to us, and we seldom pay attention to that gift providing for life.
As we listen and learn from lilies and other siblings in our environment. The Earth is alive and a primal gift of love. When we take the time to mindfully engage the natural word, to listen to plant and wildlife, we fall in love with what is alive around us. We are willing to protect what we love. If we ever reach the point of indigenous people’s intimacy with the natural world, we will protect our family and kin from human devastation.
I want to give you a wonderful example how listening to creation around us we discover the truth of our creatureliness among other creatures. We live in a matrix of grace. I want to end off with two earth sages who have listened to lilies and other plants of the Earth. They took the book of creation serious.
The first is Wendelll Berry, an American farmer, author, wisdom sage and poet.
Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world, within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine—which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight is turned into grapes.
Listen to another earth sage, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a research botanist and indigenous woman:
Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the wellbeing of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. Hoarding the gift, we become constipated with wealth, bloated with possessions, too heavy to join the dance. A gift asks something of you. To take care of it. And Something more…The gifts of the earth are to be shared, but gifts are not limitless. The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all. Every bowl has a bottom.
This morning I invite you after the service to go and be aware of the flower garden. Allow your senses to explore some wonder at disciples of God’s miracles of life. Those flowers are our siblings, along with the trees, streams, lakes, and mountains, and wildlife. Listen and learn and fall in love with God’s creation.
.
Consider the Lilies of the Field”
Today September 1 is the World Day of Prayer for Creation proclaimed by the leaders of the two largest Christian denominations; Bartholomew, known as the Green Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, and Pope Francis of the Catholic Church. Both have been at the forefront of Christian concern for the Earth and against climate change. They have asked for prayer for the Earth. Also today also begins the Season of Creation for four Sundays in the month of September celebrated ecumenically by Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches. My own church—the Federated Church is participating in the Season of Creation.
The UCC has defined its mission in the three loves. The love of neighbor, love of children, and love of creation. All three are interconnected loves.
First, I want to define creation. It is a theological term, not a cosmological word. Let me simply define creation as “the universe as God sees and finds delights in.” The universe is beloved—all of creation is loved by the Creator. When I speak about creation, I speak from a faith perspective. It is easy to talk the cosmos, the Earth, and the natural world. Many people consider the natural world as thing, an object to be This commodification of the natural world reflects a contemporary, emotional and spiritual apartheid from the natural world. Thus, they see the world as a thing to be used and exploited for profit. And this is one of the major points of view that has produced our climate crisis. Today I grieve with God’s Spirit at the massive fires around the world—the Amazon, Alaska, Western Canada and the US, Spain and Russia. Climate change is a deep personal concern on what humanity is doing to change the planetary environments.
But I have a different intention in sermon today. I want to further your love for creation, for our neighbors and children.
Let me start with an interesting, perhaps scriptural paradoxical notion. Let me quote Psalm 19:1-4.
The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard, and yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of world.
Before I talk about the meaning of the Psalm. Let me recite another passage from Job 12:7-10. God says,
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In the Spirit’s hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all humanity.
The Psalm tells that the earth has its own language, a voice not heard but yet a voice that goes out through all the earth. In Job, God instructs Job that animals will teach, the birds of the air will speak to you, and the fish will inform you. In both passages, God reveals that whole universe is God’s speaking in a language more ancient than any scriptures or their languages. Creation is a more primal scripture, and that is why Galileo speaks of the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture, both sources of God’s speaking to us.
Have you taken the time to listen to the natural world speak? Each morning I walk my dog, I take time to listen to biophonic sounds of life and/or the geophonic sounds of nature, the raining falling down, the brook streaming below our home, or the wind, sometimes soundless, or the trees rustling in the breeze. Have you taken the opportunity to listen to the Spirit speaking through the environmental souls of the natural world? For our indigenous peoples, the Earth and the web of life are our older siblings to us. They listen to the mountains, trees, plants, animals, the streams and lakes, and so on require that be attention to siblings around us. Belden Lane, a Christian theologian, who has developed a landscape theology, writes, “We’re surrounded by a world that talks, but we don’t listen. We are part of a community engaged in a vast conversation, but we deny our role in it.” He engages in ancient practice that goes back to indigenous peoples and the fourth century Sinai desert fathers and mothers, lectio divina, praying from the book of nature.
Let me address Jesus’ words on the lilies of the field. I confess that I love lilies. When I lived in St. Louis, I had hundreds and hundreds of lilies in my backyard. Each morning during the summer, the lilies would open to the sun and reveal their majestic beauty and colors facing the sun. But they became parables of living parables of the enfleshed presence of God’s spirit.
My husband and I saw on channel 9 that there was a place nearby with six hundred varieties of lilies. No we did not buy all six hundred, even though I wanted to one of each, but we bought only seven varieties this year. And there is next year.
This morning’s reading from Luke on the lilies of the field was inspired by the farewell party for Rev. Dawn. I fell in love with the beauty of the garden of flowers. They attracted my attention and sparked ideas for this Sunday’s sermon.
The poet Emily Dickinson, from her Congregationalist heritage, found God manifested everywhere in nature, and she considered her garden as church. Dickson had in mind these words of Jesus when she remarked, “Consider the lilies is the only commandment I ever obeyed.” The greatest commandment for Dickinson is consideration of the lilies of the field. It is not a commandment in words but a living parable. Lilies find God in the present moment, in the air they interbreathe, their presence and sheer colorful beauty speak of God’s amazing artistry in plant life. The lilies incarnate a spirituality for us by providing us physical and sensuous connections to God in nature. Ecotheologian Jay McDaniel observes, “But the lilies also have something important to say not in words but in sheer presence. In their naturalness and spontaneity, in their receptivity to the breath of life, they embody the heart of spirituality. They find God in their present moment.”
There is a lesson to be learned. Dickinson reminds us that are deepest calling is to be totally open to God in a distinctly human way as the lilies do in a lilies way.
Lilies transport us into amazement and wonder of our Creator. The lilies provide an example how to be open to God in their own flora ways. They are attentive to their Creator, dependent upon the natural gift of the Earth, sun, water, and often human care. They greet the sun with a burst of color, giving praise to God and totally dependent upon God’s creation gifts. Jesus instructs his disciples to imitate the lilies. Certainly, that is what caught the spiritual awareness of Emily Dickenson.
But a little more about Emily Dickinson. She often skipped Sunday morning at her Congregationalist Church for Sunday during the summer months for the church of her garden. She writes,
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I, just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton sings.
God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.
I offer my own disclaimer that my words are not as eloquent in the brevity and beauty that God speaks through lilies. Nor is Dickinson’s justification excuse you to skip Sunday worship, for Dickinson makes the point that church is found outside these four walls. We might want to move Sunday church in the outside in the garden. Th Federated Church did that for sunrise service on Easter Sunday and moved to the ruins of the original town square of Marlborough and its adjacent cemetery. It captured an aspect of that original Easter morning with sun, trees, and the rebirth of Jesus as the resurrected Christ.
Back to Jesus’ words consider the lilies of the field that something to say to us this morning. The lilies speak to us in their presence and beauty, their naturalness to open to the sun during daylight and close at dusk. They witness to God in the present moment. Lilies, for me, teach me how to listen and pray in the present. Teach me how nforgo be anxious, or at least, remind me of a larger presence here and now.
Jesus teaches his disciples how God’s providence and abundance within creation. Life in God’s kin-dom is sufficiently abundant. God’s creation is a pre-original grace where we live and abide. When I use pre-original, I mean the created Earth, its evolution of the conditions for life exists. It is a gift to us, and we seldom pay attention to that gift providing for life.
As we listen and learn from lilies and other siblings in our environment. The Earth is alive and a primal gift of love. When we take the time to mindfully engage the natural word, to listen to plant and wildlife, we fall in love with what is alive around us. We are willing to protect what we love. If we ever reach the point of indigenous people’s intimacy with the natural world, we will protect our family and kin from human devastation.
I want to give you a wonderful example how listening to creation around us we discover the truth of our creatureliness among other creatures. We live in a matrix of grace. I want to end off with two earth sages who have listened to lilies and other plants of the Earth. They took the book of creation serious.
The first is Wendelll Berry, an American farmer, author, wisdom sage and poet.
Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world, within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine—which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight is turned into grapes.
Listen to another earth sage, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a research botanist and indigenous woman:
Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the wellbeing of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. Hoarding the gift, we become constipated with wealth, bloated with possessions, too heavy to join the dance. A gift asks something of you. To take care of it. And Something more…The gifts of the earth are to be shared, but gifts are not limitless. The generosity of the earth is not an invitation to take it all. Every bowl has a bottom.
This morning I invite you after the service to go and be aware of the flower garden. Allow your senses to explore some wonder at disciples of God’s miracles of life. Those flowers are our siblings, along with the trees, streams, lakes, and mountains, and wildlife. Listen and learn and fall in love with God’s creation.
.