TOUCHING THE EARTH LIGHTLY
Introduction: I want to use this early Christian hymn in Colossians to frame our reflection on the fifth mark of mission: To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
Reading: Colossians 1v15-23
The first half of the hymn sets the scene and lays the foundation:
Christ is the firstborn of all creation; so, we can count not just one another, but the sun as our brother and the moon as our sister.
All things were made through Christ; who, as word and wisdom, was with God in the beginning.
All things hold together in Christ; his Spirit pulses in every atom and is the green fuse in every shoot.
Jesus, whom we recognise as longed-for Messiah, is Lord over all creation, and all creation is the subject of God’s loving and saving purposes.
The second half of the hymn mirrors the first, and moves towards the new creation:
Christ is the firstborn of the dead – the first fruits of the new creation;
Christ is the head of the church – called to be a seed of the new creation;
Through Christ, God was reconciling to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross. And he has enlisted us in that ministry of reconciliation.
So, don’t let anybody limit God’s salvation to the chosen few; don’t let anybody kid you that God is concerned only with humanity; and don’t be misled into believing that ultimately this world can be jettisoned, like a redundant space capsule, at the point when we go to a ‘better place’. This is the space which God created; this is the place where God became flesh; and this is the world which God will make new.
After all this exalted God talk, let’s come down to earth.
We will take our inspiration from Psalm 104; which will lead us…
· To Lament the state of God’s creation today;
· To grow in wisdom as to the way we live;
· To fulfil our calling as a seed of God’s new creation.
(Psalm 104): Let’s read it together, and I’ll comment as we go…
1 Praise the Lord, my soul.
Lord my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendour and majesty.
2 The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
4 He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants.
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
These verses not only declare God to be creator; they affirm that creatjon serves and obeys its creator; ‘the clouds his chariot… the winds his messengers’. God’s relationship with creation might at this point seem to be at one step removed, but as we read on the relationship between Creator and creation is described more intimately.
6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
8 they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
9 You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth.
10 He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
11 They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
15 wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
16 The trees of the Lord are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
18 The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.
19 He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
20 You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
21 The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
22 The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
23 Then people go out to their work,
to their labour until evening.
God is pictured not only as ruling Creation, but as sustaining it, providing for it and delighting in its diversity… donkeys, cattle, storks, goats, cedar, juniper, hyrax and lion… God has them all in mind and at heart, from greatest to least. Which leads us to the first part of God’s word to us in this psalm; which is the call to lament. We are living through the sixth mass extinction this planet has known, but the first one caused by humankind; within the last 70 years the population of wild animals has halved.
This loss of diversity - this loss of life – is something we must lament.
I recall how, in a recent series of Spring Watch, a BBC Sound Engineer broke into tears as he explained his fear that if he didn’t record the sound of a nightingale, his grandchildren might never get to hear one here in the UK.
The second part of God’s word to us in the Psalm is that, having lamented this loss of life, we are to repent and learn new wisdom in how we, as humanity, live. The Psalm celebrates the wisdom of God in setting boundaries for the waters, in establishing the rhythms of Spring and Autumn, of wet and dry, of day and night. The foolishness of humanity, especially since the industrial revolution, ha been to believe in unlimited economic growth, unlimited consumption of resources, unlimited technological control. I hope and pray that the experience of this pandemic, in bringing us to our knees, will also bring us to our senses, and that we will learn to live wisely and well within the boundaries and rhythms God, in God’s wisdom, has provided for us.
For me that means sowing seeds in Spring, cooking with home-grown tomatoes in Summer, jam and wine-making in Autumn and eating leeks and beetroots into the Winter.
So, lament, wisdom and – finally – hope.
24 How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
26 There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
27 All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
29 When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
Our hope is in God, and our technological know-how can either serve God’s purposes or oppose them. For God is not only the God who created the world in the first place, as our hymn from Colossians affirms God is also the God who is already renewing creation. For the scope of God’s loving and saving purposes is nothing less that all things: all people, all creation.
Colossians dares to see an exalted role for the Church, as the body of Christ, which I suggest to you entails a calling to be a seed of God’s renewed creation.
For it is as we give ourselves, lose ourselves, for the sake of the world, that the shape of God’s renewed, resurrected, creation will come into being.
For us in Bristol, that has meant turning over part of our church grounds at Parkway, into a Community Garden, and working towards becoming an Eco Church at Victoria.
In so doing the church becomes visibly part of the good news of God’s saving love for the world.
And to God be the glory!
So, let us lament the loss of life which we are witnessing, and not let it pass unnoticed as if it is was inevitable or acceptable. It is neither; it is the direct result of human foolishness and greed.
Let us allow the experience of this pandemic to lead us to repentance, through which we may learn a new wisdom to live within the boundaries and rhythms of creation.
And let us, in joyful response to the hope we have in Christ, seek to fulfil our calling as Church to be a seed of the new creation.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the Lord.
35 But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
Praise the Lord.
1 Touch the earth lightly,
use the earth gently,
nourish the life of the world in our care:
gift of great wonder,
ours to surrender,
trust for the children tomorrow will bear.
2 We who endanger,
who create hunger,
agents of death for all creatures that live,
we who would foster
clouds of disaster —
God of our planet, forestall and forgive!
3 Let there be greening,
birth from the burning,
water that blesses and air that is sweet,
health in God's garden,
hope in God's children,
regeneration that peace will complete.
4 God of all living,
God of all loving,
God of the seedling, the snow and the sun,
teach us, deflect us,
Christ reconnect us,
using us gently, and making us one.
Shirley Erena Murray (b. 1931)
Revd Richard Sharples, Bristol, Feb 2021