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St. Francis of Assisi is often seen as having an affinity for God's Creation (particularly animals). The Scripture Readings this week were chosen from readings sometimes used on his feast day (October 4th):
- Isaiah 55:1-3, 10-13
- Psalm 148:7-14
The Sermon title is Celebrate and Praise the Creator!
Early Thoughts: We sing our praise. We sing our praise and celebration. We have done it repeatedly over the last month. Titles like It's a Song of Praise to the Maker or This Is God's Wondrous World or All Things Bright and Beautiful or the one we will sing this week Praise With Joy the World's Creator all move us to celebrate the world God created and God the Creator.
And there are many other hymns and songs which do the same thing. Why? Why is this such a common thing in our library of worship song?
I think it is because in our hearts, even those of us who spend most of our times in the urban jungle and inside, looking out at the world through panes of glass or the widows on our computer screen, we know that we meet God in creation. God is revealed in the world around us, particularly in the natural world.
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| I have a LOT of nature pictures... |
Christian theologians talk about two different types of revelation: General Revelation and Special (I prefer specific myself) Revelation. Special Revelation is what we find/see/hear/experience in the words of Scripture and especially in Jesus, the Word-Made-Flesh. General Revelation is what we find/see/hear/experience in the world around us. God's creation is God's General Revelation. Therefore we sing our praises.
IT is an easy thing to lose track of though, this idea of looking for GOd in the natural world. In a world where too often the earth is valued for how we can use it for our own benefit and many of us spend very little time in nature it can sometimes be easy to lose track of the wonders of creation. We need to be reminded sometimes.
Celebrating the Creator and singing praise for the gifts of creation can also be a bit counter-cultural. One of the reasons that Celtic Christianity was disparaged, rejected, and quelled by Roman/Latin/Imperial Christianity may well have been that the Celtic version of Christianity always upheld the sacredness of nature. When one holds up the sacredness of a thing it is much harder to turn that thing into mere tool to be used solely for our benefit (as I typed that sentence my thoughts turned to some of the rhetoric used to support slavery and racism). Roman/Latin/Imperial Christianity had, since the time of Constantine, been pressed into service of the Empire. The Empire needed to utilize the earth's resources as "best as they could" and seeing the sacredness of the tree simply as a tree rather than as firewood or a spear shaft might get in the way of that.
We are a part of the world that God has created and is creating. We live in the midst of the creation where God is revealed. Therefore let us sing our praises and celebrate both the gift and the Giver.
--Gord
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