Cathedral Sermons
The Feast of Christ in all Creation
Readings: Isaiah 45:9-12, Romans 8:18-25, John 1:1-5,10-14,18
A few weeks ago on the Saturday of Labour weekend, a group of about 30 people gathered on the forecourt of the Cathedral and rang bells. It was 350 day, an international day of climate action, and our simple gathering was one of 5200 events in 181 countries. The idea was to draw attention to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, and to highlight the safe level of 350ppm. Currently the level is around 387ppm and is rising by 2ppm each year. Scientists are warning that a continuing rise will contribute to the warming of the planet with disastrous impacts such as the melting of glaciers, increased drought, and rising sea levels.
So 350ppm is seen as a good goal, hence 350 day, and our bell ringing. Chris, one of our vergers, took the ship’s bell from the back of the nave onto the forecourt and rung it 350 times while others of us with smaller bells made supporting noise. I had visions of us being there for ages but in the end it only took about 6 or 7 minutes. If only the arresting of the growth in CO2 levels could so easily be attained.
Well good and worthy stuff, but why here at the Cathedral and why is the Church concerned about such things at all? Surely these things are the purview of Greenpeace or some other environmental action group. In fact they belong very centrally within the sphere of Christian mission, and find expression within our Anglican mission statement contained in Te Pouhere, the Constitution of our Church where we read if our call to care for creation alongside our mission of proclamation, faith nurture, human care and social justice.
And this should be no surprise given that the Bible opens with the narratives of Creation, certainly not a scientific statement of the origin of things, but a strong affirmation of God as the originator, the Creator. This belief was central to Hebrew faith, and the theology of Isaiah is underpinned by a trust in the Creator who has not fashioned the world and then become removed from it, but remains intimately connected with creation and its peoples. So we read today a portion of a prophecy where Isaiah is encouraging the community of Exiles in Babylon to be hopeful about their return to Judah their homeland. Much of the basis of Isaiah’s certainty that the words of prophecy he has received can be trusted, is that the God who has made the promise is the Creator. What is made is not greater than the maker, and so ultimately the purposes of the maker will be worked out. This will be so in spite of the efforts of created beings to confound these plans, and to distrust the Creator.
Isaiah’s prophecies later go on to offer a vision of the whole of creation renewed. God’s concern is not only for the people of creation, but for creation itself. The redemptive purposes of God are not only to be worked out in the lives of human beings in a spiritual way, but are to be seen very tangibly in the world around us. This world is not some kind of plastic packaging, the real focus of which is the human beings within it so that the packaging can be thrown away when God and humanity have finished with it. The packaging itself is part of God’s work.
Yet human beings too often live as if this is a throw away world. And Western Christianity’s focus on individual spiritual salvation as the total meaning of Christian faith and mission has led to the Church also often failing to pay attention to this wider understanding of mission. It is hard to ignore that when we read those words from Romans chapter 8.
The first part of the letter has explained all that God has done through Christ for the salvation of humanity. Then in this majestic chapter we begin to read about what that implies for those who have become children of God. The new life in the Spirit has brought freedom to the Christian believer, but it is not a hedonistic freedom. It is the freedom to live focussed on the things of God’s Spirit who now dwells within the believer. It is the freedom and the power to live and work to see the purposes of God fulfilled; to live for God and not for self; to care for all that God cares for. So believers find themselves caught up in the purposes of God and become co-workers together with Christ for the fulfilment of those purposes.
We are told that creation and humanity are groaning together, waiting for this redemption by God to be fully revealed. The image is of the labour of child birth, thus it is a meaningful work even if it is painful. The metaphor is used of having the first fruits of the Spirit. The image draws on a Jewish harvest tradition, and is meant to convey the sense of having a taste of enough of something to know that the full experience is something to look forward to. It’s like the trailer for a new film. You see enough to convince you that this is really going to be worth seeing when it comes out.
This anticipation, this groaning, is the experience of the whole of creation, not only of humanity. It is a longing for the transformation and renewal of all that God has made so that once again God may look and declare that it is good. Christ is in it, God’s agent for the salvation of the world is declared in that opening chapter of John’s gospel to also be God’s agent in Creation. The Word spoken at Creation is made flesh in order to bring about the renewal of Creation.
And God calls us to be part of it. So much so that the Archbishop of Canterbury recently hosted a gathering of faith leaders and faith-based and community organisations at Lambeth Palace to discuss the response of faith communities to the environmental crisis. Their joint statement declared that there is a moral imperative to tackle the causes of global warming and that faith communities have a crucial role to play in pressing for changes in behaviour at every level of society. They declared that “we all have a responsibility to learn how to live and develop sustainably in a world of finite resources".
We as individuals can and must act in ways that reduce our own impact on the environment. That is part of our mission as we demonstrate our care for God’s creation. As the Church we can make a wider call for those in government to act in likewise responsible ways. The G20 nations meet at Copenhagen next month where climate change will figure on the agenda. The bigger picture opportunity lies there for world leaders to put measures in place that will end an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels and create strategies for arresting and reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
Three weeks ago we rang our bells to raise awareness and to call for change. Today we celebrate Christ the Word who brought Creation into being, who continues to dwell in all things and who as the Word made flesh will bring about the transformation of this world which groans in anticipation of its redemption. Let us take hope in those promises of our Creator and not wane in this work which we are called to in partnership with Christ.