"Creation flavored" thoughts on the lectionary texts
Date: August 31, 2008
Text: Psalm 105.1-6, 23-26
Thoughts
God made the people very fruitful. We tend to think in terms of individuals and families. Creation perhaps
thinks more holistically. Births and deaths are all part of the program of moving the necessities, the building blocks,
of life around. Each species in each generation needs to provide enough offspring to continue itself, but
also to provide food for other species? That's a hard way to think of it, at least for the prey, but essential for the
predators. Or even species above or below each other on the food chain. And of course there is a whole other set
of issues for those on the top of the food chain. Maybe it calls for an awareness that along with the "food chains"
there is also a "life chain/circle/cycle" passing nourishment and nutrients along and around. We think of humans being
"above" cows on the food chain, but Mike Connelly (Food and Faith) notes that "any real cowboy knows that someday
some ungulate will be grazing grass built from his bones."
God sent Moses - sounds innocent enough, but then vs26-36 unleash a whole program of environmental disasters (ie., the
plagues). A reminder that war is an environmental catastrophe (waste of resources, destruction of environment/habitat,
pollution), along with everything else!
Text: Exodus 3.1-15
Thoughts
Moses was a "keeper of the flock". It would be interesting to explore how different occupations (farmers, taxi-drivers,
factory workers, teachers, clergy!) lead to different attitudes about Creation, if they do?
The burning bush - how do you picture it? Actually burning, like the movie(!)? Brilliantly colored, like
Browning ("Earth's crammed with heaven....")? Maple trees in autumn? What part of Creation would God be most likely
to call to you from - a bush? garden? stream? mountain? sunrise? full moon? Why?
"The ground is holy." We once did a service to "reclaim" an area where a woman had been killed - I invited people
to take off their shoes and wiggle their toes down into the grass. A few did. What makes any particular place/ground
holy? Are there places where we shouldn't log or mine or farm because they are holy?
"I Am". God is intimately and integrally embedded in "what is" - as a people of "I Am", we ought to be intensely
aware of and concerned for the well being of "what is".
Text: Matthew 16.21-28
Thoughts
"Being killed and raised, losing your life and saving it" - does that sound like giving your life
into the whole "life-cycle of creation" that we noted above? Would this make understandable the word about the lion
eating straw like the ox - that the ox willingly turns straw into "lion-accessible" form? (I owe that thought to Rev
Chomingwen Pond, and it doesn't sound as "weird" to me today as it did 30 years ago!) I seem to remember reading of
a Native American ritual of taking a new born outside and placing him/her on the Earth , but that's all I know about
it.
Prayer
God of Creation and Life,
you create a wonderfully interconnected sphere of life and beauty and wonder,
from which we have evolved,
and in which we live our life,
and to which we offer our death.
Help us recognize the holiness of each place
and faithfully tend this garden and keep this flock.
We offer ourselves into the life-cycle of your world. Amen.
One Thing to Do This Week
Visit a farmer's market, where folks are intimately involved in the "Life-cycle" of Creation.
