"Creation flavored" thoughts on the lectionary texts
Date: Nov 9, 2008 (a little bit late on this one - I'll
try to get caught up for next week!)
Text: Psalm 78.1-7 Each Generation Shall Tell
the Next
Thoughts
The Creation, and life in it, are not intrinsically obvious; we need to have some wisdom imparted, revelation given.
Former generations can give us some of that. Scripture can give us some. Contemporary scientists, theologians,
anthropologists, explorers (we're still pondering some of the things Will Steger had to say and show on the Will Steger Foundation
Longest Summer Tour), and other thinkers can give us some of that wisdom and revelation. Who/What speaks most meaningfully
to you?
What we do and say makes a difference to future generations.
Text: Joshua 24.14-25 Choose this day
whom you will serve....
Thoughts
We are Earth Creatures, having risen out of, evolved from, been created by, from, the Earth. But we are also
people of the Promise, of the Word, brought together by God's Call. Choose this day who you will be.....
Somehow God is involved in our relationship with the Land. How does that linkage work? If we forsake the
Lord, the Lord/Land linkage, it will not go well with us. Does this include things like extinctions, mutations, chemical
pollution, climate changes, etc?
"Foreign gods" - would these be gods that are not part of the Land linkage? Money? Power? Perhaps we
make God (YHWH) into a "foreign god" when we ignore the Land linkage.
Again, the whole conquest of the land is somewhat problematic. What does it mean for a divine being to give a piece
of land to one people? How do we understand land ownership and its responsibilities and rights?
Text: Matthew 25.1-13 The Wise and Foolish Girls
Thoughts
"wise and foolish", "oil running out", "perhaps there will not be enough", "go to the dealers and buy" - I know it's
a different "oil issue" but still, haven't we heard these phrases over and over this year?
What should be a commodity and what is a human right? Drinkable water, clean air, food, sanitation? It somehow
just seems wrong to me to "privatize" or "commodify" some of these things. On the other hand, if we were to actually
assign a (significant) monetary value to some of these things, it might help us use them more responsibly. Or it could
just allow some people to make big money off them. [In our area we are somewhat troubled as the Governors' representative
has suddenly gone to work for a foreign company (how close is that to a "foreign god"?) that is trying to open a sulfide mine
in the UP over pretty substantial local opposition.] It just seems to me it ought to be the responsibility
of all of us to see that everyone has adequate access to life's essential resources.
They should have taken compact fluorescents - they last much longer!
"You know neither the day nor the hour" - there is just a lot about Creation that we don't understand all that well.
That fact alone should make us err on the side of caution.
Prayer
Eternal God,
we have received your astonishing work of Creation
from and through the careful hands of former generations.
Now give us your wisdom
that we might live carefully and intelligently and appropriately in it
and pass a Creation lively and lovely to generations waiting for it. Amen.
One Thing to Do This Week
Write a note to someone - real or imaginary - in a future generation about the wonder of Creation and how you have tried
to care for it.
