"Creation flavored" thoughts on the lectionary texts
Date: December 18, 2011
(note corresponding EarthWords from 3 years ago archived on the website)
Text: Luke 1.46b-55
Thoughts
"My spirit rejoices..." The environment is basically a spiritual issue - and where oftentimes our spirits
get rejuvenated.
"All generations will call me blessed." What are "all generations" going to have to say about us?
"Holy is God's name" - writ large across Creation, it even makes Creation holy.
"Scattered the proud, put down the mighty" - would those be the 1%? Would they be the politicians who put other
things (ideology, party line, even personal power and wealth) ahead of the common good? Would they be those who think
we can "engineer Creation", genetically or physically? Would they be those who think they somehow live/exist "apart
from" Creation rather than "a part of" Creation? (That's pretty slick, isn't it - "apart from" vs "a part
of"!) Would they be folks who send out weekly emails telling you what to think!
"Filling the hungry with good things" - one of the primary roles of Creation is to provide food for the hungry, and it
does that pretty well unless we screw it up with GMOs and heavy fertilizer and soil depleting mono-crop schedules and such!
Or if we start growing food crops as (bio) fuel crops.
"The rich sent empty away" -
The Automatic Earth suggests that you spend your money now - while credit cards, Internet ordering, shipping all still work - to buy the things
you need to provide for as many of the essentials of life as you can. You can't eat money, but you can eat the food
you planted in the backyard with the implements you bought!
Text: 2 Samuel 7.1-11,16
Thoughts
A house - well, the God of Creation doesn't need a house, and in fact it would seem like an insult to offer such a God
a house! Like offering your mother-in-law a doghouse! David needs a house, however, because he is weak and vulnerable.
What do our houses say about us? Does a big house suggest an important person, or a weak and vulnerable person that
needs to be propped up with a big house? (Ok - who remembers the line from Mrs. Doubtfire?)
Church buildings as God's houses - how comfortable does your church building sit in Creation? What kind of a carbon
footprint does it have? How many days/hours per week is it heated, used? What kind of "faith experiences" work
best inside? Outside?
"A place for God's people" - Native Americans believed the land simply "was", "belonged to itself" so to speak, and that
certain places were sacred - The Black Hills for the Sioux, Eagle Rock for the Anishinabe/Objibwe. The colonists believed
land belonged to whomever claimed it in the name of the king, pope, faith and to whomever bought it from them! You can
see the cultures were not going to co-exist side-by-side very comfortably! What places are "yours"? Why?
How? What does that mean for you, for the place?
Text: Luke 1.26-38
Thoughts
And then there is the issue of how many children to have. Earth's population is already bigger than it should be.
Prayer
Moveable God,
you inhabit every nook and cranny of Creation
sharing the life with all who are there.
We pretty much stick to our towns and houses.
Help us make them fitting to the Creation
and to the place where we find ourselves.
One Thing to Do This Week
Just keep in mind that the best things in life aren't things at all. Studies show that once you reach a fairly
modest level of wealth, more money/things don't make you happier, and in fact various pathologies start to show up with increasing
frequency - stress, depression, divorce, etc. The things that really make us happy are family, friends, relationships.
Have a merry Christmas season.
