The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary

1. Introducing the Season of Creation

A Special Season of the Church Year The Season of Creation is an optional season for the church year. For the most part, the seasons of the church year follow the life of Jesus: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. The remainder of the church year encompasses Pentecost season (or Ordinary Time), which celebrates life in theHolySpirit.Of course,therearemanyspecialdaysandoccasionalservices throughout the calendar of the church year, such as Christ the King Sunday and Rogation Day. God is celebrated throughout the entire church year.And God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer of creation, and the Holy Spirit as Sustainer of life are integral to worship throughout the church year.We hope that caring for creation is a vital dimension of every worship service. There is no focus in the church year on God the Creator, however, no opportunity to reflect in a concentrated way on the foundation of redemption and sanctification, namely, the very creation itself that is redeemed and sanctified. For centuries, our theology, our ethics, and our worship have been oriented in two dimensions: our relationship with God and our human relationships with one another. Now it is time to turn our attention to God’s relationship with all creation and with our relationship with creation (and with God through creation). The experience of a Season of Creation through four Sundays in the church year alone will not bring the transformation in consciousness we need to address the ecological problems we face today in God’s creation. Yet unless we can see what 3 One Introducing the Season of Creation 4 Theology, Liturgy, Bible worship can be like in a season devoted fully to Creator and creation, we will probably not adequately incorporate care for creation into worship throughout the rest of the year. A Season of Creation has proven to be valuable in its own right. Yet we also need the Season of Creation to wake us up and show us another way to do worship all the time. For four Sundays in the church year, you can join in a wholehearted experience of celebrating the mysteries and wonders of creation with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In a special way, the Season of Creation follows the lead of the psalmists who exhort us to celebrate together with creation—with the forest, the rivers, and the fields who praise the Creator in their own way. We celebrate Earth, the garden planet God has chosen as God’s sanctuary and as our home. We celebrate with the creatures God has created as our kin on this blue-green planet. As we celebrate, we are conscious of the crisis that creation faces because of human greed, exploitation , and neglect. As we celebrate, we empathize with those parts of creation—human and nonhuman—that are groaning because of human crimes against creation. And, especially, we celebrate the Christ, whose death brings forgiveness for our sins against creation and whose risen presence is the cosmic power at work in reconciling and restoring creation. The Season of Creation is a relatively new season of the church year, a season that is also known in the church bodies of some countries as “Creation Time.”As an optional season, the Season of Creation can be celebrated at different points in the church year. Most commonly it has been celebrated between Creation Day on September 1 and St. Francis of Assisi Day on October 4. In this scenario, the four Sundays in September are the core Sundays of the Season of Creation. Nevertheless, the Season of Creation can be celebrated appropriately in the Easter Season or at other times in the Pentecost Season. Some congregations have spread the celebration of the four Sundays throughout the church year. The Season of Creation is not simply a harvest thanksgiving festival writ large nor a four-week affirmation of the wonders of creation, though these themes do indeed play a role. Nor is the Season of Creation primarily designed to redress the relative lack of emphasis contemporary Christians have placed on the first article of the Apostles’Creed in their worship,though surely this deficiency needs to be overcome.Moreover,the Season of Creation is not introduced first and foremost as an ecclesiastical program to encourage Christian engagement in the current environmental movement, though this may indeed be a significant outcome of participation in this Creation Season. 4 5 One | Introducing the Season of Creation...