Creation Communion Liturgy (annotated)

Introduction

Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home, this earth, is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.[1] 

Our most sacred act is a sharing of the earth from a Creator who is Soil, Wind, Underground Stream, and Fire.   And our mythology tells us that we, humans, were created from fertile soil[2] (adamah) and holy breath (ruach). 

In the book of Job, God reminds Job in his long-suffering that he is not the center of all things.  God reminds him that he is small and part of something very large and beautiful and that should be enough. 

We become most human when we don’t put ourselves at the center of everything.[3] 

The Story of God

One:  God is the fiery life of Divine Essence.  God is aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows.  God gleams in the waters and burns in the sun, the moon, and the stars.[4]

All:  All living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God's brilliance, and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun. 

One:  But if God did not give off those sparks, how would the divine glory become fully visible?

All:     For there is no creature without some kind of radiance - whether it be greenness, seeds, buds, or another kind of beauty.[5]

One:  I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every spark of life.  I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With every breeze, as with invisible life that contains everything, I awaken everything to life.

All:     The air lives by turning green and being in bloom. The waters flow as if they were alive. The sun lives in its light, and the moon is enkindled, after its disappearance, once again by the light of the sun so that the moon is again revived.

One:  And thus I remain hidden in every kind of reality as a fiery power.  Everything burns because of me in the way our breath constantly moves us, like the wind-tossed flame in a fire.[6]

Invitation

One:   Let us gather around the table to remember our spiritual roots in Christ and to tap into the strong sap of the Holy Spirit.  We have been waiting, O God, for this meal as we wait for so much. 

All:  We come to the joyful feast hungry for blessing and thirsting for peace—peace across our planet in our homes, in our churches, and in our hearts.  Struggling to be patient, we wait.   But we know.  Hope doesn’t come from calculating whether the good news is winning out over the bad.  It’s simply a choice to take action.[7] 

Communion Prayer of Challenge and Consecration

One:   Author of creation, we are a mere piece in nature’s puzzle, but we act as if it is ours for the taking.  If we listen, we can hear your creation groaning in agony and crisis.  If we look, we can see the dire effects of our carbon addictions and deforestation. If we search, we can find heaps of our toxic waste being dumped among the world’s poor.  Through our sins, daily and systemic, we estrange ourselves from you and the rest of creation.

All:  O God of all kindness, your gracious gifts demand a responsibility that we all too often neglect.   We confess that we have held you at a distance, resisting and ignoring your will in our lives.  We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in this world you have created.   We use your beautiful world for our selfish gain and forget to see you in it.  We throw creation away day after day.  We repent of the evils and oppression we participate in, knowingly, half-knowingly, and unknowingly.    Holy One, forgive us.[8] 

One:  So with unimaginable threats to God’s good earth on the horizon, we celebrate what hope looks like—to do the unreasonable thing, the courageous thing.  With countless lives on the line, in the sharing of these basic elements in neighborliness, this is what love looks like.[9]

All:  We must hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.[10] 

One:  Gracious God, forgive, restore, and strengthen us through Jesus Christ. 

All:    Guide us by your creative Spirit into more faithful lives of grace, solidarity, and commitment to love and justice.  Let us live our vocation to be protector of your handiwork.[11]  Amen.

The Elements

Our most sacred meal is a sharing of the earth--bread, a mixture of earth, seed, sunlight, water, and the kneading of human hands.  In the sharing of the earth, may we know ourselves to be a part of something very large and beautiful. 

(Distribution of the bread) 

Take and eat.  May the earth once again feed and nurture you.

Our most sacred meal is a sharing of the soil--grape, a mixture of soil, vine, sunlight, necessary pruning, and the right amount of pressure and time.  In the sharing of this soil, may we know ourselves to be a part of something very large and beautiful.

(Distribution of the grape)

Take and drink.  May the soil once again quench our thirst for justice and righteousness.

From this holy meal, we remember that the earth is our bones, the body, that gives form and content to our breathing, our walking, our dancing, and our celebration.  

*Prayer of Thanksgiving 

This bread we have eaten comes from the earth.  The wine we have tasted comes from the soil.  Thank you, God, for sharing it all.  Help us to lend our voice in caring for Earth.  Help us to see the birds of the air, the fish of the water, the plants and animals that live with us as part of our communion in your love. In Christ’s name, we ask it. Amen.[12]

*Passing of the Peace

Hear these words, a 2000 year old quote from a Jewish rabbi,

The day is short,

the task is abundant,

the laborers are lazy,

the wages are great,

and the Master of the house is insistent.

It is not up to you to finish the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.[13]

And we will only finish this task through our spiritual practices of neighborliness and community.  Let us begin to practice by passing the peace of Christ to one another.  Amen.

---

[1] From the Papal Encyclical

[2] Ellen Davis

[3] Bill McKibben

[4] Hildegard of Bingen

[5] Hildegard of Bingen (4.11)

[6] Hildegard of Bingen (Vision 1:2)

[7] Anna Lappe’

[8] Rev. Dr. Rochelle Stackhouse

[9] Tim DeChristopher

[10] Papal Encyclical

[11] Ibid.

[12] Rev. Richard Bott

[13] Bill McKibben

Third Sunday in Creation Lectionary, Sky, September 20, 2015

B Creation 3 Sky BFC 2015

Psalm 19:1-6

September 20, 2015

Sky, based on Psalm 19:1-6, painting by congregational member, Sue Betz

B Creation 3 Sky BFC 2015
Psalm 19:1-6
September 20, 2015 

          Last week four members of our congregation shared a Readers’ Theater during worship to relate the two stories of creation found in Genesis and some of the deep truths found in each story.   Evan Page read the Scripture for the first story of creation, and I told Evan to read it like a father or grandfather relating the story to his children or grandchildren.  There was that amazing moment the first time I heard Evan read the Scripture like that, when he came to the second day of creation and he said, “So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸ God called the dome . . . Sky!”  He read it like it was the first time in the world anyone had ever heard the word, “sky” as the amazing, wonderful, multi-chromatic canvas on which God paints the colors of the universe.  And I imagine the children and grandchildren, all gathered around the fire as Evan told the story, going, “Wowwwwwwww!  Sky.” 

          As was read for today, the heavens--the mythological understanding of looking upward and outward--the sky, the atmosphere, conveys God’s visceral artistry and delight with all of creation.  Psalm 19 shares God as a Child, holding up splashes of color for us to see and respond in awe, wonder, gratitude, and praise.  As stated in the introduction to the Scripture reading, the sky also relates God’s continuing spiritual practice as Creator.  The sun bounds forth onto the horizon like a wedding partner who has just experienced the sexual ecstasy of that first night on the honeymoon.  Day after day, God is involved in maintaining the balance and order in the universe.  God is in the heavens and all is good and right with the universe.

          “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in the morn, sailors be warned,” is the old proverb encouraging us to read the sky for the harbinger of things to come.  Even within the gospels, Jesus, in an effort to get people to critically read the signs of the times, said, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ ³ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.  But you refuse to read the signs of this present time.”[1]

          Beyond Psalm 19, when things are not good and right in the sky, it is the first sign that all is not good and right with the created order.  The sky is one of the first alarm bells that tell us:  1) change is happening, 2) the transformation of unjust systems and structures is about to take place, ways of being are now being accomplished.  Or, 3) the created order is being undone, 4) injustice and violence now reign supreme and transformation needs to take place.   The sky as a portent for the end times or changing times is so deep in our mythology that when this iridescent, mystical cloud formation over Costa Rica appeared this last week, headlines referred to it as something from out of “the end of times.”  In Mark 13, the sun does not run its course but darkens, the moon does not give light, and the stars begin falling from the sky.  In the apocalyptic vision of Daniel it is the winds, like the primordial chaos at the beginning of creation in Genesis, which stir the sea.  Throughout the Bible, it is said that on the great and terrible day of the Living God, the sun will darken and the moon shall become as blood red.

          As I thought about that poetic discourse, what it would mean to ancient Jewish peoples, I imagined that the sun grew dark and the moon becoming blood red was an allusion to the state of the world when empire after empire burns your cities to the ground and the smoke from those fires dims the skies and tints the color of the moon into orange and reddish hues. Blood-red would have been used to connote the original sin of the Bible, violence from morning till night, shedding blood and creating untold suffering.  On the great and terrible day of the Living God, smoke darkens the day and tints the moon, not unlike the days and nights in Missoula, Bozeman, and Billings, Montana, not so long ago when the fires in Washington, California, and even at Glacier remind us that the whole Western United States seems to be on fire.  Some of you may have seen the video I posted on Facebook from the guardian which shows a person trying to escape by car through the wildfires in California.  It is a very real picture of what hell must look like on earth.  Change is happening, the transformation of unjust systems and structures, ways of being, is now being accomplished, the created order is being undone, or injustice and violence now reign supreme.

          Again, I am somewhat surprised when the climate change “debate” is framed as science versus religion when not only scientific data but the ancient Biblical worldview would tell us that something is amiss, that creation itself is groaning in labor pains hoping for a new day when the sun might bound from its bridal chamber, eager to run its course. 

          In ancient Mayan theology, among the Lacandon who still inhabit the Chiapan rainforest, it is said that when the trees are destroyed, the sky will fall.  That is a poetic statement which reflects a scientific reality.  And Yale University ecologist, Thomas Crowther, said in a report earlier in this month that there are fewer numbers of trees on the planet that at any time since the dawn of human civilization and the numbers continue to fall at an alarming rate.  There is a net loss of 10 billion trees per year and a gross loss of 15 billion trees per year.   The Yale University team stated that human activity is responsible for this depletion.[2] 

          No, I am not Chicken Little, but the way our ancient wisdom tells us to critically discern and the way over 97% of climate scientists discern that humankind is responsible for the way the climate is rapidly changing in devastating ways, we must respond to the ways the sky is falling.  As people who affirm that poetic understanding of God creating the earth and declaring it good, we are called once again to collaborate with God in the spiritual practice of the necessary order and balance of the universe. 

          I am totally envious of my mother-in-law.  She has lived out her retirement better than anyone I know.  If she did have a bucket list, I imagine she has had to create two more master lists.  For she checks off item after item with each coming year.  One item she has checked off six different times! is serving as a volunteer in Antarctica.  When she was in Antarctica the last time, she called my wife, Tracy, to say that she wanted to pay for both of us to go see a movie that was just coming out, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”  The reason was that her time in Antarctica had given her a front row seat to the early effects of climate change.  She also was in a community of people who spoke openly about the reality of climate change and its effects on the beautiful landscapes surrounding McMurdo Station. 

          In October another movie is to be released, the movie that premiered in the prominent position as the one shown as the finalé to the Cannes Film Festival:  “Ice and Sky.”  “Ice and Sky” begins with the story of Claude Lorius, who replied to an ad way back in 1955 with two fellow travelers for a one-year wintering journey in the Antarctic with no possible return or support.  Lorius, now 83, became known as a glaciologist for his work in using glaciers to trace the history of climate on our earth.[3]  In those glaciers, Lorius could see the effect of nuclear testing in the Northern Hemisphere on the atmosphere.  Indeed, Lorius, concluded, what he learned in his research is that there is only one atmosphere.[4]  We all share the same blue or smoke-filled sky.   What is done to one part of the atmosphere is done to it all.

Lorius went on to show how greenhouse gasses (accelerated, compounded, and multiplied by humankind) have begun to destroy the protective envelope—the exosphere, the thermosphere, the mesosphere, the stratosphere, and the troposphere—that protective envelope, the atmosphere, our sky, which then begins to threaten life as we know it on our planet.[5]   The destruction of the sky is the harbinger of things to come. 

The movie “Ice and Sky” ends with a quote from Lorius who asks, “Now you know, what are you going to do about it?”  My hope is that this movie finds its way to Billings, Montana, so that we can invite friends, neighbors, family, enemies, anyone who shares the same sky, so that we may form wide and broad communities and coalitions to share in a love for God’s good earth. 

By now most of you know that I believe people of faith, as they have so often, can and must lead out on these things to which God is calling us.  How shall we lead out?  How shall we be the people who affirm the truths of a God who seeks to paint the skies with brilliant colors and have us lost in wonder, awe, gratitude, and praise as we behold what is out and up?  When we leave this building today, I hope you will look up and out and behold the good gift that God has given to us and ask how we, as a community of faith, shall honor that gift.  Hear Psalm 19 one more time:

The skies are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of God’s hands.
² Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
³ There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
⁴ Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
In the sky God has placed a tent for the sun,
⁵ Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a warrior who runs a course.
⁶ Its rising is from one end of the sky,
And its circuit to the other end of the sky
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

Hear in that beautiful poetic discourse the same truth confirmed by the scientific data by Claude Lorius.  There is but one sky.  And we all share it.  And nothing is hidden from the heat of the sun in that one sky.  We and the soil are one.  We and the sky are one.  We are one people.  Now we know, what are we going to do about it?  Praise God? 

God called the dome  . . . “sky” and it was good.  And it was good.  Amen.

---

[1]Matthew 16:2-3

[2] Will Dunham, “Earth has three trillion trees but they are falling at an alarming rate,” Green Business, September 2, 2015.

[3] http://iceandsky.com/cinema; Catherine Shoard, “Cannes concludes with call-to-arms on climate change: ‘To not tackle the issue through film would be criminal’,” theguardian, May 23, 2015.

[4] http://cdn.iceandsky.com/2015/06/PII-08_P_Atmosphere-EN.mp4.

[5] http://cdn.iceandsky.com/2015/06/LIVRET-8-EN.pdf. 

First Sunday in the Creation Lectionary, Humanity, September 6, 2015

B Creation 1 Humanity OL BFC 2015

Psalm 8

September 6, 2015

          This weekend I was scanning channels and recognized that one of the Star Trek movies I had never seen was showing up on the SyFy channel.  As an avowed Trekkie, I knew I was staying up late to watch it.  Now let me make it clear.  I was not so nerdly as to attend a Star Trek convention or speak in Klingon, but I was almost there.  What I do remember is wanting to grow up to be Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.  Time is running out.  Starships have yet to be created.  So local church pastor is where I get to make regular speeches about the nature of life, like Captain Kirk.

          One of the most interesting narratives throughout all versions of the Star Trek series was what it meant to be human.  Data, in the New Generation series, and Mr. Spock, in the original Star Trek, through logic, emotion, and contemplation, regularly provoked discussions about what was essentially human and what was something else.  As I was a Captain Kirk fan, so I also appreciated the critical, raised eyebrow of Mr. Spock as he often bemoaned and sometimes praised what it meant to be human. 

          I read with great interest the number of tributes to Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played Mr. Spock, upon his death in February of this year.  Many people related Nimoy’s self-understanding as a Jewish person, how his characteristic hand greeting, fingers parted, saying “Live long and prosper,” came from an obscure Jewish blessing which had the presence of God, “Shekinah”, coming upon the gathered congregation as the rabbis extended their hands using what became known as the Vulcan greeting.  Though Star Trek regularly asked whether Mr. Spock had any of his human mother within him, his colleagues and friends related Nimoy as one of the most “human” people they knew.  By their description, “human” defining Nimoy as humble, compassionate, and inclusive.

          What does it mean to be “human?”  What does our tradition say?

Over a year ago today, I preached my trial sermon at Billings First Church on this very same Scripture passage.  I spoke of God’s call to courageous individuals and communities who recognize the immediacy of the climate crisis in front of us. 

Indeed, many of the Psalms are a celebration of God’s wondrous creation and pick up on the theology of the two creation stories found in the book of Genesis.  Each one of those creation stories relates a process God begins not out of nothing, as many theologians have assumed, but with a state of being we might very well say humankind is undoing with our behavior.  One story begins with chaos moves to order and ends with rest.  Another story begins in the desert.   Are we undoing God’s creative process to return to chaos and desert?  There is wisdom in these ancient stories that observes life over thousands of years to know the span and pace of the created order and plan.

          Some of that wisdom has been routinely ignored in the present climate change debate which naively suggests that God’s sovereignty somehow trumps all of human behavior.  That we would not teach our children and our children’s children the basic tenet, “We reap what we sow,” is irresponsible.  Poison in, poison out, and eventually a resulting desert.  An unwillingness to know our own boundaries and limits to the energy we unleash out into the land, sea, and air gets displaced into further and further chaos of wind, fire, and plate tectonics.    These seem like basic and simple moral maxims that, although they have their limits, are woven into the fabric of the universe.  I am sometimes incredulous that the overwhelming amount of science is opposed by people who claim faith but ignore basic corollaries of faith:  we reap what we sow; Sabbath and rest are necessary rhythms.

          Psalm 8 borrows strongly from the theology found in the second story of creation found in Genesis, Chapter 2.  Within Psalm 8 is that profound acknowledgment of our necessary humility and responsibility.  In Genesis, Chapter 2, and Psalm 8, we are created as children of the fertile topsoil, the meaning of the Hebrew word (adam)ah[1] one with the earth in humus or humility.  And, yet, in recognizing our power and possibility, we were created to be a little less than the divine or angels.  In wonderment and awe before God’s creation, Psalm 8 shares our place in the universe. 

          In the end, there is really not more to preach than this. 

Late this spring, Northern Plains Resource Council held an event titled, “Could the soil save us?” and then this summer Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council invited the author of the book, The Lentil Underground, to share how the health and replenishment of the soil is necessary for our food future.  It would seem that the truth and Spirit of God is moving round about us in Billings.

This past week I was part of a national telephone conference on the Slow Food movement.  One of the speakers for that conference was Dan Barber, the co-owner and Executive Chef of Blue Hill Farm in New York.  Barber has brought together the necessary marriage of urban New York City and rural life in New York State with his farm and restaurant.  In so doing, he has called for chefs, farmers, and diners to recognize our interdependent relationship with the soil.  Our diet, Barber believes, should be crafted around the necessary rotations of plant and food that would keep the soil nutrient-rich.  As a result, he now introduces clover in a dish he makes with potatoes.  Alice Waters, Vice-President of Farm to Table and Chef and Owner at the famous restaurant, Chez Panisse, has introduced chocolate-covered clover to her menu.[2]  All to recognize that as the soil goes, so goes humankind.   

It would seem that just now we are making our way full circle with the acquired wisdom that we are one in the same with the soil.  Our futures are inextricably tied to one another. 

I was sharing with Walt Gulick the other day that in the Biblical book of Daniel, the prophet Daniel, in the midst of imperial defeat, oppression, and violence, has a vision of an age when all of that imperial oppression and violence shall come to an end.  Empire after empire is represented by carnivorous beasts whose teeth consume and consume and consume, destroying life and creating devastation. These beasts are ravenous.  The story shares that the other characteristic of these empires is their arrogance.  They think of themselves as exceptional, not like any other nation or empire.  Daniel’s vision is clear.  This destruction, devastation, and arrogance is intrinsic to empire. 

In the arrogance of every Pharaoh, Caesar, and President, the most universal claim of empire after empire is their longevity and reach.  They and the gods are one.  Their rule shall be eternal and span from land to sea, shore to shore. 

As a result, one of the mythological characters opposing empire in Daniel’s vision is the Ancient of Days.  The Ancient of Days is a Divine figure that existed before every empire and will endure long after every empire has fallen.  The Ancient of Days counters every claim to longevity.  

The other Divine figure opposing the carnivorous beasts of empire is the Human One, traditionally translated the Son of Man, the most frequently used title by Jesus of Nazareth.  Literally translated from the Hebrew, this is the Child of the Fertile Topsoil.  The Human One, the Child of the Fertile Topsoil, stands against those who, with their insatiable and ravenous appetite, create destruction and devastation, set loose the forces of chaos and overwork humankind and the land to leave all desolate and desert. 

According to the Bible, what defines us as most human is to recognize our responsibility, humility, and connection with the earth itself as fertile topsoil.   The story may very well teach us that when the fertile topsoil disappears, the very substance necessary to make us human will also disappear.  More than any other time in human history, we must answer the age-old Star Trek question, “What does it mean to be human?”  Holy Scripture answers that question by saying it is to follow the Human One as an opposition to imperial appetite, arrogance, oppression, and violence.  And according to Psalm 8 and our creation stories, we are most human when we recognize our responsibility, humility, and connection with the fertile topsoil.  If we are to have any hope in this age, to do something long and everlasting with the Ancient of Days, it will be to somehow begin to recognize our humility, groundedness, and relationship to the soil and how our humanity is vested in it, so that we may live long and prosper.  Amen.

---

[1] Ellen F. Davis, Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School, is the one who named this translation. 

[2] You can listen in to the whole conversation here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGjjlBmCSJc