Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The last time I preached on Mother's Day, the long first reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles was about the Ethiopian eunuch. I later remarked to my sister about how improbable it was to have a reading about a eunuch on Mother's Day. She thought for a moment and said, “Well he had a mother too.” So do we all.
I’m relieved to say that the readings appointed for this Sunday are quite a bit more appropriate and indeed beautiful. But I'm not going to talk about the readings, at least not directly. Rather, I want to focus our attention on the collect, or prayer, with which we began our liturgy:
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love towards you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Whenever I offer this prayer, I think of a brief Friday morning reflection which the late Bishop Daniel Corrigan gave to the congregation at our monastery in Santa Barbara many years ago. He talked about the power of a few little words. If you were around in the Episcopal Church before about 1976 or so you would have heard this prayer from the 1928 version of The Book of Common Prayer where it was appointed for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. It was essentially the same prayer as we heard this morning except it said: “Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee above all things, may obtain thy promises…” and so on. And this was good as far as it went. It was a reminder that we are called to love God above all things, to choose God above all things, as the royal road to fullness of life. But during the revision of the liturgies in the 1970s, three little words were added, or more accurately restored, to this prayer making it at once both richer and more relevant. And those words were: “in all things.” So that the prayer asks not simply that we love God above all things, which I hope we do, but that we love God in all things.
Think about this for a minute. Truthfully, I find it challenging to understand or grasp what loving God above all things means concretely. I suppose there are dramatic points in life where this is clearly presented, and an opportunity is offered for us to act on this aspiration or this demand. I think, for example, of the experience of martyrs or of people who are called to choose God's way of justice and love in the face of social or political opposition, ostracism or worse. For most of us, thank God, that's not a regular occurrence. But daily, perhaps hourly, we are each asked or invited or counseled to love God in all things…in ourselves, in others, in our societal relationships, and in the whole created order: in nature, in birds and animals, in sunrises and clouds, in rains and maybe even in earthquakes and floods and volcanos. And that is because our Christian faith teaches that all these are the creation of a good God and are themselves intrinsically good, marked by and stamped with God’s creative power and divine purpose. And this includes you and me, each one of us. No one of us exists outside of the web of this created order with all its facets of interdependence, fragility, and sacredness. Rather it and we coexist as one. It can’t be otherwise.
It's always good to be reminded of this fundamental truth, but especially on this Sixth Sunday of Easter which, besides being Mother's Day, is also traditionally known as Rogation Sunday. Beginning in the fifth century, this Sunday and the three days that follow it preceding the great feast of the Ascension (which we will observe on Thursday) have been devoted to the blessing of crops and fields and of nature generally. In medieval Europe, and still in living memory, there were on these days processions through the fields and farms asking God to bless and provide food for the earth, for us and for all creatures. These processions also served a social purpose. In England they were known as “beating the bounds.” The procession would go to the farthest corners of the territorial parish so that people who did not have easy access to maps would know where property and authority started and ended. Today really is the Church’s Earth Day when we are invited once again to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate the whole created order in which we are but a part, albeit a central and increasingly destructive part. For the threat of ecological disaster is very real, and in the face of our reluctance to confront this threat, we are brought up short by this Rogationtide.
Over the last quarter century there has been much written about the relationship of religion and ecology, and specifically Christianity and ecology. They are worth studying. But you would do well, if you have the time and energy, to read Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter Praise Be to You (Laudato Si’) subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.” It is a brave, compelling summons to reflection and action on the part not only of Christians but of all the peoples of the earth in the face of ecological degradation and climate change…though I must admit that it's a bit of a slow read at times. I was particularly drawn to Chapter Two of this encyclical letter on the Gospel of Creation which sets out a theological framework for climate care. The Catholic Climate Covenant summarizes this chapter with the following bullet points:
· God created everything with intrinsic goodness.
· Humans are uniquely created and called to exercise responsible stewardship over creation on behalf of the loving Creator.
· All creation is a mystery the diversity and unity of which both reflect and mediate the Creator.
· The right to private property is not “absolute or inviolable” but “subordinat[ed]…to the universal destination of goods."
· “[The] destiny of all creation is bound up with the mystery of Christ.”
Pope Francis stresses that God's command for humans to have dominion over creation expressed in Genesis 1:28 is not exploitative license but rather, as he puts it, a vocation to cultivate and care for God's good gift of creation.
There is much else in this letter that bears mention. He critiques ‘anthropocentrism’ and the prevailing technocratic paradigm which encourages an unreflective acceptance of every technological advance based more on profit than on its effects on human flourishing. He reminds us that while creation manifests God and may be a privileged space for encountering God, it is not itself God and it is a mistake to divinize or worship the earth and its creatures. And true to his Jesuit tradition, Francis affirms a preferential option for the poor who are most harmed by ecological degradation. He urges both public policy change as well as an individual change of heart, expressed in our willing adoption of a lifestyle driven not by “extreme consumerism” but by a vision of a simpler lifestyle where less is more. And all of this is in service of what the Pope calls ‘integral ecology,’ seeing the whole interconnected picture through, as it were, the eyes of the One who is creator and sustainer of it all.
This Rogation Sunday, this Earth Day, is an opportunity for us to take stock. Look around and give thanks for God’s creation. And as we do that, may we in our own way commit or re-commit ourselves to the cultivation of our common human vocation of caring for the earth and each other that is at the very heart of our Christian faith. It is the very best gift that we, nurturers nurtured by our Mother Earth, can give to the generations to come. Maybe it’s the best Mother’s Day gift ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment