Creation Care Sermons: "Thanksgiving"

Each year, millions of Christians observe the Season of Creation from September 1 to October 4, an annual celebration of prayer and action to protect God's earth. In 2019's Season of Creation, nearly 600 Faithful America members pledged to either preach or ask their pastor/priest to preach on the climate crisis.

This sermon is by the Rev. Dr. F. Mark Mealing, a Faithful America member in Kaslo, B.C. (Canada). It was preached at St. Mark's Anglican Church on October 13, 2019.

Introduction
I am going to do something alit different today, though the readings will certainly come into it. We are sharing two festivals, St. Francis Day a week late & Harvest Thanksgiving. Some of their roots run deeper than you might think if you only looked at advertising. The psalm sets a good rule for today: ‘Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands….’ (v. 1) Of course we read /lands/ as various tribes & nations of people, on the face of it; but if we stick with the word only, then try different kind of land: oceans, mountains, plains, forests & deserts; they all are to be places of joy. & the psalm ends: ‘For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting & his faithfulness endures from age to age.’ (v. 4) I read last week that the Potomac river in the Eastern USA had becomes so clean from good measures taken over the past half-century that porpoises had returned to its estuary & lower reaches. The mercy & faithfulness appear here, on this small piece of restored land itself. Can we doubt that the same grace awaits similar restorative behaviour on our part?

So we can be thankful, not only after but also before the fact: our good Lord’s grace & love reach everywhere. Where they do not, it is usually we who are in the way; yet we are tolerated & supported. It is really rather like a teacher with an overactive child: so the child can be kept alive until it learns about such things as deep water & steep cliffs, it has a good chance of being a good child. But we make out own deep waters, & they are dark; & our own cliffs, & they fall to great depths.

Our own faith tradition was once much more aware of these things; I do not know how we lost them. When an Angel took St. Kevin across Ireland to look for a suitable monastery site, Kevin refused two the Angel commended to him. The first was to close to a town; by which the monks might be distracted from holiness, & to which they might become a burden. The second was a narrow valley, otherwise ideal; but Kevin pointed out that the great mountains shadowed it all around, & good crops would be hard to raise. ‘Well then’, said the Angel, who of course knew about such things: ‘Ask God to take the mountain away!’ St. Kevin’s response was remarkable: “I have no wish that the creatures of God should be moved because of me: my God can help that place in some other way. & moreover, all the wild creatures on these mountains are my house mates, gentle & familiar with me, & they would be sad because of this that thou hast said.’ & the two went on; perhaps St. Kevin had also passed an important test. Alas, we have forgotten our house mates in the house of all the world, & they are sad indeed. [S. B. Morrow: How Bears gave us Apples]

St. Francis was a bright, wealthy, spoiled & self-indulgent young man in the Italian town of Assissi: until something happened. He tried out as a mercenary soldier, was soon captured, imprisoned; & ill till he was set free. During this time his view of life grew up;, & he began to devote himself to charitable works, somewhat avoiding his former friends; but they did not abandon him. He found a ruined chapel of St. Damiano just outside Assisi; he began to work on restoring it, & some of his friends not only joined him in the work, but also in his way of life. There is a lot of stories about him, but today we remember in particular three of them: he preached a sermon to the birds, praising their beauty & the grace by which God fed them; & another to fishes, whose freedom he saw as another grace. & of course there is the complex story of the Wolf of Gubbio, a reported monstrous predator that he approached, calmed, & brought into the small town. There he told the people that the wold would not have harmed their flocks if they had not been greedy & careless of God; but if they would provide a home for the wold, he would defined them. In those days such things wee possible, & the wolf became a loved companion to a little city.

I am told that St. Francis’ teachers were trained by missionaries from the Celtic church, a great vehicle of the restoration of civilization after the Roman Empire decayed & collapsed. That church had, as we have seen, an enduring vision of the value, grace & beauty of the natural world, & care for the human place in it. So St. Francis reintroduced a good portion of that vision, & it is still there for those who wish to find it: as I wish we all might, everywhere.

The Gospel lesson reminds us that the world & our life are more than material things: if working for food alone is insufficient, then we must seek further for ‘…the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man, the Human Being, will give you.’ (v. 27) Questioners ask: Will you give us manna, like Moses? ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ (v. 31) But Jesus takes this in another direction: ‘It was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven….which comes down from heaven & gives life to the world.’ (v. 32-3) Wisely, ‘They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always!”’ (v. 34)

That is another reason why, in the Eucharist, lean material banquet though it is, we soon shall share portions of ordinary, basic bread & ordinary house wine. In Jesus’ time, the wine would be no different & the bread , like a pita loaf or out small loaf here, very plain: these were the simplest, most basic foods. Because: & do leave aside the old inquiring & confusing words about Transubstantiation & Consubstantiation; here we are shown that God is present everywhere, even in those most basic human foods that we need & ask for daily.

Conclusion
And as God is present in those foods as in us, so the Holy One is present in the world & all that lives in it. So we are thankful for what feeds us; for God’s faithfulness that enduringly provides seedtime & harvest out of those most open hands. & some others who live in our world also live with us, as our animal & plant companions & friends; & so today we also ask & offer blessings on our Beasts: things that ‘be’, that live; because God appears in them too: through them we are reminded God is everywhere.

Let us pray:
God of the Great Cosmos, loving, giving & healing: we thank you for all things, & especially for the gift of your dear Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, Redeemer, Teacher, Friend & Brother; & by your patient & companionable Holy Spirit, teach & guide us to find, praise & proclaim you everywhere; & bless all creatures in the World, the living work of your faithful hands, domestic & wild, & all those our companions, revealing yet more of your love in their lives with us:
Amen