For
Sunday, October 14, 2018, 1st Sunday in the Season of Creation, Readings: The Creation by James Weldon
Johnson*,
Psalm 100,
From Meditations with Julian of Norwich**, Mark 10:17-31
Welcome to the Season
of Creation!
This liturgical Season of Creation originated
in the Anglican Church of South Africa in 2008 and is designed for us to
explore our faith from a Creation perspective. We are to realize our place
in the order of God’s creating and to see and act upon the need to care for our
entire life-support system ~ the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil
in which we grow our crops ~ not merely humanity, but our total environment, as
it pertains to ALL life.
From the early days of the Season of Creation at the US Episcopal
Parish of Sts. Andrew and Matthew [SsAM] in Wilmington, Delaware, it
was established that “the primary aim of the events of the season is to
enable adults and youth to celebrate and experience the inextricable link which
binds together the destinies of all of God’s creatures.” It is a moment of
pause to remind ourselves that God calls us to see “what great dangers we are
in by our unhappy divisions” and for us to renew our commitment to making real
the biblical vision of the earth at unity with itself. It is a vision of human
beings of all races, backgrounds and walks of life in local communities and
among the nations of the earth, living together in love and peace with justice
for all. "As disciples of Christ, we are called through our Baptismal
Covenant, to be instruments for the healing of our broken world," and
with a renewed commitment to personal and communal prayer and action.
We will use Biblical and other readings that pertain to the
specific theme of each of the 7 weeks. Alternate readings used will follow
the prayers on this page. [click here for more information on SsAM Season of Creation]
This Week's Theme is: In the Beginning
We begin this Season at
the Beginning. Professor Wangari Maathai, 2004
Nobel Peace Prize winner, describes the Book of Genesis as "the book for
environmentalists." "If we had been created on Tuesday," she
said, "there would have been nowhere for us to stand! God, with infinite
wisdom, waited until the last day!"
LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY
Leader:
~ Living, Loving
God, Divine Architect of
all Creation, You smiled and breathed and hand sculptured into existence, every
life form, stars and seas, lightness and dark, all that ever was and ever will
be, in universes near and far. Grant us the wisdom to stand in humble awe of
You, worship You with gladness and praise, and ultimately enter Your gates with
thanksgiving.
O Lord
our God
RESPONSE: In
You all things are possible
~ Living, Loving
God, steep us in the courage
to stand firm and insist that all those who govern in this World, in our Country,
and in all of our Communities, enact, support, and enforce legislation to
promote universal peace, justice, and the preservation Your Creation. We pray especially for: add your own petitions
O
Lord our God
In
You all things are possible
~
Living, Loving God, cast the light of
Your presence into the shadows of those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit,
and comfort and rest to all who give them care. We now join our voices to pray aloud for those in need…
O
Lord our God
In
You all things are possible
~ Living, Loving
God, ease the hearts of
all who mourn, as those who have gone ahead now enter the glorious Life and Peace
of Christ. We pray especially
for:
O
Lord our God
In
You all things are possible
~ Living, Loving God, we pause in this moment to offer You our other heartfelt
thanksgivings, intercessions, petitions, and memorials, aloud or silently…
O
Lord our God
In
You all things are possible
~ Living, Loving
God, refresh and excite all who are called as our
Shepherds in Your Church. May they who bring us the Sacred Word and Sacraments,
inspire us to live in love through our every thought and action. We pray
especially for: add your own petitions
O
Lord our God
In
You all things are possible
The
Celebrant adds: Eternal God, In the Beginning, You
proclaimed every facet of Your Work to be Good. May all that we do in love and humility
prosper our part of this Universe, give glory to Jesus our Christ and our
Redeemer, and to the Holy Spirit, the Wisdom of our souls, who together with
You, reign as One God through all time, in the known and unknown expanse of
Your Creation. Amen.
And God stepped out on
space,
And he looked around and
said:
I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.
And far as the eye of
God could see
Darkness covered
everything,
Blacker than a hundred
midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled
up on one side,
And the light stood
shining on the other,
And God said: That’s
good!
Then God reached out and
took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light
around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun
a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was
left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a
shining ball
And flung it against the
darkness,
Spangling the night with
the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the
light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That’s
good!
Then God himself stepped
down—
And the sun was on his
right hand,
And the moon was on his
left;
The stars were clustered
about his head,
And the earth was under
his feet.
And God walked, and
where he trod
His footsteps hollowed
the valleys out
And bulged the mountains
up.
Then he stopped and
looked and saw
That the earth was hot
and barren.
So God stepped over to
the edge of the world
And he spat out the
seven seas—
He batted his eyes, and
the lightnings flashed—
He clapped his hands,
and the thunders rolled—
And the waters above the
earth came down,
The cooling waters came
down.
Then the green grass
sprouted,
And the little red flowers
blossomed,
The pine tree pointed
his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out
his arms,
The lakes cuddled down
in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down
to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow
appeared,
And curled itself around
his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm
and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over
the land,
And he said: Bring
forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God
could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the
seas,
Roamed the forests and
the woods,
And split the air with
their wings.
And God said: That’s
good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his
moon,
And he looked at his
little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living
things,
And God said: I’m lonely
still.
Then God sat down—
On the side of a hill
where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he
sat down;
With his head in his
hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I’ll
make me a man!
Up from the bed of the
river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the
river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God
Almighty
Who lit the sun and
fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to
the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in
the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending
over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of
clay
Till he shaped it in is
his own image;
Then into it he blew the
breath of life,
And man became a living
soul. Amen. Amen.
**Reading #2: From
Meditations with Julian of Norwich
I saw that God was
everything that is good and encouraging.
God is our clothing
that wraps, clasps, and encloses us so as never to leave us.
God showed me in my
palm a little thing round as a ball about the size of a hazelnut.
I looked at it with
the eye of my understanding and asked myself: “What is this thing?”
And I was answered:
“It is everything that is created.”
I wondered how it
could survive since it seemed so little it could suddenly disintegrate into
nothing.
The answer came: “It
endures and ever will endure, because God loves it.”
And so everything has
being because of God’s love.
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