Celebrating the Season of Creation
By Norm Habel
Our aim in The Season of Creation is a joint celebration in which we not only give thanks for creation but also celebrate with creation. Our goal is a mutual ministry in which we are not only called to serve and sustain life, but recognize how creation serves and sustains life.
The Season of Creation is an exciting new season of the church year, a season that is now being celebrated in a number of countries around the world. Around the year 2000, the Season of Creation was being developed in Australia, especially through the Uniting Church. At the very same time, a parallel season called the Time of Creation was being developed in Europe by the ECEN (European Christian Environmental Network). Without knowledge of each other’s work, both groups chose September as the appropriate time for celebrating with creation, following a Greek Orthodox tradition of declaring September 1 the Day of Creation and St. Francis of Assisi Day, October 4, as a fitting closure.
Why a Season of Creation? There is a growing concern in Christian communities about the ecological crisis and the way we have been treating Earth. One of the most effective ways to focus this concern, we believe, is through worship. By concentrating our worship on God’s creation and worshipping with creation, we are more like to find ways to heal rather than exploit our planet.
Our aim in The Season of Creation is a joint celebration in which we not only give thanks for creation but also celebrate with creation. Our goal is a mutual ministry in which we are not only called to serve and sustain life, but recognize how creation serves and sustains life. Our vision is to celebrate Christ as personal redeemer and also as the cosmic power at work renewing and healing a suffering creation.
How best might we celebrate the Season of Creation? Traditional ways of naming the Sundays of a season did not seem appropriate in the face of our ecological crisis. So it was decided to name the Sundays in terms that immediately evoked a connection with creation. We chose titles such as Forest Sunday, River Sunday, Ocean Sunday, and Cosmos Sunday. Worshippers around the world are free to modify or expand the Sundays with names that fit their creation contexts. It is great to invite artists to transform the place of worship into a forest, a river, or the ocean.
A set of readings for the Season of Creation has been prepared for the proposed three-year lectionary cycle, corresponding to the liturgical sequence of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Each set of readings has a focus not only on the domain of creation given in the title of that Sunday but also on the spiritual agent or impulse involved in the continuing process of creation, namely, the Spirit in creation, the Word in creation, and Wisdom in creation.
Especially important for any Bible study, reflection, or preaching from the readings for a given Sunday is a willingness to read texts from the perspective of Earth, whether that be a domain or living creatures of Earth. We have in the past, only read from the perspective of humans or God. But as Earth beings we are invited to read with a sensitivity to Earth or our Earth kin and seek to hear their voices in the text.
The Season of Creation is an opportunity to grow in faith, not only as servants of Christ but also as children of Earth. Through worship in this season we can also reorient our faith so that we unite with Earth and our kin on Earth in praising the Creator, discerning the presence of the cosmic Christ, and being genuine partners of the Spirit who groans with creation and renews all life on our planet.
Norman Habel is Professorial Fellow at Flinders University, actively involved in social justice and ecojustice issues, initiator of The Earth Bible Series and Season of Creation (www.seasonofcreation.com), editor of Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics and author of An Inconvenient Text.
Seasons of the Spirit™ SeasonsFUSION Season of Creation • Pentecost 2 2011 Copyright © Wood Lake Publishing Inc. 2011
We'll be focusing on the Season of Creation throughout the Sundays of September, beginning with Forest Sunday on September 4th. Speak to Nan if you would like to help prepare for one of the Sundays of the season.
