Creation Sunday 2007: April 22 (suggested)
Theme: Loving Our Neighbors
Caring for creation is part of Jesus' command to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matt. 22:37ff) After all, loving God entails respecting, admiring, and caring for what he has made. But Jesus followed his first command with a call for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. This, too, is a part of creation care, because people, though made in the image of God, are still a part of Creation! Loving our neighbors was one of the primary motivations for many of us as we come to the creation care conversation.
Despite our desire to be close to the natural world expressed through birdwatching, gardening, camping, and hiking, it is really the poorest of the poor who live in closest contact with the physical world. The environmental experience of poor farmers in sub-Saharan Africa dealing with drought is direct. Poor people in America's inner cities breathe polluted air and feel heat waves without the buffer of elaborate air-conditioning systems. Most good things in our economy are distributed unequally between rich and poor, and clean, healthy environments are no exception. Concern for the "least of these" (Matthew 25) moves us to care for the life-support system God created and which sustains them and us.
In a globalized world, we need to think broadly about who our neighbor is. The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us that difference, distance, and geography matter very little in our call to express compassion and love. In an interconnected climate system, emissions from our cars and factories are "shared" with our neighbors around the planet (and have impacts that will last for hundreds of years). Pollution from foreign factories producing goods for the American market is being emitted on our behalf. Understanding the side-effects of how our global economy works helps us to understand that our compassion must similarly be without borders.
When we love the Creator by caring for Creation, including our neighbors, we are helping to fulfill all the commandments of the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew Sleeth's article, "Serve God, Save the Planet" talks about the importance of loving our neighbors, and we recommend it as a primary resource for this year's theme. HTML | PDF
Materials Available
General creation care-based worship and educational resources are available on the following pages
Specific materials, resources, and suggestions related to our 2007 theme "Loving Our Neighbors" can be found at the following locations:
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Mercury and unborn children HTML
Scripture passages:
The
Relationship Between "Environmental Problems" and Christian Love
and Justice
Comment: Most major environmental
problems such as air pollution, water pollution, and the threat of
global warming hurt people. These problems fight against Christ's
reconciliation of all of creation. In many instances they hit
the poor, the children, and the elderly the hardest. In this light,
here are a few of the many biblical texts appropriate for
reflection.
Col. 1:20: "For God was pleased to have all his
fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all
things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making
peace through his blood, shed on the cross."
2 Cor. 5: 14-21: "For Christ's love compels us, because we are
convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he
died for all, that those who live should no longer live for
themselves but for him who died for them and was raised
again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point
of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no
longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is
from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us
the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world
to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he
has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are
therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his
appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled
to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that
in him we might become the righteousness of God."
Phil. 2:4-8: "Each of you should look not only to your own
interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude
should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very
nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a
servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in
appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to
death--even death on a cross!"
Lk. 4:18-19: Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because
he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for
the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the
Lord's favor."
Jn. 13:34: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I
have loved you, so you must love one another."
I Jn. 4:7-8: "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes
from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows
God . . . because God is love."
Mt. 25:34-45: "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come,
you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the
kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave
me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I
needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after
me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous
will answer him, `Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or
thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a
stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When
did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The
King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of
the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Then he will
say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into
the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was
hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave
me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in,
I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in
prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for
one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'"
Lk. 6:31: "Do to others as you would have them do to
you."
Micah 6:1-4, 7-8: " Listen to what the LORD says: 'Stand up, plead
your case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to
say. Hear, O mountains, the LORD's accusation; listen, you
everlasting foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case
against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. My
people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer
me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of
slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam' . . .
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand
rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O
man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act
justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Jer. 22:3: "Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or
the widow . . ."
Ps. 72:1, 12-14a: "Endow the king with your justice, O God . . . he
will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one
to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save
the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and
violence . . ."
Mt. 22:37-40: "Jesus replied, 'Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the
first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love
your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the Prophets hang on
these two commandments.'"