[A sermon preached for the “Season of Creation” at Christ Church Deer Park, Toronto. The texts were Psalm 33.1-9;
Ezekiel 36.1-14; Luke 19.29-40]
I’ve always had the same problem with my Bibles.
From the very beginning of my Christian faith,
some 55 years ago,
my Bibles have tended to fall apart.
For example, my old New Revised Standard Version
is held together by duct tape.
I can’t read the first three chapters of Genesis
in that one anymore,
because they have literally disintegrated.
And before I started using the NRSV
my New International Version also fell apart
– the binding broke in three places.
Now what is interesting to me is that where the first break happened
in my old NIV was precisely at today’s psalm.
Perhaps this was a matter of overly zealous Bible reading,
or maybe it fell apart at Psalm 33 because it is a psalm
to which I return so often.
You see, in this psalm we are invited
into the heart of a covenantal imagination,
and, I think, the heart,
the very grounding of the Season of Creation.
It’s all there in the words that the psalmist loves to use:
the word of God, the covenantal word of torah
meets a culture of deceit and political spin;
the faithfulness of God’s covenantal truthfulness
meets a culture of infidelity and cover-up;
the righteousness of God, God’s call to holy integrity
shines in the face of creation-and-soul-destroying sin and evil;
the justice of God, the protection of the orphan, widow and stranger
stands before the injustice of a world of oppression.
No wonder the psalmist calls us to rejoice, praise and sing!
Gratitude and praise is befitting those who follow such a God.
And then we come to my favourite verse.
It is here that my imagination was liberated.
It is here that we begin to plumb the depths of biblical faith,
the depths of the very nature of creation,
… perhaps even the depths of God.
After singing that God “loves righteousness and justice,”
the psalmist proclaims that …
“your loving-kindness fills the earth,”
“the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” (Psalm 33.5)
Full of love.
Overflowing in love.
Dripping, saturated, soaked, running over in love.
And not just any love.
This is steadfast love.
This is covenantal love.
This is a faithful love.
This is the Creator’s love filling creation.
As far as the psalmist is concerned,
love goes all the way down.
The earth is full of the Creator’s love.
It is the very nature of the creation to be full of this love.
The earth, the soil, the micro-organisms, the world and all that is in it,
is full of God’s covenantal love,
permeated to its very core by steadfast love.
The word that said, “let there be,” is a word of love.
The God who said, “this is good, good, good, good, very good,”
recognizes that goodness precisely because
the creation is born of divine love.
Martin Luther King was undoubtedly right when he said that
“the moral arc of the universe is long,
but it bends toward justice.”
And the psalmist would add that the universe bends toward justice
because it is rooted in love.
My friends, the Season of Creation
mustn’t be reduced to the church’s once a year
nod to the environmental crisis.
The Season of Creation isn’t a kind of
liturgical emergency response to
the climate calamity in which we live.
Nor is the Season of Creation simply
a pastoral response to the deep ecological grief
and anxiety that grips our hearts
… as important as all of that is.
No, the season of creation begins and ends,
where all Christian spirituality begins and ends,
… with love.
We take time every autumn to deeply attend to creation,
to prayerfully reflect on the world in which we live,
not simply as an expansion of older harvest thanksgiving practices,
but as an annual practice of both literal and spiritual grounding of our faith
in creation, in the soil from which we were born,
in the love that calls all things into being,
On crisp fall days like this past weekend,
it is easy to believe that the earth is full
of such steadfast love.
The delightful chill in the night air,
balanced by the warmth of the day;
the startling blue of the afternoon sky
and the breathtaking array of the night stars;
the stunning shock of colour in the fall canopy
and the abundance of the harvest …
all bear witness to a creation of delight,
all testify to the steadfast love of the Creator.
That is … until you start to think about
the ecological devastation of our planet,
Hurricane Helene’s violent destruction,
the radical increase in forest fires,
the loss of habitat to urban sprawl,
the decrease in bio-diversity,
the rising levels of species extinction,
and the debilitating climate anxiety and grief that
is creating its own mental health crisis in our time.
Then it’s a little difficult to see the world as full of such steadfast love.
So, what happens when the steadfast love of God meets the counsel of nations?
What happens when the word of the Lord meets the propaganda of empire?
What happens when the justice of God meets a world hell bent on war?
What happens when the world is overflowing in hate, not love?
Or … what happens when,
instead of the trees clapping their hands,
forests are desecrated for economic gain?
… what happens when
the land cannot bring forth its fruit
because it has been paved over?
… what happens when
the mountains can no longer skip for joy
because they are drenched in blood,
and beaten down by the boots of invaders?
Well … the forests long for justice,
the land vomits out its inhabitants,
the mountains mourn,
grief takes hold of all creatures,
and the whole creation groans in travail,
longing for redemption.
And … the One whose word of love
called all of creation into being,
the One whose desire
is that the creation overflow in that steadfast love,
the One who delights in creation, who loves creation,
who makes covenant with all of creation …
speaks anew.
But this time, the word of love bypasses humanity.
This time, the prophetic word of hope is addressed directly to the creation.
This time,
in the face of desolation,
in the face of ecological disaster,
in the face of an ecological grief that goes all the way down,
the Creator speaks to the mountains, and there is no one else there.
Isn’t that exactly what is going on in the prophecy of Ezekiel 36?
“And you, mortal, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say:
O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord.”
Prophesy to the mountains?
Speak to the mountains?
Address the watercourses, the valleys, the hills, the forests?
Speak a word of prophesy to the watersheds, the habitats,
and all the creatures who dwell therein?
But there is no one else there!
Ezekiel isn’t sent to the people who have caused this destruction.
He isn’t called in this prophecy to address the perpetrators of ecological destruction.
No, he is to bring a word directly to the mountains,
as if the mountains, the watercourses, the habitats, all of the creatures,
could actually understand, could actually hear this word of prophecy,
could actually take heart and find encouragement in this word of hope.
That’s what comes from a creation called into being by a word of love.
That’s what comes from a creation that the Creator loved into being.
That’s what comes from a creation overflowing in steadfast love.
That’s what comes from a creation bound in covenant with the Creator.
In this kind of world,
in this biblical imagination,
in this worldview,
non-human creatures are subjects, not objects,
non-human creatures are responsive, not inert things to be acted upon,
non-human creatures can hear and speak,
all of creation exists in dynamic and living relationship with the Creator.
And in this kind of world,
it makes total sense for a prophecy to be addressed
to the mountains.
In our reading of scripture we are always overhearing
what was said or written to someone else.
These ancient texts were written to the people of Israel,
or to the early church,
and we overhear these texts,
so that they might address us.
But Ezekiel 36 is written to the mountains,
and we get to overhear
what God says when the only human present,
is the prophet who is charged to deliver this prophecy.
And what a prophecy it is.
Over and over again the prophet repeats,
“say to the mountains,”
“O mountains, hear the word of the Lord,”
“Thus says to Lord to the mountains”
Let there be no mistake about who is addressed.
And let there be no mistake that the mountains
are in fact a “who,” not a “what.”
Notice that the mountains are addressed as “you.”
“You, O mountains,”
“I am for you,”
“I will turn to you,”
“Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
Why this prophecy to the mountains?
Why this remarkable address to mountains,
under the assumption that the mountains can hear this word,
and that the mountains need such a word?
Because they have been made desolate,
because they have been crushed,
because they have been despoiled,
because they have been plundered,
because they have suffered insults, derision and contempt.
Can you insult a mountain?
Yes, by mountain top removal in service of mining.
Can you deride a mountain?
Yes, by destroying its fragile ecosystem.
Can you hold a mountain in contempt?
Yes, by drenching it in blood through the violence of war.
But the Holy One will not abide such insult, derision and contempt.
The steadfast love that is the very foundation of creation
is turned to judgement when that love is betrayed.
When creation is no longer overflowing with steadfast love,
when creation is desolated through human violence,
when creation is choking under the assault of human greed,
when creation suffers the indignity of global warming,
the Creator’s love turns to jealous wrath,
the Creator’s love burns in anger,
the Creator’s love is manifest in historical judgement.
I know, I know, we don’t like the image of the God of judgement.
But let me put it to you this way.
If someone you loved was wantonly attacked, abused, or murdered,
wouldn’t your love necessarily turn to anger?
God’s wrath, anger and judgement in this prophecy
is borne in the Creator’s love,
and is directed to a justice that will see the restoration
of that creation overflowing in love.
The flip side of judgement is hope.
“You, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot out your branches,
and yield your fruit to my people Israel,
for they shall soon come home.”
Let’s be clear, while this prophecy addresses the mountains,
and not the people,
the salvation of creation,
the restoration of these mountains,
necessarily includes the salvation,
indeed, the homecoming, of humanity.
That’s at the heart of the ecological crisis.
Global warming is the overheating of home.
Ecocide – that is, the murder of creation –
is always a matter of domicide – the murder of home.
And Ezekiel’s vision of the restoration of the mountains,
the healing of the waterways and valleys,
the habitats, the animals, the weather patterns,
is all about a restoration of home.
In this homecoming,
desolation is transformed into fruitfulness,
habitats are restored for bio-diversity,
places devastated by war and violence are inhabited anew,
and a broken creation is bound together in the faithfulness of covenant,
… and … “you will no longer bereave them of their children.”
Did you notice that?
Did you notice that at the end of this prophecy,
it all comes down to the children?
Three times the prophecy addresses the mountains
about the children.
Three times,
… almost as if this was the greatest indignity that the mountains suffered,
the cause of the deepest grief for these mountains…
the prophecy addresses the death of the children.
Children sacrificed in the violence between nations.
Children who run to the mountains for protection only to perish.
Children who get caught up in creational desolation all around us.
No longer, the prophecy insists,
no longer will creation and its destruction bereave us of our children.
We can’t talk about the bereavement of children this morning
without reflecting on the tragic death of children
over the last year in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and now in Lebanon.
Some 36 children were murdered on October 7 by Hamas.
36 bereaved families.
36 lives sacrificed because land is occupied,
land has been rendered desolate.
And that 36 has multiplied to more than 16,000 killed,
and countless more missing in Gaza.
Bereaved families.
The land soaked in children’s blood.
Whether it is war, climate change,
drought, extreme weather, or the loss of home,
it always comes back to the children.
Ezekiel’s vision of the healing of the mountains,
this prophecy of creational restoration,
is uttered in the face of profound and devastating loss,
is proclaimed to the mountains for their sake,
and for the sake of the children.
What we cannot hear in our grief,
what we cannot believe in our anxiety,
what we cannot hope in our despair,
the mountains can hear,
the watercourses can believe,
the rest of creation can hope.
Maybe that is why,
when Jesus was riding that donkey into Jerusalem,
and all of the people, including the children, were shouting
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord,”
and the Pharisees told Jesus to silence this public display of hope …
Jesus replied, “I tell you, if these people were silent, the stones would shout out.”
The stones would shout out.
Hyperbole?
A poetic flourish?
Overstatement?
No, my friends.
The stones would shout out
because they, and all of creation,
recognize their redeemer when he is walking by.
They recognize, together with the mountains,
that restoration is at hand.
They recognize, the love that calls and sustains all of creation,
when it takes on flesh and rides a donkey.
May we, during this Season of Creation,
join our voice with all of creation …
lamenting the desolation,
grieving the loss,
while hearing this word of hope,
and recognizing the redeemer of all things when he walks by.
And may we be inspired to redirect our lives to practices of creation’s healing,
to a spirituality that hears the word of the Lord spoken to mountains,
joining our voices with the stones in singing Hosanna,
so that the earth may again be overflowing
in the steadfast love of the Creator.
Amen
