Start:Stop - Raising the bar

The Creation of Animals - Paul Nash, 1924

Hello and welcome to this week’s Start:Stop reflection, helping you start your day by stopping to reflect for ten minutes. Through Lent we have been exploring the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, using as our guide the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book “Saying Yes to Life.” Our reading this morning describes the sixth day of creation:

Bible Reading – Genesis 1.24-31

And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

So God created humankind in his image,

   in the image of God he created them;

   male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Reflection

The sixth day. The day God created humankind - but that’s not all. Our reading from Genesis reminds us that we didn’t get a day of creation just to ourselves; humanity was created by God alongside living creatures of “every kind.”

Ruth Valerio has devoted many pages of this year’s Lent Book to highlight the abundant diversity of the world’s species, including the bizarre Bassian Thrush from Australia which uses its own flatulence to draw worms to the surface, which it then eats; and the intricate underground social network of fungal spores through which trees are now thought to communicate.

Whilst we don’t get a day of creation to ourselves, humanity, as God’s image bearers, is given a job to do with which no other creature is tasked; as one writer, (Elizabeth Theokritoff) has put it:

“Man..made of the same stuff as the mosquito, receives the divine inbreathing for the sake of the whole creation 'in order that the earthly might be raised up to the divine that the one grace might pervade the whole of creation.'"

Statistics highlighting dramatic extinction rates and habitat depletion and the human suffering – particularly to the world’s poor – that this is causing - make clear that we need to raise our game as stewards - or gardeners - of God's creation.

The American novelist Wendell Berry has observed "there is an uncanny resemblance between our behaviour toward each other and our behaviour toward the earth.” Speaking recently in a deserted St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis used the disruption caused by the coronavirus to reflect - in blunt terms - on our behaviour. Rushing about at breakneck speed, we've turned a blind eye to injustice, the cries of the poor and our ailing planet. We’ve carried on regardless, he said, thinking we’d stay healthy in a world that was sick. The behavioural change forced on us by our own sickness has seen fish and other wildlife return to the canals of Venice for the first time in decades and air quality improving around the world as harmful emissions have reduced.

Our Lent Book, ‘Saying Yes to Life,’ calls on us to raise the bar in terms of reducing our own impact on the environment – but no matter how limited this becomes, we cannot escape the fact that we have all grown up breathing in polluted air to some extent - just as we cannot escape the fact that we are all born tainted by sin. 

No matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves.

This is why God sent his Son into the world, why he was crucified and why he was resurrected from the dead.

Aside from tips for sustainable living, raising the bar in terms of our understanding of God’s saving work, is the core message at the heart of this year's Lent book - and the Church of England's wider 'Live Lent' campaign. We often say that Jesus died for our sins - but we’ve been encouraged to see more broadly, beyond a single concept, if we are to come close to understanding the fullness of God's work to share the divine life with all his creatures. As we have seen throughout the first chapter of Genesis, this is not simply a story about humankind and God’s relationship with us, but about the whole world. As St Paul reminds us: "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."

In childhood, the anchoress Julian of Norwich survived the Black Death but a severe illness at the age of thirty prompted a series of 'showings' which she later transcribed. In a vision of Christ's blood on the cross, she describes seeing "a great unity between Christ and us; for when he was in pain we were in pain, and all creatures able to suffer pain suffered with him." Whilst she was tempted to look away, she remained focussed on the cross because she believed that as long as she did so, she would be secure and safe. Fifteen years later, she concluded that through these visions, God who is love had manifested himself as love so that we may truly understand the nature of love.

This Friday as we remember Christ's body being raised up on the cross, may we consider what we love and how we treat those and that which we love. Against the background of daily death tolls from the coronavirus, let us, like Julian of Norwich, remain focussed on the cross; the symbol of God's love for the whole world.  

Prayer

O Christ, your cross speaks both to us and to our world.

In your dying for us you accepted the pain and hurt

Of the whole of creation.

The arms of your cross stretch out across the

Broken world in reconciliation.

You have made peace with us.

Help us to make peace with you by sharing in your

Reconciling work.

Amen.

(Ali Newell)

Blessing

And may the blessing of God the Creator,

Christ the Redeemer

and the Spirit, the Sustainer of all

be with us, and with all life on earth,

now and always.

Amen

Links

You can download a free digital copy of this year’s Lent Book ‘Saying Yes to Life’ by registering here.