Frontpage, Aug. 25, 2019

Aug. 25, 2019 – Pentecost 11

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The Week Ahead…

Aug. 28 – 8:00am – Way of Love Breakfast

Aug. 28 – 10:00am – Ecumenical Bible Study

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Sept 1 – 10:00am –
Christian Education – The Holy Land—Part 1, Jerusalem

Sept 1 – 11:00am – Holy Eucharist, Rite II, Season of Creation I

Sunday, Sept. 1 Readings and Servers

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Last week at St. Peter’s

1. Village Harvest, Aug 21

Fewer clients, plenty of food, August Village Harvest

2. Ladies Night Out, Aug. 23

From 2003 to 2019, Ladies Night Out

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Way of Love Breakfast

We have been working this year on an initiative from the Episcopal Church, The Way of Love. This rule of life sums up the way we Christians are already trying to live. People all over The Episcopal Church have joined together to intentionally adopt this way of life in community, and individually. The Way of Love includes the following seven actions—turning, learning, praying, worshiping, blessing, going, and resting. Most of us already do all seven of these things but being intentional and also accountable to a group of people who have also chosen to be intentional will make The Way of Love a powerful spiritual vaccine that can keep us well, and able to walk in love with God and with one another

The 28th will be a breakfast. Way of Love ends just before Bible Study at 10am.

The Way of Love

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Christian Education in September

Family Vacation-Let’s go! During September, at 10AM, we’re going to take some trips around the world, specifically to the Holy Land, to Ireland, to Guatemala, and then on the last Sunday of this Season, Along Your Road. Your tour guide will be Catherine. We are going to enjoy traveling together and searching for God along the way. You and your family are invited. Come to the front room in the Parish House, prepared to travel. And hopefully, you’ll find some surprises on these journeys that will hopefully bring us closer to God, to the natural world, and to one another. Jesus spent his ministry travelling, and so we’ll go with Him along the Way.

The first Sunday we will spend in the old and diverse city of Jerusalem

“Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways of Zion.” Ps 84:5

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What is the Season of Creation?

During the seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent and Easter we celebrate the life of Christ. In the season of Pentecost we celebrate the Holy Spirit. Now, in the season of Creation, we have an opportunity to celebrate creation and the Creator. Thus the Trinity – God the creator, Christ the redeemer of creation, and the Holy Spirit as sustainer of life.

For Five Sundays in September, we join in celebrating with creation. We celebrate Christ, the creator, and the wonders of creation. On September 1 we are invited to celebrate Creation Day with Christians around the world. Creationtide is originally an Eastern Orthodox initiative in 1989, but has now spread widely among Anglican, Roman Catholic and Protestant congregations, bringing Christians together to pray and work for the protection of the environment that sustains everyone.

During the Season of Creation, we unite as one family in Christ, celebrating the bonds we share with each other and with “every living creature on earth.” (Genesis 9:10) The Christian family celebrates the season by spending time in prayer, considering ways to more sustainably inhabit our common home, and lifting our voices in the public sphere.

Dr. William P. Brown of Columbia Theological seminary wrote the following about creation care. “The fundamental mandate for creation care comes from Genesis 2:15, where God places Adam in the garden to “till it and keep it…” Human “dominion” as intended in Genesis is best practiced in care for creation, in stewardship, which according to Genesis Noah fulfills best by implementing God’s first endangered species act.”

Creation Care Prayer

God, maker of marvels,
you weave the planet and all its creatures together in kinship;
your unifying love is revealed
in the interdependence of relationships
in the complex world that you have made.
Save us from the illusion that humankind is separate and alone,
and join us in communion with all inhabitants of the universe;
through Jesus Christ, our Redeemer,
who topples the dividing walls by the power of your Holy Spirit,
and who loves and reigns with you, for ever and ever. Amen.

-Liturgical Materials for Honoring God in Creation Reported to the 78th General Convention

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The Bible and the Season of Creation

One of the pressing issues of creation in our time is climate change

The issue of Climate Change that has enveloped over the last generation has involved both religion and science.

Science and religion are tools to investigate reality from two different angles. Each discipline asks a fundamentally different question.

Science asks: how does the universe work?

Religion asks: why is there a universe and what is its purpose, and what is our purpose of existence as human beings? How should we treat the environment as we realize our connection to the creator God ?

Now, as the Earth is affected by climate change and other environmental problems we need science to learn more about the causes, effects, and solutions to these problems.

So what’s the role of religion? While scientists can tell us what needs to be done, they are usually not able to motivate society to implement these solutions. That’s where we need religion. Religion provides us with the spiritual understanding of our responsibility towards the Earth and towards other human beings including future generations. In other words, religion provides an ethical or moral framework. And it motivates us to act!

The concern of the environment is an interfaith issue and not just Christian. All faiths have talked about it.

The issue in the Bible goes right back to the early Israelites

1. Creation – Genesis 2, emphasizes God’s immanence or intimate relationship with creation  

2. Man – God gave humankind the responsibility to tend and serve the garden (Gen. 2:6), e., to care for “this fragile earth, our island home” (Eucharistic Prayer C). 

God also has given human beings creative powers. We also participate in creation through works of human thought, art and scientific invention (cf. Ex. 31:35).  

3. Deuteronomy. Covenant relationship with the Lord. Land not as token  of the covenant but as partner of the covenant 

Deuteronomy. God’s covenantal gift of the land came with a warning –the Israelites were not to forget God’s commandments; if they did, they would lose the land.  Land and creatures to be  treated justly 

Deuteronomy.  Need to preserve the land –They couldn’t do well unless they maintained the land. It was the source of life and prosperity. The soil was thin and easily eroded. The rain was sparse and came in the winter, the wrong time of year

4 Jeremiah –  Nahala refers to the land that sustains a nation or a people and carries a sense of duty to tend the land lovingly so that it can be passed on to sustain future generations, a mandate that we would call generational justice today. 

In Jeremiah, every family was allocated a farm in the promised land But the Israelites abused God’s hospitality by living in ways that were unjust, ways contrary to Torah, ways that desecrated the land. Time and again God offered to forgive the people if they would only repent and live faithfully. But they refused, and so God’s commitment to the land required that the Israelites be exiled. But exile was not the end of the covenant. It was intended to be a sabbatical to reconsecrate the land and people

5. Redemption and creation – In the Bible redemption and creation are closely tied together, for the God who saves is the very God who creat This message appears in the Old Testament prophet of the Babylonian exile: he assures his people that the God who rescued their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and will redeem them from exile is the same Lord who created the heavens and the earth (Isaiah 40:12, 28; 42:5-6; 44:23).

In the New Testament the writer of Colossians states (1:16, 20) that the Christ through whom “all things in heaven and on earth were created” is the also the one through whom “God was pleased to reconcile all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross .

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A Theme for this Season – Web of Life

Witness the diversity and balance of life and the need to preserve it.

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Lectionary, Sept 1 2019 – Season of Creation 1, Year C

Genesis 1:1-25

This passage says much about God and his relationship to humans. Genesis stresses that the created world is a gift in which human beings have particular responsibilities indicated by being made in the image of God to exercise dominion. The latter is to help elements of creation live together in the mutuality and solidarity of Genesis 1. We are to do in our little spheres of influence what God does in the cosmic sphere

There are two life forces or agencies of creation

1. The Spirit of God moving over the face of the water. The Hebrew word ruah is also translated ‘breath’.
2. the Word of God. “God said ‘Let there be light’”; and the pattern continues: “God said…and it was so”. Like the Spirit the Word is also a recurring theme in Scripture, leading to in the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.

God here exercises divine power through peaceful means. God creates by the word.

In chapter 1, God accomplishes all his work by speaking. “God said…” and everything happened. This lets us know that God’s power is more than sufficient to create and maintain the creation

To be sure, this text emphasizes God’s singular power, even omnipotence in creation. Yet the means is peaceful compared with many people in antiquity who believed the world came into existence through violent combat among the gods. The latter meant that violence was built into the order of creation. Creation by the word suggests that the means of bringing something into existence should be consistent with the end. According to Genesis, violence is not inherent in creation but results from the misuse of creation.

The first three of God’s creative acts separate the formless chaos into realms of heavens (or sky), water, and land. On day one, God creates light and separates it from darkness, forming day and night (Gen. 1:3-5) On day two, he separates the waters and creates the sky (Gen.1:6-8) On the first part of day three, he separates dry land from the sea (Gen. 1:9-10) All are essential to the survival of what follows. Next, God begins filling the realms he has created. On the remainder of day three, he creates plant life (Gen 1:11-13) On day four he creates the sun, moon, and stars Gen 1:14-19) in the sky. The terms “greater light” and “lesser light” are used rather than the names “sun” and “moon,” thus discouraging the worship of these created objects and reminding us that we are still in danger of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. The lights are beautiful in themselves and also essential for plant life, with its need for sunshine, nighttime, and seasons. On day five, God fills the water and sky with fish and birds that could not have survived without the plant life created earlier (Gen. 1:20-23) Finally, on day six, he creates the animals (Gen. 1:24-25) and—the apex of creation—humanity to populate the land (Gen. 1:26-31)

The central character in the Genesis 1 story is Earth and Sky  Earth is an unformed mass, waiting deep in primal waters, with the spirit hovering above! Earth has not yet assumed its final shape and has not yet been filled with life  Later in verse 9 it is clear that Earth emerges from beneath these waters. The character called Earth is waiting below, a character yet to be developed by  God. God speaks to these waters and summons them to separate. The image of Earth emerging from the waters recalls a birth.

More significant, perhaps, is the word ‘appear’. It is a remarkable that this expression should be used here. The Hebrew term employed is normally used of God’s appearing, what we call a theophany! So the birth of Earth is a revelation, like the appearance of God. Earth is indeed something special, a valued part of the cosmos.

After Earth appears, God calls on Earth to be a co-creator. He summons Earth to bring forth vegetation. God does not say, ‘Let there be plants and trees and flowers’. God works with Earth as a mediator from whom all plant life appears. Earth is the physical source of life.

Read more about the Lectionary….

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A Little Science- Carbon and the Carbon Cycle

Carbon

-An element 

-The basis of life of earth

-Found in rocks, oceans, atmosphere, 

-Carbon is an essential component of proteins, fats and carbohydrates which

make up all living organisms 

Carbon cycle – the way carbon moves through organisms and the environment 

1 Plants take in CO2 via Photosynthesis – make organic molecules (glucose) 

2 Organisms release CO2 via Respiration of organic molecules (burning of organic compounds in body) 

3 Fires release C02 from organic molecules 

4 Geochemical  processes can absorb C02 and release it.  Fossil fuel formed over a long period time , heating and cooling water  

What’s your carbon footprint ? A carbon footprint is defined  as: 

“The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbondioxide (CO2).

In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2, depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emitted some quantities of CO2.

Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame. Usually a carbon footprint is calculated for the time period of a year.”

You can check calculate your carbon footprint – here. A simpler version is from the Environmental Protection Agenday (EPA).

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