Many are celebrating Creation Season.
This site is committed to the three year lectionary (RC) and its derivative, the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). Creation and redemption form the warp and weft of the Bible. Abandoning the agreed lectionary in order to focus on creation is an admission that you do not find enough about creation in the Bible readings set.
Rather than departing from that lectionary, in previous years resources have been provided on this site for a “creation reading” of our shared biblical texts. This means that this site has such creation reflections for Years C and A, and resources for this Creation Season for this year, Year B, will be added to that Creation Season resources page.
The lectionary for year B (2015, 2018, 2021…)
A creation reading of the lectionary for the Sunday between 18 and 24 September:
The Proverbs reading speaks of many things we humans need and use from nature, from creation: wool, flax, food, ships, vineyards, fruit, linen, bead.
The Wisdom of Solomon has
For he created all things so that they might exist;
the generative forces of the world are wholesome,
We now need to take great care with verses such as
make use of the creation to the full
It is actually a good example of the danger of ripping a verse out of context. The text is clearly a text contrary to God’s will. The text continues:
Let us oppress the righteous poor man;
let us not spare the widow
or regard the grey hairs of the aged…
‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;…
Jeremiah’s passage uses the metaphor of the destruction of creation.
Psalm 1, again, using creation images reinforces this significance.
As does the James text. Sowing and bearing fruit is an underlying paradigm, which we know to be a reality not just within creation, but in our relationship with it.
We have just celebrated the Holy Cross, the lens through which we view reality and the expression of how we should live, turning upside down conventional understandings and approaches. The Gospel reading today reinforces this conversion. Our living of “subduing” (וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ) and having “dominion over” (וּרְד֞וּ) creation (Gen 1:28) may change in the light of Jesus.
Please add, in the comments below, any further creation insights from the lectionary readings, as well as other creation resources that will be useful this month. Some of these ideas will be added to the Creation Season resource page which I encourage you to also check out.
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Now I will be naughty and risk being excommunicated by every “good” Green Christian! This picture reminds us how much a struggle and labour were required to obtain food and materials like flax linen, furniture etc, before a magic substance was used which made life so much easier. We need to thank the Creator of those magic substances who enabled us to live in such relative comfort. The magic substances are found in the ground and were formed from organic matter millions of years ago. I dare not name what they are