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United Church in the Valley: May 14, 2017
Student Minister: Matthew Heesing
Called to Be the Church Pt. II:
“To Live With Respect in Creation”
Scripture Readings:
John 20: 10-18:
After seeing the empty tomb, Peter and the other disciple returned home.
But Mary remained outside the tomb, weeping.
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels dressed in white, seated
where Jesus’ body had been: one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked Mary, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize it was Jesus.
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, Mary said:
“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him back.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned back around, and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my
disciples and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the good news: “I have seen the Lord!”
And she told them that Jesus had said these things to her.
Genesis 1: 1-2; 2:4-9:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters….
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—
and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth,
and no plant of the field had yet spring up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth
and there was no one to work the ground,
but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground—
the Lord God formed humanity from the dust of the ground
and breathed into their nostrils the breath of life,
and what began as formless matter became a living being.
Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden;
and there he put the human he had formed.
And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—
trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.
In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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Sermon:
Note: This Sunday’s sermon was primarily shared by two other people from the congregation.
The following is simply the introduction.
“We are not alone.
We live in God’s world.”
Those are the opening lines
of the United Church of Canada’s New Creed,
originally written in 1968.
But in 1995, an additional line was added
to our denominational statement of faith.
After it says
“We are called to be the Church,
to celebrate God’s presence,”
in 1995, it now went on to say,
“to live with respect in Creation.”
“To live with respect in Creation.”
A few weeks ago, on Easter morning,
we found Mary, at the empty tomb, and Jesus asking,
“Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”
“And thinking he was the gardener, Mary replies…”
Which might appear to be
a comical comment, an extra detail, or off-hand remark.
But the author of John
is making a point,
providing a parallel,
that brings us back to the very first mention of a garden,
back to the beginning, in Genesis 2,
the story of God planting a garden,
providing life, and light and love,
and making all things new.
It’s directly connected,
from Eden to the empty tomb.
Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener, but in a way, she was right:
this is the Gardener, with a capital-G,
who brings beauty out of chaos,
who since the very beginning,
has called us to join
in the work of caring, sustaining,
and living in right relations,
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living with respect in all creation,
for “we are not alone, we live in God’s world,
and we believe in God, who has created and is creating
who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others by the Spirit.”
We can’t separate our faith from creation.
How we live, as followers of Christ,
involves the earth, the environment, the created order.
From Genesis to the Gospel of John,
we can see that living with respect in creation
is not just something we need to do,
but something we are called to do,
as a people of faith,
as the hands and feet of the resurrected Christ,
and as the Church.
Each one of us is called to live with respect in Creation—
and we all do, in unique and valuable ways.
And that’s why this morning,
I’ve invited two special guests to share
how and why they, personally,
live with respect in creation….