Photo by Payton Bissell on Unsplash
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]]>Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash
Reading by Molly Cahill
Brazilian Portuguese reading by Ben Bacheller
Illustration: Dark waves and gold by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
A sermon on ‘Caring for God’s Wounded World’ from January 2021 given at St Paul’s Ealing, UK by Revd Dr Dave Bookless of A Rocha International. Dave looks at the context of COVID and of the upcoming COP 26 climate meeting in Glasgow, and encourages us to seize the moment as a time to see, a time to choose, and a time to act.
Photo: Kolkata by Abhyuday Majhi on Unsplash
]]>This plenary by Revd Dave Bookless was recorded at the Lausanne South East Asia Regional Conference on Creation Care and the Gospel, in Manila (18 Mar 2014). He gives a solid biblical basis for caring for God’s world and clarifies some misinterpretations of the Bible that may have led Christians to an incomplete understanding of the gospel and God’s good Earth.
Subtitles in English (UK), French and Portuguese (Brazil); please turn them on as necessary.
What is the Big Picture that unfolds from Genesis to the return of Jesus? And how are we part of this story? Dave Bookless outlines the major themes in the Old and New Testaments and asks, ‘How big is your Jesus?’
Where is your home? We were created to live rooted – in God, in our community and in creation. But in today’s world many people are uprooted and detached and therefore internally wounded. Dave Bookless challenges you: ‘Be a mangrove.’
God’s Kingdom brings shalom: wholeness for all creation. It touches all areas of our lives and our society and economy. Can Jesus be king over your whole life? And do you want to be a ‘bringer of shalom’ in your environment?
What is the vocation of the church of which you are a member? And what does this mean concretely for how your church is in your town or village? Dave Bookless invites your church to be involved in God’s movement from creation to transformation – in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is full of trees! We find them from the first chapter of Genesis (1:11-13) where God creates “seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds” and declares them “very good”, to the final chapter of Revelation (22:2). All this is a reminder that our faith is not only spiritual. Our faith is also deeply embodied in the physical world God has placed us in.
The Bible doesn’t have a lot to say directly about waste, at least in regard to the remnants of things consumed. There were no single use plastics or packaging, no industrial processes, and much less over consumption. That isn’t to say that the issue isn’t addressed, particularly around the broader theme of stewardship.
We are to take not what we WANT but what we NEED. Selfishness and greed are the enemies of life. In the plan of God, every creature has a purpose and therefore everything is good in His sight. It is God’s will that life is interdependent on each other because one cannot live without others. Every creature depends on every other creature. In other words, human beings needs the rest of God’s creation for their own survival. For this very reason, we must not waste but learn to live a responsible Christian life humbly before God. In this short reflection, we shall see how Paul explains this in Colossians 1:15-20.
The global ecological crises call us to rethink the way we understand God and God’s love for us and for the whole creation. How does God feel when innocent people suffer loss due to natural calamities? How does God feel when we exploit nature to satisfy our greed and pleasure? What is our responsibility as God’s children? In this short reflection, we shall look at three important things that are closely connected to each other.