By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth. (Psalm 33:6)
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is a fortunate coincidence that Time After Pentecost spans our summer months. The Feast of Pentecost comes when spring is in full swing, and the liturgical season carries us all the way through growth of summer and into the autumn harvest. I have found that this long time to observe nature is ideal for contemplating the Holy Spirit and its continued presence in creation. The current debates between science and Creationist theology have done considerable damage by making most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, think that our belief in God as Creator is merely a statement about the origin of the universe. The excerpt from Honorius’ sermon reminds us that to believe in God as Creator is to say that all things depend upon God, not simply in their origin but in every moment of time. The powerful testimony in Scripture to God creating the world through the Word has made it easy to forget that the Holy Spirit is present in Creation as well, and that all three persons of the Trinity act in unity to bring about our world. Honorius reminds us that God’s creating miracle is not only a moment in our past but our entire reality. The slow evolution of our world, the cycles of our seasons and mechanisms of our ecosystems are not something set in motion but the continual work of God creating the world, of making all things new. It is why respect for God’s creation is not some ideal imposed upon Christianity but key to our identity as inheritors of God’s creation, an act which is not over but ongoing.
Returning to the happy alignment of this liturgical season with our summer months, it should come as a great comfort to us to remember that what we see God doing in nature through the Holy Spirit is likewise done in those upon whom God’s Spirit descended at Pentecost. Just as the Spirit of God moves over the waters, breathing life into the world and sustaining it through all seasons, so too does the Spirit move through us, sustaining our lives through its constant intercession and sustaining infusion of grace. For the Christian life is not a moment that occurs only once at Baptism or weekly in the Eucharist, but a constant stream of grace in which we are guided again and again to God’s Word proclaimed and grace bestowed in water and at the table. Just as God sustains the earth constantly, so too are we sustained as the Spirit draws us into the community of the church where gathered together, as this weeks Gospel attests, we find Christ is with and among us.
Thanks be to God. Amen
Contributed by Miles
Monday September 8, 2014
Liturgical Year A: Week 41
Liturgical Color: Green
Sunday Gospel reading: Proper 18
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost