Tag: Creation

Creation: care or dominion?

Sermon 16th February 2020, Worcester College Oxford
2nd Sunday before Lent: Genesis 1.1 – 2.3 & Matthew 6.25-34

Our readings tonight invite us to think about the relationship between Creator and creation, the place of the human person within this relationship, and therefore also our attitude towards creation. Particularly in a weekend in which the UK is battered by another storm, of course climate change comes to mind, so this may be a good moment to reflect on the way in which we live in this world. Although I believe that we urgently need to change our behaviour and that Christians should be at the forefront of this change, I also believe that it is not too late, and so our message can be a message of hope, rather than one of desperation.

creation

Within Christianity, there has been a wide range of different approaches to the way in which we treat the world in which we live. Each of them is the result of a particular theological and cultural understanding of the relationship between God and His creation. Through progress in the sciences, our understanding of the world has deepened and widened, as well as our understanding of the place of the human person within the world. These scientific insights have impacted also on the question how we should treat our surroundings.

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Till and keep the earth

Homily St Mary’s Marlborough 24th February 2019 8am
Second Sunday before Lent: Genesis 2.4b-9, 15-25 & Luke 8.22-25

Inevitably, when teaching Religious Studies to fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, when we look at the story of the Creation, the question comes up whether I believe in the Big Bang Theory. Some of the pupils ask out of pure interest, others because they think that they have found an easy way to proof that religion is based on non-sense, on a story that is so clearly untrue and inconsistent on a lot of levels.

Trying to explain that for me, as well as for many other Christians, the story in Genesis is more like a myth than a chapter in a science book, proves more difficult than it may seem. For many, teenagers and adults alike, in cases like this it is hard to think beyond the black-and-white of true and not-true, although in many other aspects of life we do it all the time.

eco church

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Christmas: An image of home

Sermon St Mary’s Marlborough, 24th December 2018, 11.30pm
Christmas Midnight Communion: Isaiah 9.2-7 & Luke 2.1-14

Earthrise
“Earthrise” taken by Apollo 8 on 24th December 1968

“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered”. They are familiar words for many of us, and I guess that whenever we hear them, we think of Christmas. Just as when we hear the opening chords or “Silent Night”, smell the sweetness of mulled wine and Christmas pudding, or see a beautifully decorated Christmas tree through a window.

Apart from the things we have in common, we will also have our own rituals: things we say or do to mark the start of Christmas. It may be a particular meal for Christmas Eve, a film you watch year after year, or indeed, coming to Church tonight.

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What you say is who you become

A reflection on what we say
Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity: James 3.1-12

words

‘Not many of you should become teachers’, is how James starts the part of his letter that the lectionary suggests for this Sunday. Because those who teach have an even greater responsibility in getting things right. So, no pressure there for those who teach then this morning. However, James is not just talking about those sitting on the back rows, but to each one of us who has some sort of responsibility and authority, so I guess that means all of us.

Words are important, and words do have an impact, as we all know. We all will have heard things that have upset us, as well as things that have made us feel really good, for that matter. And equally, we will have said things that have upset others, as well as encouraged them and made them feel good.

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