Sunday service for 4 September 2022

Sunday 4 September 2022, fourth Sunday of Season of Creation
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Stilling Video: “ears to hear”

Psalm 148.7, 10-13
1: Praise the Lord from the earth, sea monsters and all you deeps!
2: Praise the Lord from the earth, wild beasts and all the cattle,
crawling things and wingèd birds!
3: Praise the Lord from the earth, all the nations, and all the leaders!
4: Praise the Lord from the earth, children and elders, boys and girls, powerful and ordinary!
All: Let us praise the Lord’s name, for God alone is exalted,
His glory and power over earth and the heavens.

Hymn: Let All Creation Sing (Resound)
Chorus:
Let all creation sing before the Lord
and every nation of the earth rejoice,
let all the trees lift a shout of joy
for the Lord is King.
Let the deep waters of the sea resound,
let every mountain, every hill sing out,
let all the fields make a joyful sound
for the Lord is King.

Mighty river, barren desert,

howling wind and stormy weather,

every canyon every valley,

sing your praise and give him glory.
Nature proclaims the glory of our God,

nature proclaims his name.
Chorus

Every star and constellation,

every wonder in the heavens,

silver moon and supernova,

sing a shining hallelujah!
Nature proclaims the glory of our God,

nature proclaims his name.
Chorus

Honey bees and weeping willows,

grizzly bears and armadillos,

every narwhal and sea otter,

every son and every daughter.
Nature proclaims the glory of our God,

nature proclaims his name.
Chorus

La la la la la la la – All the earth, praise the Lord

La la la la la la la – All the earth, praise the Lord

Prayer (adapted from Creation Time resources: Fauna/Humanity/Animal Blessing Sundays)
God, our Creator, we celebrate with all living creatures today.
Help us to see your presence,
not only in human history but also in the stories of our kin in creation,
the great family of all creatures.
We remember animals we have loved or with whom we have felt a spiritual kinship.
Pets that have shared our homes, birds that have woken us each morning,
animals that have inspired awe or brought joy with their cuteness
or led us to gratitude for their life among us.
We confess, Lord, that we have not heard the good news of your loving care
ringing through the creatures of the wild.
We have not listened when other parts of creation have tried to teach us.
We have closed our eyes and hearts to the mysteries of your wisdom implanted in all life.
And so we admit we have played a part, unintentionally or intentionally,
in the destruction of the community of your creation.
We confess we rarely think of your creatures whose habitats and homes are disappearing,
or those animals whose lives are endangered through our greed or carelessness.
We ignore news of extinction and assume it doesn’t matter.
Forgive us, creator God.
Forgive us for refusing to love this world as you love.
Forgive us for narrowing its goodness to how it can serve us.
Forgive us, and open our ears to hear creation groaning, fellow creatures crying out in pain.
Forgive us, and teach us again that the animals of earth are our companions in abundant life.
May they lead us to celebrate our place in the circle of life.
God, our Creator, help us to love
all creatures as kin, as partners on Earth, as messengers of praise,
as expressions of your mysterious design, as voices of hope.
In the name of God, who creates all life,
In the name of Jesus Christ, who redeems all life,
and the name of the Spirit, who renews all life, we pray.
Amen.

Hymn 147: All Creatures of our God and King, v. 7
Let all things their Creator bless,
and worship God in humbleness,
O praise him, alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
and praise the Spirit Three in One:
O praise him, O praise him,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Sanctuary: Children’s Time— Song: Oh the earth is the Lord’s (chorus)

Readings: Genesis 2.18-20 and Job 12.7-10 (Robert Alter)

We hear in Genesis chapter 2 that in the midst of creating all things,
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone, I shall make him a sustainer beside him.” And the Lord God fashioned from the soil each beast of the field and each fowl of the heavens and brought each to the human to see what he would call it, and whatever the human called a living creature, that was its name. And the human called names to all the cattle and to the fowl of the heavens and to all the beasts of the field, but for the human no sustainer beside him was found.”

Job said to his friends who had misrepresented the relationship between God and people:
“Yet ask of the beasts, they will teach you,
the fowl of the heavens will tell you,
or speak to the earth, it will teach you,
the fish of the sea will inform you.
Who has not known in all these
that the Lord’s hand has done this?
In Whose hand is the breath of each living thing,
and the spirit of all human flesh.”

For the word of God in scripture
For the word of God all around us
For the word of God within us
Thanks be to God.

Sermon: the community of creation
Whenever a new pet has come into my life, I’ve always taken a few days to live together and get to know them before deciding on a name. I like to get a sense of their personality, how we interact, and their place in the house before the name is really clear — sometimes it feels as if they’ll tell me their own name if only I pay close enough attention! There’s something about naming a creature that feels too personal to do it before actually meeting it, though I know some people choose a name before they even know for sure they’re getting a new pet!

At the beginning of the second creation story God plants the human in the garden and quickly realises that though God and human spend a lot of time together, it’s not the same as being in creaturely community, so God uses the very same dirt that the human was made from to bring more creatures to life. And then when each one is finished, God brings it to the human in what feels almost like one of the first children’s games. I imagine God ooh-ing and aah-ing and laughing and squee-ing and leading each animal to the person to meet and get to know it and then find out what name it’ll have. It’s a giant collaboration, building and naming together to end up with a final project of a garden full of different kinds of life. Together, God and the human build the community of creation.

Now it may feel like the naming part isn’t that big of a deal. After all, it’s God who does the real work — God who forms and moulds and shapes and breathes life into the creatures. But in the ancient world naming was a form of power as well. To call someone by name was to have some authority with them — which is why God’s name is never pronounced. To have the responsibility of naming the things God formed is to be a co-creator, a partner in the authority of creating. Which is not to say that the human has a coercive power-over, not an authoritarian in control of the creatures, but rather to say that God trusted the human to take part in this activity together, building a community that would populate this garden, for God’s delight and glory.

I’m not sure we often think of the whole of creation as a community. We think of human community, though often our boundaries are more narrow than God’s vision. We think of our pets as family pretty easily. But for some reason we can’t quite extend to the idea that we are in community with all the other creatures too. Though Job reminds us we can be taught by them! Deer and rabbits and Galapagos tortoises and grizzly bears and fruit bats and giraffes and robins and magpies and elephants and lizards and even seagulls…and also sheep and cattle and pigs and chickens…God created them and brought them to the human to name, and that process was about creating relationship among all the creatures, the same way naming our pets creates relationship among us in the family. Not only a relationship of hierarchy and usefulness and servitude, but a community in which we all recognise God’s hand in making us, fearfully and wonderfully, and in putting us together in the garden, and giving us each our own place and responsibilities this world God made.

Ultimately, none of those animals God and the human made together were the right counterpart, balance, partner, sustainer, helper alongside the human. They are beautiful, wondrous parts of the creation, made from the same stuff of life as the human and the garden, and they and we are a community together with roles to play, but ultimately it’s humanity itself that needed more diversity if the creation was to be complete.

Which does make you wonder why we are often so insistent on undoing that diversity…both in human community and the wider community of all creation. We try to homogenise and assimilate rather than celebrating the variety of human bodies and abilities. We choose monoculture that leads to extinction of species we barely even recognise, reducing the number of animals and insects in the world year by year, eliminating their habitats so that the earth can serve only us rather than the whole of the system God created.

God made us partners in creating a world, but we forgot that we’re the junior partner here, not the head, and that’s why I included the reading from Job’s rebuke of his friends. It’s a reminder that our hunger for power has often blocked our ability to learn from those we think of as subordinate — both the creatures and the people. Literally every creature, and even the earth itself, could teach us, because they know they belong to God, that all breath is God’s, that even we humans are in God’s hand despite how often we try to convince ourselves we stand on our own. That belief that we are different, better, on our own, means we think nothing of using our power as God’s partners for destruction rather than creation. We act as if this is all here for us, instead of seeing how the whole fits together.

The reality is that God created this beautiful system of mutual interdependence…and if one part is hurting, or dies out, that upsets the whole. Not only do we grieve the loss of other members of the community of God’s creation, but also there’s a missing piece that the whole system has to find a way to compensate for. Just as when a member of our family or community dies or moves away, taking their gifts and skills and contributions with them, and it takes a while for us to recalibrate and work around that void, so too on a global scale the loss of species means that things get out of balance and it takes time to adjust. Unfortunately if too many losses happen too quickly, it becomes impossible to adjust without radical action. The community cannot recover and either collapses or becomes uninhabitable.

God’s intention for creation is clear — that we humans are the junior partners in creating a community that depends on each other. Each animal has a part to play in the system, from the earthworm to the elephant…even the midges and mosquitoes must have some purpose, even if it eludes us! The insects we are losing at a terrifying rate, as we eliminate their habitats so we can grow single crops that ultimately go to feed livestock things that fatten them up faster than their normal food sources so that we can feed our own greedy appetites…those insects are food for other animals, as well as pollinating our food and working the soil. The animals that feed on insects then decline, and their part in the system begins to fail, and eventually it will become obvious that in overstepping our bounds in this community of creation, we actually end up hurting ourselves too. Even if we think that creation is here to serve humanity, rather than being an interconnected community like the one described in Genesis, then the way we have used, abused, neglected, and been apathetic about the consequences is still actually counterproductive.

What if we decided, as a human community, to return to our place as one creative partner in the wider community of creation? What if we looked to the animals and listened to what they have to teach us and acted in ways that honour their contributions and presence and goodness? What if instead of narrowing and homogenising and monopolising, we celebrated the full diversity of God’s creation and the fact that’s actually what’s required for the fullness of life that God promises?

It feels daunting, because it is. The creation feels at a tipping point and it will be a big task to recalibrate and set the system in harmony again. We will have to learn and re-learn how to live differently, laying aside our delusions of grandeur and our sense of entitlement. But it is the way of life which humans were set from the beginning — to tend, to care, to participate in creating, to use our authority for building relationships across the whole spectrum of God’s diverse beautiful amazing wondrous world. And we aren’t in it alone. The other members of this community have much to teach us, if only we will listen and respect the relationships across the whole. And it is God’s hand that holds us, God’s breath that is in us, and God’s vision and intention that we work toward, living into our very first relationship with the One who formed us and planted us in the garden to live for God’s delight.

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn: Pray for the Wilderness (words: Dan Damon 1989, tune: Slane)
Pray for the wilderness, vanishing fast,
pray for the rain forest, open and vast;
pray for the waterfalls, pray for the trees,
pray for the planet brought down by degrees.

Learn from the elephant, eagle and whale,
learn from the dragonfly, spider and snail;
learn from the people in neighbouring lands,
learn from the children who play in their sands.

Work for the justice created things need,
work for the health of each plant and its seed;
work for the creatures abuse has betrayed,
work for the garden God’s wisdom once made.

Trust that God’s Christ over came nails and wood,
trust that earth’s people will turn to the good;
trust that creation forever will grow,
trust that God’s goodness to us overflows.

Pray for the atmosphere, pray for the sea,
learn from the river, the rock and the tree;
work till shalom in full harmony rings,
trust the connection of all living things.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (Adapted from Creation Time prayers)
Loving God, you made us from the dust of the earth, and planted us in a garden,
and invited us to join you in creating this world you so love.
We pray this day for your love to be manifest —
not only among the human family but among the whole family of creation.
We pray for peace for people and for the earth to have rest from violence and exploitation.
We pray for a sense of enough,
that all may know the blessing of your abundance
and none would go hungry or thirsty or homeless.
We give thanks for the beauty and power of your world,
and we also remember those who are experiencing its force —
especially we lift up the people, animals, and land of Pakistan,
under flood waters, grieving lives and homes lost and struggling to survive,
and the people of East Africa living in extreme drought,
land cracked and dry, humans and animals alike starving,
grieving and desperate for a future they cannot see.
We are grateful for the animals of our lives, and for the people who help us care for them —
for veterinarians and their nurses and staff, for animal rescues and charities,
for people who work tirelessly to design seagull-proof bins
and to keep rubbish from choking the land and its inhabitants.
We pray for your continued care and wisdom to surround and fill
all who serve the community of your creation.

God our Creator, teach us to empathise with Earth.
Make our spirits sensitive to the cries of creation,
cries for justice from the creatures with whom we share this earth —
ants and armadillos, wildcats and hedgehogs,
cattle and creeping things, bears and penguins and horses and badgers and crickets,
animals wild and domesticated and farmed,
all with a part to play in the great symphony of abundant life.
When one falls silent, there is a hole that cannot be filled,
and we grieve the loss with the whole community you have made.
Lord Jesus Christ, make our faith sensitive to the groaning of creation,
staggering under our weight and begging for relief.
Holy Spirit, make our hearts sensitive to the songs of our kin,
songs of celebration and praise, songs of lament and pleading
from our fellow creatures who have so much to teach us.
Christ, teach us to care.

We pray these and all things
through the power of the Holy Spirit who descends like a dove and whispers on the wind,
and in the name of Jesus the Christ, your Word made Flesh,
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.
Amen.

Sanctuary Hymn: O God, Your Creatures Fill the Earth (Carolyn Winfrey Gillette 2011, tune: Ellacombe)

Benediction
Go into your week looking for ways to recalibrate and take your rightful place within the whole community of creation, to create relationships that demonstrate God’s vision for diverse abundant life for all, not just for some.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.

Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.

Postlude Music

Announcements
* You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the manse at 6 Barrhill Road. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome. We are just beginning the gospel according to Matthew, so there’s no better time to join in!

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in the sanctuary at 11am. Hand sanitiser is available at every entrance, and mask-wearing is optional. Masks are available at the door if you would like one. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.

* The Kirk now has online giving! If you have not already set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Peter Bennett, our treasurer, or Teri and she can give you his details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. Remember: no one is coming to your door to collect your envelopes, so please stay safe!

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!

* Youth Organisations are starting the new session. If you or anyone you know is interested in the Boys Brigade (P1 – S6), please contact Alan Aitken or 2ndgourock (at) inverclydebb.org.uk. If you or anyone you know is interested in the Brownies or Girl Guides, please visit the website to register. For the Smurfs, our youngest girls, please contact Teri and ask to be put in touch with the leader.

* Young Adult Bible Study meets in the manse on the 2nd and 4th Sundays at 7pm for a meal and a study of the gospel according to John. If you’d like more information, for yourself, a family member, a friend, or neighbour who is in their 20s, please contact Teri for the dates/times and other information.

* Philip is organising a choir for any interested singer to come and have fun, learn some of the new hymns, and sing sometimes in worship. The choir will rehearse on some Thursday evenings at 7:30pm in the sanctuary — you can meet Philip to register your interest after worship today, and the first rehearsal will be on Thursday 8 September.

* A Bowl & a Blether TOMORROW 5 September will also be a Macmillan Coffee Morning! Come along for a cup of tea or coffee and a scone from 10:30, and/or a bowl of soup from noon – 1:30…whether you come for a bit or stay all day, we can guarantee a good fun time, a chat with friends old and new, and a chance to donate to a good cause. Why not invite a neighbour to join you? We are looking for some volunteers to help with set up and serving in the morning and at lunchtime, and with cleanup at the end. If you’re available and willing, please contact Teri. Thanks!