Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity 2024

I spent a slice of my summer in Scotland. It rained. Actually, it rained every day. It rained in more ways than I knew rain could rain. The Scots were not surprised, ‘not the best summer’ they said. The Scots have a vocabulary for rain. A hundred different dank, damp words for wet:

Smirr: Quite wet—drizzle.
Fret : Wet and cold—mist from the sea.
Plowetery: Wet and dirty.
Dreich: Wetter still—dull, dismal.
Uplowsin: Even Wetter—heaving rain,
Goselet: Extremely wet—a drenching, downpour.
Drookit: Also Extremely wet, drenched, from the Old Norse word for drowned.
Stoating: Wettest—heavy rain is bouncing off the ground.

I sat in a house looking at rain and cloud on Loch Harport and on the Cuillins and I needed those words. In their own way the rain and the clouds were beautiful and every changing. The world we live in is brave and brilliant—we need a lot of words to describe it. No surprise it’s a Scots poet, Norman MacCaig, who pleads with the ‘Scholars’,

Where are your dictionaries of the wind, the grasses?

We need the words, because we need the wonder, the amazement. We must not sell this world short.

And I am telling all you this because this is Creation Sunday. This is a day to talk about the world. To do that properly, I need to persuade you that we must choose words carefully.

The words we say later will be that ‘We believe in one God… the maker of heaven and earth’. Now those are particular words with a particular meaning and they need a bit of explaining. Sticking with my Scottish trip for a moment, suppose I said to you ‘I ‘ believe in the Loch Ness monster’. I believe tells you that I cannot know that there is a Loch Ness monster, but it also suggests that I have considered the evidence and I think that monster living in that place. ‘I believe in the Loch Ness Monster’ means I think there is a monster shaped thing and you could reasonably ask me how that thing came to be. You might wonder if this is the same monster that was there in 1933, or is it perhaps Nessie’s son, Colin. The Loch Ness Monster if it exists is a thing in a world of things.

If however, I say ‘I believe in God’ well then that is a very different sort of statement. God is not one more thing. God is not animal or a person with a beginning and an end. God is not something that belongs in a place for a time, and God does not exist because other versions of God gave birth long ago. And that is very important—when we say God is ‘the maker of heaven and earth’, the Creator, we are saying God is not another creature. God precisely does not belong in creation. 

This is theology and the words matter. If I say ‘I believe in the Loch Ness Monster’ You might wonder if I have had too much cheese and pickle just before going to bed, but you will know that I am talking about a monster and not saying anything significant about myself. I might wonder how the Loch Monster feels about Deans—is it a vegetarian monster, or does it eat Anglicans? But Believing in the Loch Ness monster does not communicate anything about how I feel about myself. If, however, I say ‘I believe in God’ I am saying something about God and I am something about myself. As Rowan Williams has explained I believe in God means I believe I am a creature and there is a Creator, I am saying, in fact, ‘I belong in God’ or even ‘I take refuge in God’. I believe in God isa statement about God and about me.

‘I believe in God the maker of heaven and earth’ means ‘I trust in God’. It means I believe that God is not a creature like me, but a Creator. If we are serious in saying that it means that God is not part of creation. I belong in the world of things with this pulpit, your chair Canon Hawkey, and (possibly) Colin the Loch Ness Monster. God, however, is not one more thing. God is not part of God’s creation. And therefore God does not potter in and out of creation fixing things. I was at a meeting once where the man next to me prayed that ‘Our agenda for this meeting would be God’s agenda’. Well, I knew what he meant, but really God the Creator does not have an agenda. God does not write a ‘to do ‘list on Tuesday night and get up on Wednesday to fix the weather in Basildon and bless a mission in Chorlton cum Hardy. Put another way God is not the boss. God does not sit, just out of sight, moving the pieces. God is not the CEO of creation-enterprises.org. 

When you, or I, make something, we fashion one thing into something else. We make a cake out of ingredients and thus turn one thing into another. Creation is not like that. There is no ‘stuff’ that God found lying about and then turned into something else. God, always and forever, is the origin and destination of all that is. And, say the theologians, God creates out of love. Creation is because God loves it into being and loves it still. Creation is God’s ceaseless unchanging love. Remember Julian of Norwich who asked ‘What is the Lord’s meaning?’ and found the answer was love ‘Love is his meaning’.

We are saying all that when we say ‘We believe in God maker of heaven and earth’. We are saying that this world of things is the consequence of the love of God, it is the presence of God’s love in action. WE are saying that God is Creator and we are God’s creatures.

So, turning just for a moment to that gospel reading we heard about a man who scatters seed on the ground 

and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

And we heard about that tiny mustard seed

which… when it is sown grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs.

We heard about the things that startle and surprise. We heard about living in a world of wonder. We heard about a creation that depends upon, proceeds out of and goes towards the love of God. Here is Jesus asking us if we have a sense of wonder. Jesus was urging those who would listen to notice what kind of a world we live in. The gospel reading was an encouragement to see a world of wonder.

Jesus, who kept drawing on the language of plants, sea and hills, Jesus who spoke of the birds of the air and lilies of the fields, wanted us to see that the Kingdom of God is breaking in upon us. He wanted us to know the love of the God who created us and to find the words for wonder and for glory. Finding words for wonder and glory is a gospel imperative.

But, it seems to me, we too often lose our way I think we should be finding a moment or two to stop and look and be amazed. I think we could do with just a little bit more poetry. Others, however, are more impatient for some action. I have been reading some of the material the church has published for Creation Sunday and thinking of the responses it seeks. Creation Sunday, it turns out, is a call to action. It is a busy, bustling programme. It is action and it is work. 

Let’s be clear I know that our climate is in crisis, I know that we have polluted our rivers and seas, I know that a host of species are in danger. I do know that we need action. I am proud that my church sees this and names it. I absolutely understand that action is imperative. But as a theologian, the first thing I think I have to say on Creation Sunday is that we must see Creation for what it is—the gift of God. Creation is the love of God in action. We should wonder, we should be tempted to fall to our knees. Our first response should be reverence and gratitude. Yes, Creation does need our help, but let’s not make the mistake of rushing in and merely being busy. Let’s not impose ourselves assuming that we are all saviours and that we must take charge. To understand Creation we must begin with the recognition that it is gift and it is glory. It is not a resource to be exploited and it is not a stage for our scheme of improvement. We too quickly think of Creation as a project, an activity. That is not what the world is. The world is gift and grace and love and not our creation.

Late last year, His Majesty the King spoke at the opening of the UN Climate Change Conference COP28. He spoke passionately of the need for action. He ended though with words reflecting not on the how but on the why. He spoke of the deep connections that bind us to one another and the world we live in, saying,

The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.

He spoke of a ‘grand and sacred system’. He chose his words carefully. On this Creation Sunday which is also the anniversary of His Majesty’s Accession we must do the same. We need words for wonder, we need words of reverence, we need to understand the deep meaning of words. When we speak of our belief in Creation and Creator we should be amazed and grateful. And then, well then, when we have done that, we do indeed have work to do.