Creation Care

01Sep
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
-Genesis 1:31-2:3

Today is Labor Day. A holiday. A day of rest. The Labor Day holiday was originally conceived by the American labor movement in the late 19th Century as a day to celebrate the “laboring classes”. It has since evolved into a celebration of the end of summer with picnics, parades, mini-vacations, Labor Day sales, and all manner of other activities. What often gets lost is rest. Which is a shame because “rest” seems to be in short supply these days.


In the first Creation story in Genesis we’re told that God spent six days creating the world. Dividing the light from the dark, the earth from the heavens, the land from the waters, creating the plants and the animals and human beings, all that must have been an enormous task. Apparently, the task was so enormous that God was worn out. God needed rest. And so God did rest. On the seventh day, a day just as important to the Created Order as the other six. Rest, it seems, is woven into the very fabric of Creation. God indeed sanctified rest. 


We too often forget the sanctity of rest in this present age. We instead have sanctified productivity. When I was practicing law many years ago, the pressure to put time on the timesheet was intense. That was after all how one got paid. And that was too often how we kept score. “I billed ________hours this week” was spoken with great pride. What was rarely spoken of, though, was how often one rested. There’s an old joke among lawyers that at the Pearly Gates, St Peter has never heard a lawyer say, “I just wish I had billed more time.” We know deep in our souls the sanctity of rest.  


Jesus himself models this for us. So often in the gospels we see Jesus balancing work and rest. He was at prayer when the disciples came to him with great urgency saying that a crowd numbering 5000 had gathered to hear him and they had nothing to eat. Jesus immediately set off to minister to the multitude and miraculously they were all fed. Once his work was done, he departed from the crowd and went off “to a quiet place.” The movement from rest to work to rest, from contemplation to action to contemplation, is the balance we are called to. Action—work---without rest, quickly leads to burnout. Contemplation—rest—without action too easily becomes lassitude. Yet our culture lauds “busyness”, which sometimes is actually unproductive, and instead derides inactivity as “unproductive” when in fact periods of inactivity, of silence of contemplation, of rest, can actually be times of enormous generative power. At least that’s been my experience.


We will begin the program year here at Trinity celebrating Creation Care. We will be exploring how to be faithful stewards, or managers, of all with which God has blessed us. Ourselves, our souls, and bodies, the world around us, our relationships, our work, our play, all require our attention. And as we begin this season of practicing care for Creation, let’s remember that “rest” is sown into the very fabric of Creation. So take the day off this Labor Day. Relax. Breathe deeply. Take a walk before it gets too hot. Look at the world around you with gratitude. Rest. 


Musical Reflection - Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "Pastorale": I. Allegro ma non troppo, Yo Yo Ma, Emmanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos


Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.


-The Collect for Labor Day BCP p.261

Old TestamentGratitudeCreationPentecost Stewardship

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