Barnes in Common

the magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
July/August 2007

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Pastoral letter

from Father Paul Holland, St Michael's Church

"The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" writes the psalmist.
Yet in today's world we are all being made aware how the environment is being degraded by the heavy footprint of our Western life style.

The news is now constantly full of species under threat, ice caps melting and the rise in the earth's temperature that will eventually affect all of us.

With a constant focus on the potential for disaster, we can quite easily loose hope and feel helpless. Yet, as Christians, we believe in a God who has the potential to change and transform even the darkest of situations.

Today, we have to remind ourselves that all humanity has a special place, a unique role and responsibility towards all that God has made and loves.

First, we are called to marvel at and offer praise for the beauty and diversity of creation. In so doing we fulfill our role as priests' of creation.

A priest is one who blesses and gives thanks and this priesthood belongs to us all. It is from this relationship of delight and wonder towards all that God has made that we naturally find ourselves being called to become stewards, those who care and speak up for the created order.

In the story of the Flood we hear how God entered into a new covenant relationship with the whole of creation. God promised Noah his faithfulness towards "you and every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals and every animal of the earth with you as many as came out of the ark" (Genesis 9 :10).

This story reveals that God's covenant is not just with us but it has a cosmic nature. God delights in his creation in ways we will never fully fathom.

This priestly role of caring and speaking up for creation is an echo of God's own care and concern. The environmentalists can be seen as God's own prophets and priests, reminding us of the sacredness of all things, that the created order is there not for our exploitation but are in themselves living created ecosystems reflecting some aspect of God's own sense of fun and playfulness.

The debate around the new proposals for Stansted Airport will be a real test case as to how seriously our politicians take global warming.

In our personal lives there are countless ways that we can express our care for the well being of the natural order, from changing our light bulbs to low energy to leaving the car in the garage and walking.

Such acts, however small, are an expression and reflection of God's own care. It is this generation that in a very real way has been given the opportunity to heal and restore the damage that we have done and we have been given the means to do so.

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