From September 1 to October 4, the Christian family celebrates the good gift of creation. This celebration began in 1989 with the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s proclamation of the Day of Prayer for Creation and is now embraced by the wide ecumenical family. This year, our theme is “A Home for All? Renewing the oikos of God.” It is our hope to work together to develop a larger Biblical and cosmological horizon, not only to be edified by the texts themselves, but to develop a new way to see Scripture, life, and Earth all in the Oikos of God and to acknowledge the wisdom from countless sisters and brothers helping all to renew our world as an interconnected and interdependent global beloved community.

In Genesis, God set a dome over the Earth. The word ”dome“ is where we get words such as ‘domicile’ and ’domestic’ — in other words, God puts us all — all people, all life — under the same domed roof — so we are all in the house, the oikos of God. God gave humans the ministry to take care of and cultivate this oikos of God. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have called the oikos of God “the Beloved Community,” a community in which all of life are equally members, though each has a different role.

The oikos is a home for all, but it is now in danger because of greed, exploitation, disrespect, disconnection, and systematic degradation. The whole creation is still crying out. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the geography where we recognize God’s creative power has continued to shrink. Today only scraps of the human consciousness recognize God acting to restore and heal the Earth. We have forgotten that we live in the household of God, the oikos, the Beloved Community. Our fundamental interconnectedness has been, at best, forgotten; at worst, deliberately denied.

It is our hope and prayer that we can become again this beloved community of intentional discipleship. We hope to move beyond the programmatic and didactic aspects of life to the prophetic and spiritual life, to the action and way of life, which is shaped by Jesus.

May we be the champions to renew life, the servant leaders of all life in the Beloved Community, our Beloved Earth by God, the oikos of God.

Abraham’s Tent

This year’s logo for the Season of Creation is Abraham’s tent, symbolizing “A home for all.” Abraham and Sarah opened their tent as a home for three strangers, who turned out to be God’s angels (Genesis 18). By creating a home for all, their act of radical hospitality became a source of great blessing. Abraham’s tent is a symbol of our ecumenical call to practice creation care as an act of radical hospitality, safeguarding a place for all creatures, human and more human, in our common home, the household (oikos) of God.

This Season of Creation, consider pitching “Abraham’s tent” in the church garden or green space as a sign of hospitality for all beings who are excluded. Communities could be invited to pray with and for the vulnerable of the community. Perhaps bring parts of creation into the tent to pray with you. The tent can also be present as a symbol during events or in worship throughout the Season of Creation as a symbol of the community’s intention to create a home for all.

The tent is also a sign of simplicity. Particularly among young people, the tent and the backpack symbolize what is essential, sufficiency, living within our means, and traveling lightly upon the earth. Like nomadic and semi-nomadic people today, Abraham and Sarah knew what it meant to be vulnerable, depending upon the goodness of the land, respecting its rhythms, and living in trust. The tent is a sign of the grateful pilgrim who knows that, as we pass through this life, our footprint must be light upon the Earth.

Season of Creation 2021 Prayer

Creator of All,

We are grateful that, from your communion of love, you created our planet to be a home for all. By your Holy Wisdom, you made the Earth, bringing forth a diversity of living beings that filled the soil, water, and air. Each part of creation praises you in their being, and cares for one another from our place in the web of life.

With the Psalmist, we sing your praise that in your house “even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.”[1] We remember that you call human beings to keep your garden in ways that honor the dignity of each creature and conserve their place in the abundance of life on Earth.

But we know that our will to power pushes the planet beyond her limits. Our consumption is out of harmony and rhythm with Earth’s capacity to heal herself. Habitats are left barren or lost. Species are lost and systems fail. Where reefs and burrows, mountaintops and ocean deeps once teemed with life and relationships, wet and dry deserts lie empty, as if uncreated. Human families are displaced by insecurity and conflict, migrating in search of peace. Animals flee from fires, deforestation, and famine, wandering in search of a new place to find a home to lay their young and live.

In this Season of Creation, we pray that the breath of your creative Word would move our hearts, as in the waters of our birth and baptism. Give us faith to follow Christ to our just place in the beloved community. Enlighten us with the grace to respond to your covenant and call to care for our common home. In our tilling and keeping, gladden our hearts to know that we participate with your Holy Spirit to renew the face of your Earth, and safeguard a home for all.

In the name of the One who came to proclaim good news to all creation, Jesus Christ. Amen.

From seasonofcreation.org

[1] Psalm 84:3