This week we begin a new season in the Church's calendar, ‘Creationtide’. New, not only because today is the first day of the season, but because the season itself is of recent origin, introduced by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios in 1989. Creationtide, however, draws on much deeper roots in Scripture and Christian traditions that express the binding relationship between God, humanity and the created order. During this season we are asked to pay special attention to our responsibility for the earth and for all that lives on it.

Jesus in the sermon on the Mount invites us to consider the lilies and the birds as teachers. They teach us how to live sustainably within creation, not as masters of it but as servants or stewards. Just as the birds and plants find their place within a rich and diverse world so we too are to live in harmony within the web of life so that all can flourish. The key to living sustainably, Jesus teaches, is to recognise our dependence on this rich diversity given to us by God's good earth. We depend on the birds and the plants to sustain just as they rely on us to sustain them.

‘’Look at the birds of the air; they neither spin nor reap,nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them..consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.’ Matthew 6: 26-29

Seeing the world with these eyes we are encouraged to live simply so that the earth can sustain all life. At the present time it is estimated that to sustain a western lifestyle would require the resources of 4 planets and yet we have only one. The challenge then of Creationtide is to consider how we might live our lives so that there is enough for all, not only the birds and other creatures but the poor and marginal of the world with whom we also share this planet.

‘Therefore, do not worry, saying “what shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?”…you heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.’ Matthew 6:31-33

Hampstead Heath in a storm. 1831 John Constable

For the artist and poet, meditation on the lessons of the world around us comes naturally for ‘art’ is the gift of seeing with the inner eye, of looking at the world and seeing what others have not seen.

The poet William Blake in his poem ‘Auguries of Innocence’ put it like this:

To see a World in a grain of sand

And Heaven in a wild flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of you hand

And Eternity in an hour.

Constable was, maybe, the first artist to look at the world of nature in this way, and his impressionistic sketches caught the inner life of the ordinary and overlooked world around us. One of his favourite subjects was Hamstead Heath, where he must have gone, sketch book in and almost every day. One day, towards the end of his life, William Blake, the poet, painter and mystic, met Constable on Hampstead Heath. The artist showed him one of his sketches. In spite of his contempt for naturalistic art, the old visionary knew a good thing when he saw it.

“This is not drawing, this is inspiration!”

“I had meant it to be a drawing”…was Constable’s answer.

Both men were right. It was a drawing, and at the same time it was inspiration- inspiration of an order as least as high as Blake’s. The sketch was of what the inner eye had revealed to a great painter.

In the landscape the human is lost in the distant scene and almost disappears in the vastness of nature. The sketch above catches life in a moment of time, as the clouds clear to reveal a double rainbow. In the distance we see London and, maybe in outline, the dome of St Paul’s cathedral. It is a tiny speck in the landscape to remind us that God’s cathedral is his world and his dome is the sky. If there are figures in the landscape they are lost in the immensity of the vista, stretching, it seems, into eternity.

Turning now to our passage for today we read words that have challenged and disturbed Christians through the centuries.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life will find it.” Matthew 16: 25

Challenging, yes, because our own small world occupies such a large place in our lives leaving very little space for God or for others. The challenge of living sustainably does require that we say no to a western lifestyle that consumes more than the planet can bear, but disturbing, no, for Jesus’ promise is to give us back our lives, transformed and renewed by a new vision.

“Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.” Matthew 16: 28

This speaks to me of the rainbow seen through the rain the promise of God, after the disastrous floods that killed life on earth, to sustain the planet:

‘As long as the earth endures, seedlings and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter shall not cease.’ Genesis 8:22

It speaks also of the vision of Jesus who sees beyond the immediate and pressing concerns of life to the infinite and other world of Spirit. Like the artist the disciple is challenged to ‘lose themselves’ in the bigger picture, to allow the eye to see what we could not otherwise see and to place our lives in the frame of eternity.

The means by which the disciple is to achieve such a vision is through love, God’s love of all creation and the love with which we are asked to nurture all creation.

Collect for Creationtide

Almighty God, Whose Son revealed in signs and miracles

the wonder of your saving presence:

renew your people with your heavenly grace,

and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever

Amen