September 2, 2021

September 2, 2021

Dear friends in Christ,

Once again this year, Saint Anna’s is recognizing the Season of Creation, which starts September 1 and ends October 4th, the feast of St. Francis. During that time we will be incorporating some of the themes into our Sunday worship. The Season of Creation is an ecumenical initiative for which our own Bishop Marc is on the board. As the Episcopal Church website explains, “The Season of Creation… is celebrated by Christians around the world as a time for renewing, repairing and restoring our relationship to God, one another, and all of creation. The Episcopal Church joins this international effort for prayer and action for climate justice and an end to environmental racism and ecological destruction… we are invited to consider anew our ecological, economic, and political ways of living.” 

This year’s theme is A home for all? Renewing the Oikos of God. Oikos is an ancient Greek word that means family, or home. It is the word used for the basic living unit to which each person belongs. God’s Oikos is the whole of God’s creation – not just every human being but every creature – every animal, bird, fish, and insect - as well as every rock and stone, hill and mountain, river and sea, tree and flower. As Christians we believe that God created the world and everything in it, and gave the care of it to humankind.

 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Genesis 2:15

 This year the season of creation calls us to reflect on the fact that each thing God created shares the Oikos of our planet, and is affected by and impacted by the choices and actions of all the others. It is humankind that has had the biggest impact of God’s Oikos and not in a good way. The IPCC sixth assessment report and its dire warnings about climate change (https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/ ) demonstrates very clearly that we have not taken care of “this fragile earth, our island home” (from Eucharistic Prayer C BCP). We are called to recognize the multitude of different life that inhabit this planet with us and to care for them as God would have us do. I invite you to join me and people of faith all over the world in prayer and reflection and in making this world a better place for all its inhabitants. Take a walk and look at God at work in the natural world; dig in the dirt; plant something; go to your favorite place in nature; pick up some trash; recycle; reduce your use of plastic; stop buying single use items; take a reusable bag to the store for your purchases. And above all, thank God for God’s creation. And pray the prayer for this year which can be found at this link: here

 Send me photos of what you do and we will use them during worship, or in the bulletin, or include them in one of the two weekly emails. 

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+