Creator, from the breadth and depth of creation, we thank you

A sermon for the congregation of St. Anselm, UBC, Vancouver
Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2025
The Very Rev. Ken Gray

I am so grateful to be with you this morning in response to the kind invitation of your rector, the Rev. Alecia Greenfield who has now launched into a short vacation. While I am not sure of airport departure routes, she could well be flying directly over our heads as I speak. She has promised to watch the video post-event; good grief, please, Alecia, find better vacation alternatives.

I wonder if she is making a pilgrimage as part of her time away. No doubt you have heard a lot about the spiritual practice of pilgrimage from her in recent months. With others, we she and I have encouraged, designed, and facilitated many such events throughout the Ecclesiastical Province of BC/Yukon over the past three or so years. Many Anglicans continue to find intentional walking an ideal synthesis of spiritual devotion, natural engagement, and the pursuit of justice for all of creation.

We gather today on Trinity Sunday, the only day in our church calendar devoted to a theological understanding — a relational enquiry — into the nature of God and of our engagement with God-in Christ-empowered by Holy Spirit. Preachers often prepare for this day by reading the latest books which try to explain the nature of God. Much ink has been spilled on the subject. I have often gone down this particular rabbit hole myself only to end up engulfed in the weeds and tares of convoluted confusion. As if we can articulate and embrace God using logic and language alone.

Certainly an academic inquiry around the name God can respond to some of our logical questions, obstacles arising from the tradition we inherit, and other challenges emanating from our person and place in life. That admitted, we are all on a journey of discovery, an unveiling over time of a glorious, life-giving mystery, a mystery superior to the best of Agatha Christie and Louise Penny combined, a mystery to which I respond, with gratitude: Creator, from the depth and breadth of creation, we thank you.

Other ways our Church responds to the mystery we call God, today focusing on God-in-Trinity, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God as Source of all Being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit, is through our liturgical rites. Typically, Eucharistic rites include a statement of faith, a summary of our discovery of the place of God in our lives within creation. In today’s rite, that of the Salal and Cedar Watershed Discipleship community we name the marks of our Christian mission:

• we will proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom,
• we will teach, baptize and nurture new believers,
• and will respond to human need by loving service.
• We will seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and pursue peace and reconciliation.
• With God’s help, we will strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

This language, in which I delight by the way, explains nothing of God’s nature, reality, character, or presence. These words identify our response to the challenges God asks us to embrace. They point us to our vocation, to our place in the action of creation. They are in fact the five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion. They are unique to Anglicans worldwide though components can be found in other denominational documents.

In many dioceses and congregations, we are encouraged to use such dynamic language. In many places of worship the statement of faith most familiar is that of the Nicene Creed. The Council of Nicaea, the First Ecumenical Council was convened 1700 years ago this year. It was the first attempt to standardize understandings and expressions of Christ’s witness to all creation. The Nicene Creed is one product of that meeting. It has retained a central place in our liturgical tradition, with very few, though significant, alterations, ever since. Each and every line of this historic text is represented in the calendars of the church, in the seasons and in the feast days, except for one line; the very first line, a line people seem to have forgotten or ignored:

I believe in God, Creator of heaven and earth.

It’s a shocking omission. Some people, including me, are trying to change this. In a blog titled A New Feast & Season of Creation  James Hadley, an Anglican Benedictine Oblate monk is a participant in what is commonly called the “Assisi Process.” He writes:

Perhaps one of the most significant ecumenical and liturgical moments since the end of the Second Vatican Council is unfolding quietly across the globe.  An ecumenical process “having legs” began in March 2024 in Assisi Italy. At that time pastoral practitioners, environmentalists, scholars and church leaders discussed the possibility that the so-called “Creation Day”, celebrated by many churches in the past decades, could become a universal liturgical feast – and even a liturgical season.

So you may ask, what does this mean for me, seated in the pews here at St. Anselm’s or elsewhere? Possibly not much; possibly everything. If the range of participants at the Assisi conferences represents widespread interest, listen to this list of participating churches.

The Anglican Communion, Lutheran World Federation, World Communion of Reformed Churches, World Methodist Council, World Council of Churches, Baptist World Alliance, Coptic Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Middle East Council of Churches, Pentecostal World Fellowship, Mennonite World Conference, World Evangelical Alliance, Disciples of Christ, Moravian Church and Salvation Army.  The global majority of Roman Catholics were represented by the General Secretaries of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM), and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).

The possibility of including creation in a significant way in the life of our churches is potentially huge. I cannot tell you how hard I have worked over twenty plus years to draw attention to the spiritual importance and gifted nature of creation to fellow Christians. Social justice trumps (sic) ecological justice every time. Truthfully, they belong together. For years in my work with the Anglican Communion Environmental Network I have had to find ways to highlight creation through the experience of human beings to gain attention — Awfully self-centred don’t you think? Creation, in and of its own existential reality, including humans and all life, is God’s gift to the world. We love the stories of Jesus as lover, healer, liberator, teacher, resister, all of these with humanity at the centre. Let’s celebrate God in and through creation as a priority.

Speaking at the Assisi conference on behalf of the Anglican Communion the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Smith emphasized that any feast must be a celebration of God as creator, in whatever trinitarian, pneumatological, or Christological focus it will be described. All agreed that what was under consideration was not a celebration of creation, but praise of God’s providential action in the cosmos, and humanity’s response of adoration of the creator and corresponding ethical obligations before the gift of creation in light of the ecological apocalypse of our time.

If some of my comments come off as abstract or puzzling, allow me to conclude with two stories shared by Fr. Hadley:

1. Speaking to the General Secretary of SECAM, Bishop Joseph Afrihah-Agyekum (notably with a doctorate in liturgy from Sant’Anselmo), I asked if African RC bishops would be positively disposed to the development, or would it be read as potentially too anamistic, too new-agey. The bishop responded saying “No. We are ready.” He reflected that in Ghana, his home, illegal strip mining of river beds supported by American interests is destroying the ecosystem of the country. As a result Ghana is now compelled to build water purification infrastructure and import massive chemical supplies to clean water that once was drinkable.  “The future is here, and it is not going away”, he said.

• A (second) conversation with Bishop Felix Al Shabi of Iraq was even more concise.  “We are disappearing,” he told me, “Lost between Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, and Syria.”  “The destruction brought to us by wars, also destroyed the environment and our culture.  We are losing our home.  The church must help recall us to our senses,” he concluded.  

So, a practical question. Will we see a Season of Creation proclaimed this coming September? Not likely. It’s still too soon. In ecumenical conversations Rome really does set the agenda and schedule. Their system is truly global and complex. That said:

At Assisi there was the clear feeling that God’s Spirit is at work. The gift of the ministry of Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis is taking root and maturing in the churches. There is too much consensus, goodwill, and participation, to deny that something is happening.

The death of Pope Francis has interrupted the process somewhat; a few delegates who met following the Assisi meting were in Rome when the election of Pope Leo XIV was announced. Indications so far are that the new pope will follow in the steps of predecessor regarding creation justice.

Closer to home, one of the new pope’s closest associates from Peru, himself a cardinal, will travel through Calgary in the next few days to meet with and encourage faith-based climate activists who will raise their voices at the forthcoming G-7 summit.

This friends, is a Good News story, and these days we need such stories. Happy holidays Alecia; great to be able to share Good News with you folks online and in the room today. Go Blue Jays. Let’s now proceed with the statement of faith.

---

You may also wish to visit my HOME page for a colourful display of hundreds of other blogs which may interest or inspire you.