Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

September 13, 2026 / Creation in Christ

Introduction

Today we celebrate a new liturgical feast that has been adopted by the Consultation on Common Texts:  Creation in Christ.  Just to give you some context, the last time new liturgical holidays were added to the Revised Common Lectionary was in 1983, when we began to celebrate the Baptism of the Lord as the first Sunday after the Epiphany and Christ the King as the last Sunday before Advent.  So, if you don’t remember celebrating Baptism of Our Lord or Christ the King when you were growing up, that’s why!  It doesn’t happen too often that we add another festival.

But as of this year, Creation in Christ is being celebrated in many churches.  It’s both a new idea and a very old one.  The celebration of September 1 as the Day of Creation goes back to the 7th century in the Byzantine tradition; for our Orthodox siblings in Christ, September 1st marked the first day of the liturgical year and symbolized the day God had begun creation.  In 1989, the Orthodox Patriarch (think “pope” of the Orthodox church), expanded the celebration to include a focus of environmental prayer.  European churches adopted the observance in the early 21st century, and in 2015, Pope Francis expanded it into the Season of Creation, running from September 1st to October 4th, the day the church remembers St. Francis.

Because this is an evolving tradition, there are many variations in the way churches observe both the day and the season.  Here at CTKE, we are observing Creation in Christ today, and we are celebrating the Season of Creation from now through mid-October.  God’s creation is both gift and challenge.  May our liturgies in this season help you to recognize, to pray for, and to be inspired to act in response to the challenges of our time as we face increasing threats to the health of the planet.  May our liturgies also remind you of the goodness of the gifts that surround us in our earthly home.

Reflection

The writer, environmental activist, and farmer Wendell Berry died on August 31st.  A friend shared one of his poems, called “How to Be a Poet,” with me to mourn his death.  It’s a poem that I had read before, but there was one sentence that stood out for me as I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you today as we celebrate this new festival, Creation in Christ, and as we embark upon the Season of Creation.  This one sentence, for me, defines how we, as people of God, ought to think about the earth.  Berry wrote:

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

Every place on this earth – every mountain and every valley, every sea and every river, every forest and field and desert and tundra, every place on this earth is sacred because it was created by God.  This earth is holy because it is the very ground that Jesus walked upon.  Our world is blessed because the Holy Spirit is here, working through you and me.

And yet, we have not always lived as if every place is sacred.  We have desecrated the sacred places by failing to be the stewards that God has called us to be.  This was the plan from the beginning.  As we heard from Genesis, God put the man in the garden to till it and keep it.  To till it – to dig it and turn it and plant it and harvest it, yes – but also to keep it.  To preserve it.  To take care of the gift.  And yet sin has done what sin does:  hordes because of greed, and wastes because of carelessness, and treats the gift as a means to satisfying only self.   This is how sacred places become desecrated.

This year’s Season of Creation theme focuses on water – both the waters that we have desecrated and also the living water with which God can redeem us all.  For we must always remember that God is still in charge.  God is still in control.  The hymn that we will sing in just a few moments, a hymn specially written for this Season of Creation theme, reminds us of what God can do:

O God, you have the power to bring back what is yours –

to bring life’s joy and wonder to toxic lifeless shores.

Let us be God’s partners in the reconciliation and restoration of all creation.  And let us begin that work with prayer.  Let us pray.

Holy God, whose Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning, we gather as part of your community of all creation, thirsty for your grace.  We give thanks for the gift of water, the veins of our common home, that sustains the cedar and the whale, the pasture and the city.  We are grateful for the local waters that nourish our homelands and our fellow creatures.  We give thanks that in your well-watered garden, every drop is a sacred testament to your love.

Yet, we confess that we have treated this gift as a mere commodity.  We have choked the seas with our waste and watched the warming tides rise in judgment.  We lament the cracked earth of the drought-stricken and the salty tears of the climate refugee.  Melt our frozen hearts, O God, and let the waters of repentance flow.

Lord of all Life, you promised that wherever the river flows, everything shall live.   Stir in us a calling to care for the waters – to protect the watershed, defend the rights of water, and honor the dignity of the thirsty.  May your Word be a spring within us, gushing forth for the healing of the nations.

May God our Father who brought water from the rock sustain us in the desert.  May Christ our Lord who is Living Water refresh us for the work of restoration.  And may the Holy Spirit carry us on currents of grace until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.  Amen.