Bishop Mary leads a powerful Bible study on what it means to be human in relation to the natural world.
Drawing on Romans, Genesis, and the teachings of Jesus and St Francis, Bishop Mary's advice is simple but profound: fall in love with creation and do what is within your hands to protect and renew it.
This reflection is a fantastic resource for small groups - perfect for discussion, reflection, and exploring ways to care for creation together.
Read Bishop Mary's reflection
So this afternoon is the first of our summit's Bible studies and we're going to be thinking about what being human means in terms of one of our shared priorities which is care for creation, care for the environment. I'll be talking a little bit about the Beatitudes, but our particular Bible reading is from Romans chapter 8:
Future glory
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
So let us pray together. We're going to use some words from The Canticle of the Sun by Saint Francis. He wrote this just before he died in 1226 and there's a picture to go with these words.
The Canticle of the sun
We praise you Lord for all your creatures especially for brother son who is the day through whom you give us light and he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor of you most high he bears your likeness.
We praise you Lord for sister moon and the stars. In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
We praise you Lord for brother's wind and air, fair and stormy, all weather's moods, by which you cherish all that you have made. We praise you Lord for sister water, so useful, humble, precious and pure.
We praise you Lord for brother fire, through whom you light the night.
He is beautiful, playful, robust and strong. We praise you Lord for our sister earth who sustains us with her fruits, coloured flowers and herbs.
Amen.
So I wonder whether you noticed how in that canticle, in that song, St Francis refers to the elements of the natural world as our siblings, as our sisters and our brothers: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Fire, Sister Earth. For St Francis, these elements are not separate from us, remote to us. Instead, they are family, to use the word we've used already so many times today.
St Francis thinks of the elements of the natural world as our brothers and our sisters, and in a very similar way, Jesus describes who we are in the Sermon on the Mount in terms of other creatures that God has made.
“You are the salt of the earth,” he says, “you are the light of the world.”
And a bit later in that Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus is speaking about how God provides for us, he does so by likening us to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field:
“Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 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. If God so clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more clothe you?”
For Jesus then, rather as for St Francis, there are rich connections between humanity and the rest of creation. We have shared characteristics and experiences, and crucially, we have a common dependency on God, who blesses us with his generous provision.
So I want to suggest to you that being human, as it relates to the care of the environment, should begin here. By removing this false separation that we have placed between ourselves and the rest of the natural world, we need to recover the truth that we are creatures too, and so we are in relationship with every other creature that God has made.
We are here, the Buddhist and environmentalist Thich Nhat Hanh has said, we are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness. We have lived as if we're separate and different, but actually we need to get rid of that illusion and recognise that we are creatures too.
There are parts of the world that are pioneering this understanding of our shared identity as creatures with the natural world. There's a campaign in some countries to give nature legal rights, personhood under law. And so in 2017, a river in New Zealand, the Wanganui River, was granted legal personhood. Just as you could go to court to claim your rights, so this beautiful river in New Zealand is allowed to take people to court, if you can imagine such a thing. It needs a human representative, but the river itself has rights. And then in 2021, the Magpie River in Canada was given nine rights in law, including the right to flow, the right to be free from pollution, and the right to sue anyone who interferes with it.
In the UK, there is a movement working towards this under a collective called Lawyers for Nature. And you might know that in the South African constitution, there is a human right to an environment that is not harmful to human health. But in both countries, we're quite a long way behind New Zealand or Canada, which have already said that nature can have rights under law.
I hope you're provoked by the fact that people who are not of faith are saying nature is a being rather like we are. From beyond the walls of our churches and from beyond the borders of our countries, there are prophets crying out about the personhood of the natural world and about humanity's relationship with it. And so I think we need to do some work on what is a distinctive Christian theology of this. How do we claim this understanding from within the centre of our faith?
Well, I want us to begin at the beginning, in the beginning, in the book of Genesis, by tracing our roots there and remembering how woven they are, how entwined they are with the roots of every other living thing.
So I'm sure you know this, but if you read Genesis closely, you'll find that there are two poetic accounts of how God created the world. One is mostly in Genesis chapter one, and the other is mostly in Genesis chapter two. In both of these accounts, there is no distinction between how humanity and the rest of creation are called into being.
In Genesis chapter one, it is just that: a calling into being. “In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light.’ God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together in one place, and let dry land appear.’ God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures.’ God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth creatures of every kind.’ And then God said, ‘Let us make humankind.’” In Genesis chapter one, humanity is created in exactly the same way as light, dry land, fish, and animals. Creation is by declaration. Every creature is spoken into being.
And then if you go into Genesis chapter 2 and the creation story there, you'll remember that God forms man from the earth. And so he forms every other living creature, with the exception of woman. Every other living creature is also formed from the earth. Can you see how intimately we are joined to every other part of creation? We are creatures too.
God made each one of us in just the same way.
And our connection with the natural world is also shown in how the actions of humanity limit and distort the natural world. We know, I think, how this plays out today. We cut down rainforests and the earth struggles to breathe. We burn fossil fuels and the ice caps melt and the sea rises and island communities drown.
We know this to be true today, but in the beginning, the Bible says, this was also true. In the foundational story of humanity, in the actions of Adam and Eve, the natural world is changed. “Cursed is the ground because of you,” God tells Adam. “In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”
Being human, being in close relationship with every other creature, means that our actions can limit and distort creation. But, and here is the really important movement that we need to make, being human, being in close relationship with every other creature, means that we don't just impact the natural world with our destructive actions. We are also called to reshape the natural world with our hope.
You see, our hope for our own great remaking, for our salvation, is also the hope of creation, hope for creation itself. And that's where our reading from Romans comes in. I think it is such a striking and important passage, and one that I think we sometimes neglect.
In our reading from Romans 8, we can trace a reference to Genesis chapter 3, to what we sometimes call the Fall. Listen to verse 20 again. But we go on to read something remarkable: that as human beings are born into their full identity as children of God. When that happens, then Paul says, creation itself will be born anew. Verse 19: creation waits with eager longing. Verse 22: we know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now.
My sisters and brothers, I think that we have been guilty of being self-centred when we think about salvation and redemption. We have been guilty of thinking of those things only as human categories, all about us, about me, and about you. But instead, in Romans, Paul says that salvation is about the whole of creation, creatures together. Together we fall, together we die, together we will rise again. Salvation and redemption has never been about humankind only. To be human is to be radically interconnected with the whole of creation in devastation and in salvation in the new life of creation.
There is something particular about being human though, about the kind of creatures that we are. We read in Genesis 1:27 that we're made in God's image. And bearing God's image, we are to be those who take on dominion over our fellow creatures. As the psalmist sings in Psalms, a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour.
We are, Jesus says, in those assurances of God's provision, more than, much more than, the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. There is then a more about humanity. But what is this more? What is the theology of more, if I can put it like that? And how does the more of being human direct us in terms of how we care for the environment? So think for a minute about God's instruction that we should have dominion over the earth. That comes from the immediate context of God saying that human beings are made in God's image. It follows then that the dominion that we exercise is dominion also in God's image.
And so what is the dominion that God exercises over the natural world in Genesis chapter 1? What does God's dominion look like that we are to imitate? Well, first of all, a separation. God sets good boundaries for creation. He separates light from darkness, sea from dry land, night from day. God creates good boundaries in which we can flourish.
That's the first part about exercising dominion in God's image: good boundaries, separation. The second thing that God does in his dominion over creation is proliferation, which means making more and more and more and more. Genesis 1 says that God creates plants of every kind, creatures of every kind.
We are to be those who help the earth to regenerate more and more and more. And then God gives creation a benediction, a blessing. After he makes each living thing, God blesses them. And then God celebrates. God saw that it was good, that it was very good.
And so if we're to have dominion over the earth in God's image, we're to do those same things. We're to give separation, proliferation, more and more and more, benediction, a blessing, and celebration. We're to cherish the earth and to say it is very good.
And then, my sisters and brothers, we are the people of Jesus Christ, aren't we? Called to bear his image. What does dominion look like in the face of Jesus Christ? It looks like being one who came not to be served but to serve, who emptied himself and took on the form of a slave. Our dominion, our lordship over the natural world, is to look like that.
And as we think about this more of being human, can you remember how in the gospel Jesus plays with this idea of more and less? He turns it upside down and says that actually, for us, more means less and less means more. It is those at the lowest seats, Jesus says, who will be called to come up higher. “The first shall be last,” Jesus says, “and the last shall be first.” And we know because Paul has taught us that those who are weak among us are indispensable, and those who are seen as less honourable should be treated with greater respect. This is the context for our more of being human. It's not, as it so often appears, an acquisitive more, where we just grab and gain more and more. No, I think the more of being human is more responsibility, more compassion, more servanthood.
In terms of the care of the environment, the more of being human means that we are called to be midwives to creation's labour pains, an image that Paul uses in that passage from Romans. We are to be active in bringing to birth the new life of everything that God has made.
You see, the moment that Jesus bursts out of the tomb, inaugurates, it launches this new life for creation, when death shall have no more dominion. Jesus' resurrection launches this new birth of creation. And if we are Jesus' people, and we are, then we have an obligation to continue the work that he has begun.
We are to work for the conditions that will give good boundaries, will help the natural world flourish with more and more and more. We are to be people who bring blessing to the natural world and who will celebrate it rather than exploit it.
In a moment, we're going to break into groups around our tables and in our hubs to consider some questions that I've asked you to think about. But before we do that, I want to finish with two suggestions of how you might begin or continue this work of caring for creation.
The first thing I want to encourage you to do is to fall in love, if you can do that.
I want you to fall in love. There's a writer called Catherine Rundell who has written the most beautiful book called The Golden Mole. In it, she shares beautifully written accounts of the lives of creatures in the natural world: giraffes, swifts, lemurs, and hermit crabs. And she shares with us wonders that we might not have known.
Wonders like baby swifts who are about to flutter onto your screen—there they are. You might know that when baby swifts leave the nest, they fly continuously for ten months, or two years, or four years without stopping. And before they leave the nest, to make sure that they're strong enough to fly for such a long time, they do press-ups on their wings. It's one of the stories that she tells. And she tells the story of lemurs, these gorgeous creatures who, when they get anxious, clump together and form a ball a bit like this one, and their heart rates, which have been really high because they're anxious, slow as they are in connection with one another. And in her book The Golden Mole, Catherine tells a story of the Greenland shark.
This shark is so long-lived that there are still Greenland sharks swimming in the oceans today who were alive when Shakespeare wrote his plays. Isn't that amazing? Still a shark today that was alive when Shakespeare was writing To be or not to be? That is the question.
In her preface to her book, Catherine Rundell says that she is aiming to make her readers fall in love with our fellow creatures. She writes:
“Dear friends, would you look, only look at what is here? And would you agree to astonishment and to love? For love, allied to attention, will be urgently needed in the years that are to come.”
So, Kimberly and Kuruman, Diocese of Oxford, your first challenge is to fall in love, that you might be motivated to care for the beloved.
Secondly, finally, I started with a saint, with Saint Francis, and I want to end with another saint, with Saint Kevin. When I was in Greenpoint yesterday, I shared a little poem by the Christian poet and climate activist Gideon Hugh. He writes a lot about how overwhelming it can feel to engage with caring for the environment because there's so much to do,
“and it can already feel too late, and what can we do anyway? Do not be afraid. To complete the repair of the world is not why you were made. You were created to play only your part, whatever is in your hands, whatever is the now of your heart.”
This is what Saint Kevin understood. I don't know whether you know his story, but I really love it. Saint Kevin was a hermit who was praying in his cell, and it was a hot day, we imagine, and so he stuck his arm out of the window, his arm extended in prayer, and his hand held up like this.
And as he prayed, rooted in the stillness of prayer, a blackbird came and used his cupped hand as a nest and laid her eggs there. In his hands, Saint Kevin finds the part that he is to play. Until the eggs hatch, he holds his hand like a nest, warming the eggs and sheltering them. And then, when the baby birds are born, he is their cradle and their comfort until the birds take flight. My friends, this is your second action. The first, remember, is to fall in love with the natural world. And the second is to find what is in your hands and then do everything in your power to protect and to nurture that part of the natural world.
Yesterday, I was privileged to visit three church communities. And I saw that happening: a little garden behind one of the buildings on Father Teffo's estate and a recycling project. And we were able to sample some of the produce in Venerable Sinola's garden. And they both said to me, “This isn't much, this is so small, it's not very good yet, but it's a start.” It's what's within their hands, and we have to begin somewhere.
So I want to encourage you: find out what the thing is that you can do, and then do it faithfully.
So we've been asking ourselves what being human has to say about caring for the environment. And I've suggested to you that it asks of us that we recognise that we are creatures too, fellow creatures with everything that God has made. I've asked us to own the responsibility of more: that we are to exercise our dominion as God does, putting in place good boundaries in which the natural world can flourish, playing our part in the more and more and more, the proliferation of creation, that we bless the natural world and we celebrate it. I've challenged us to reshape our thinking, to realise that salvation is not just about human beings, not just about you and I, but about the whole of creation.
I've asked that we commit ourselves to being midwives, to creation being born again. And I've suggested that we can begin by loving everything that God has made and by discovering what is within our hands.