Second before Lent by Fr Jack

Genesis 1.1-2.3
St Paul to the Romans 8.18-25
St Matthew 6.25-end

I wonder if the challenge for us this week, is to let ourselves be creatures. I don’t mean furry creatures for sale in the Disney Shop window. Or creepy crawly creatures under a flower pot. But creatures, as in those created by a creator. To be a creature is to be in relationship. Living, actual relationship.

Let me explain a bit. It comes through in the readings given for today, and also the hymnody and music that Anne has, as ever, chosen for us with such care and expertise.

Although, having said that, I fear that these remarks of mine will fail to achieve much of a resolution or cleanness. So please take the shagginess of my musings this morning, as an invitation to be porous and lateral thinking. To be open-minded about applying this question to your life: the question of what it means to be a creature. And that that is a true and good thing. A dignity and a gift, as a creature, as one in living, actual relationship.

We begin, in the beginning. Just as Maria in the Sound of Music suggests, a very good place to start. And it is indeed good, just as Maria, and possibly more importantly, God, says.

Those extraordinary opening lines of Genesis. Don’t let familiarity dull the wonder - that our Biblical story of life begins with such beauty and momentum.

A beauty and momentum that, incidentally, dovetails very well indeed with our best understanding to-date, of Big Bang and macro-evolution. In a beginning and an unfolding, that is not arbitrary, but good, and abounding with fecundity and life.

And we are creatures, made for the desirous delight of our creator. Made out of abundance and destined for glorious harmony, for love.

And here’s where we meet our first roadblock. We hear these majestic and beautiful words of God’s creative purposes, and then (like Noah before the flood perhaps) we turn on the news or look around us and see mistrust, violence, a poverty of generosity, inhumanity as far as the eye can see.

The contrast is illuminating. This too is part of our condition. As Adam and Eve will so tragically and self-defeatingly show just a few verses on from today’s first reading.

But we are not only creatures of this Genesis creation. We are also creatures of a new creation, one of equal magnitude and surpassing beauty, the new creation inaugurated in the resurrection of Christ. A new universe, renewed in life, and freed from death’s chains. We are creatures also of this creation. Just as St Paul so beautifully lays out for us in today’s epistle.

That’s why St John echoes Genesis when he begins his New Testament Gospel, ‘in the beginning was the Word’. Because he wants us to appreciate the importance of this new creation, in Christ.

But nonetheless, until Christ comes again, we are still bound too, by this first creation. And by the suffering and finitude that arrived hot on its heels. They will not have the final word, but they do speak, loudly, for now.

And we know that they are in abundance in this present time. In our own lives and global events.

But as creatures we don’t pretend that suffering or worry or life’s rubbish bits are intruders. Strangers in our otherwise ‘telly tubby land’ existence. Because we are creatures, we are honest about them, not naive.

Last week we heard how Simeon and Anna faced life year after year, and yet their faith held them fast. The Rev’d Lucy in her sermon showed us that their religious practices, their rhythms, plugged into God, brought them to life, and helped them be who they were meant to be when it mattered most.

So it is with us. Living our faith, the rhythms and practices of us creatures being with our creator, help us to live in the reality of now wisely, lovingly, hopefully and well.

Likewise, Jesus in St Matthew’s Gospel today isn’t batting away our worries. This isn’t condescension or glossy magazine article self-help realisation. He is showing us our creatureliness, and in so doing He is honestly and helpfully showing us the truth of our life.

He is helping us, nudging us, towards embracing the truth of us and God, God and us, actually doing life together. And that  that is the heart of everything.

And two last aspects of creatureliness that spring to mind, are sabbath and worship/prayer.

God creatures and then rests. And in so doing God hallows rest. For God, and therefore for us, rest is not simply a tool to make work better. Rest is holy. Rest has value in and of itself. Rest is good, not because it does this or that, but because God chooses to rest, and makes it holy. Not a stepping stone, but a destination.

Rest teaches us that we are creatures. Dependant on our creator, on each other. Not immune from our creatureliness, but created to experience it. When we are elderly and frail, when we are young and vulnerable, when we are sick and in need of care, this is not a failure, or an unwelcome stranger. This is part of our createdness. It is real, and part of who we are, as hard as it may be. Our calling is to do it well together with God and each other, creatures and creator. Living relationship, not plastic fantasy.

Likewise, a final thought that might be helpful for the coming Lenten Springtime for the soul as creatures: our interior life, our relationship with God, other and self has eternal significance. The true adventure is just as much there, in the crucible of prayer and wisdom and grace, as it is out here. The interior of me: us and God, in silence, sacrament, mystery, prayer, is the reality of our creatureliness too.

Creature and creator in its fullness is already here, within. And paradoxically it is a lifetime’s adventure to discover it. So, today: creature and creator.

Beauty and momentum, like Genesis.

Abundance, and delight. God saw that it was good.

But also creatureliness in honesty about how tough and complicated life is. The human condition. Self-destruction, frailty, the real phases of life.

But creatureliness too in the promises of Christ. Of resurrection and renewal as our true home towards which we are living. The new creation.

Creature and creator in the goodness of rest. Rest, not as a means to an end, but a holy end in itself.

And creature and creator in the interior adventure of prayer and mystery - a secret garden within that is a lifetime’s adventure.

We are invited in these weeks running down into Lent to be creatures discovering the fullness of our creatureliness with our creator.

Just as Jesus says to us today: seek ye first this Kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you.