SECOND BEFORE LENT, Year C: February 7 2010

Preacher: Fr Peter Fisher, Vicar of St Peter, Maney

Readings: Genesis 2:4b–9, 15–end: Revelation 4; Luke 8:22-25

'Who is this [...] (that) [...] even the winds and waters obey him?' (Luke 8:25)

This is one of the Sundays on which the lectionary offers us too many gifts. So I have to throw a few toys out of the pram before I start, in order to simplify things. And, without more ado, I toss aside fruit trees, spare ribs, living creatures, flaming torches and 24 elders, and focus simply on creation. Creation and us human beings.

In our first reading (Genesis 2) we saw the first man and woman in the Garden: creation unspoilt. Then in Revelation 4 we saw worshippers in heaven, seeing and praising the creator and redeemer of all: creation wrapt up. And, finally, in the Gospel (Luke 8:22–25), we saw stormy waters, frightened disciples and the Master, bringing about an awesome calm. To me, this looks like creation in between, neither unspoilt nor wrapped up, but the site of anxiety, potential disaster and possible redemption.

When I was a boy I had no idea that we — all of us — were completely losing the plot as regards creation and the care of our natural environment. Growing up in towns and cities I must have shared, without realising it, the English pastoral idyll, the dream of an unspoilt natural world and the assumption that God had made a pretty shrewd choice in appointing grown-ups as its stewards.

If there is an image that shows how it seemed to me, then, it must be Thomas Gainsborough's picture of Mr and Mrs Andrews. They are two figures, posed incongruously, clothed, but definitely not ashamed, in a serene Suffolk landscape. They look with cool self-assurance at the viewer, she spreads her lavish pale blue silk skirts on a bench and he stands almost casually beside her with shotgun nonchalantly under his arm and gun-dog eagerly watching his face. The land that spreads from beneath their feet is their land, they effortlessly enjoy its fruits. Its placid natural beauty is the perfect foil to their cultured existence.

Of course, Gainsborough knew he was idealising. He even hints that these young landowners are not as shiny as their clothes imply. But the dream could still be summoned up and enjoyed.

Not now. Now we are doubly fallen. No longer does 'every prospect please [...] and only man is vile'. Now our human diseases seem to have infected our environment, too, until the earth itself is sick. Too late we discover that the divine right of humans to lord it over creation was not just a proud pretence, but a dangerous one. Now every sudden switch in the weather arouses extra anxiety: what will global warming do to us next? And where will it all end up?

Have you noticed that we have lived through recent decades without much of an apocalyptic tinge to the news — since the mutually assured destruction of nuclear deterrence faded from view? But now the apocalypse is back, with the menace of rising sea-levels, poisoned soil and even world war over the dwindling supply of clean water.

So perhaps the Revelation of St John the Divine is not as far-fetched as it used to seem, with its visions of nature blighted, a third of the earth burned up and a third of the waters turned to bitter wormwood.

That may well be, but today's reading from is not about the creation and all that threatens it, is about the Creator. When John is led through the open door into heaven, everything he sees is directed towards the throne, and the one seated on it — One who can only be described in the language of jewels and precious stones. This is not just the God of light, but the God of the emerald rainbow, the flashing yellow and glowing red of jasper and cornelian. And all the assembled beings — angelic and human — have one song. They glorify God the creator of all.

And that is the key to the Christian apocalypse: it is firstly about God: the one to whom all honour is due. The Alpha and Omega. The sole creator.

Then it is about the judgement of God, coming inevitably upon all who muscle in to take over God's creation and re-make it for their own convenience or in their own image.

And then, thirdly, it is about the renewal of heaven and earth. God's determination that beyond judgement and disaster, the good creation will be perfected, renewed and glorified.

Meanwhile, awaiting all this, we go on digging our little gardens and doing our shopping like the serfs in the margins of medieval manuscripts. And we come together here to confess our own part in the spoiling of creation, to give thanks for the beauty and fruitfulness it still affords us, and to give glory to God, creator, judge and re-newer of all.

We come together, in some ways just as we have always done, but perhaps a bit more jittery? If the church is the boat and we the disciples, we may not yet be panicking, but we sense the swell lapping over the gunnels — is that too technical? — the boat going down a little and our insecurity rising. And with that insecurity come not only the obvious consequences — anxiety and loss of courage — but some other unforeseen results. We become more cynical, the circle of our trust begins to shrink, we find ourselves joining the ignoble army of moaners. We are probably already signed up to the glorious company of nostalgics. Forgive me. I am probably talking about where I am headed, not you. But a sizeable chunk of the population is going there with me, if we are not careful.

So we come back to the Gospel: the stormy waters, frightened disciples and Jesus. It's the simplest of stories, and it tells us what the Gospels keep telling us. With us, in the incarnation, in the boat, in the very creation itself: Immanuel. God in Christ, God as ubiquitous Spirit, God in the boat with us.

Well: that's alright then! God with us must surely mean God on hand to soothe our concerns.

Or does it? What if it were we, ourselves, who caused this particular storm of climate change and environmental crisis? What if we (corporately) had sown this wind and were now reaping our own whirlwind? And what if God, the Holy Spirit, with us in the boat of creation, was in fact here to befriend, not us, but the patient, wounded earth — just as in Christ God befriends the weak, hurt and hungry?

Then we would have to learn, once again, that we are not God's freehold landowners; that God with us does not mean God in our dreams of tranquil nature ('the kiss of the sun for pardon/the song of the birds for mirth'), nor God with us in our power and possession. But God waiting, as it were in the earth — as that 'dearest freshness deep down things' (Hopkins) which strives to heal and renew nature — waiting for our help in that work, waiting for us not to rule but to serve.

Then it would be our howling appetites that the Master is rebuking. And it would be our insatiable and self-important demands (mine, too) that would have to hear his voice and be — miraculously — stilled and calmed.

Given that peace and freedom, God's gifts to those whom God's fierce love humbles, we would gladly serve the creation of which we are a part, to the glory of Him whose will it is to restore all things, in Christ the ruler and redeemer of all. Amen.