Pentecost 4B Creation Care

Sometimes people want to hear what they already know.

Scriptures

• Ezekiel 47:9

Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes.

• Ezekiel 47:12

On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.

• 2 Corinthians 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, everything has become new!

• Mark 4:26-34

²⁶ Jesus also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come."

³⁰ He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

³³ With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Creation Care Outline

Where are we now in the church's year of grace? One month ago we celebrated the Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter. We recollected when a large group of Jesus' first followers gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish Pentecost. They remembered and affirmed God giving the Ten Words or Commandments through Moses, that way of obedience you could call the Working Papers for our lives together. And they celebrated the wheat harvest, God's gift from the ground that sustains our bodies every day.

Here in the church we recently started the six month long green and growing season of Pentecost; during this stretch of time we emphasize all creation as God's planting,. You know the story of God and God's people and the land from Genesis through Revelation.

Today's scriptures offer agricultural images. We hear from the prophet Ezekiel, and we hear two parables from Mark's gospel: scattered seeds and the famous mustard seed! The gospels of Luke and Matthew also include the mustard seed parable, so that may mean it's especially important.

A month ago we celebrated the Christian Day of Pentecost, or the fiftieth day of Easter. Christians have been celebrating Easter for two thousand years! Our formal theology tells us Jesus Christ's death and resurrection ended endless cycles of death, violence, and everything contrary to God's intention, but we look around and still see war, climate chaos, sorrow, sickness, death—none of that is over and done with yet.

Even though Jesus Christ has died, is risen from the grave, and ascended to reign from the right hand of God, even though we identify as Easter people… what's going on?

Jesus' original followers wondered, too.

After Jesus' resurrection and before his Ascension, in Luke's book of the Acts of the Apostles, his friends and followers asked if now he finally would "restore the kingdom" to the world. Jesus informed them the question was wrong. He told them to stay and wait right there in Jerusalem. and they would be his witnesses, they would testify to new life. In the power of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, they would be Jesus' presence in the world.

In Romans 8:19-21 the Apostle Paul tells us all creation waits, hopes, and longs to discover us as God's authentic offspring, as people who embody, reflect, and act in God's image to help redeem all creation. Like Jesus!

The agricultural parables in the Good News of Jesus Christ, Son of God, according to Mark, align well with today's song, "God, Whose Farm Is All Creation." All creation. Not only prairie and heartland. But also crowded, overbuilt cities and suburbs. Remote rural wide spots in the road. Deserts. All creation is God's garden. God's land. God's farm.

God whose farm is all Creation,
take the gratitude we give,
take the finest of our harvest,
crops we grow that all may live.

Take our ploughing, seeding, reaping,
hopes and fears of sun and rain,
all our thinking, planning, waiting,
ripening into fruit and grain.

All our labor, all our watching,
all our calendar of care,
in these crops of your creation,
take, O God; they are our prayer.

Author: John Arlott

Romans reminds us creation hopes to discover that we'll treat oceans, wetlands, savannas, and cities in ways that help them heal. Creation watches us and waits for us to become good caretakers of waterways, trees, animals, insects. Of our own backyards and window boxes!

The new creation began 2000 years ago. That eighth day of the week, was the first day of a new reality. The new creation is not finished. The old creation still waits and hopes for us to be green people.

What's a biblical creation care model? We need to learn about plants, about seeds and soils, climates and seasons. It's also a great idea to act locally!

In the bible's promised land we see:

Crops watered by cascades down mountains into valleys and not by water shipped thousands of miles Gardens warmed by the great light of the sun and not by plugged in grids

Scripture shows us act locally. You know some of the ways:

• farmers markets
• street vendors
• community gardens
• backyard plots
• kitchen windowsill herb gardens
• composts

School and community gardens can help cancel food deserts
Besides, living local adds savor and flavor
Although we lose some long term keeper food
When that happens?!
Share the extras!
Trust the mystery!

In Ezekiel we hear about rivers flowing from the temple and healing everything the waters touch. Because everything those waters reach becomes healthy and well, the name of the city then becomes The Lord Is Here.

Today Jesus invites us to his table of grace. This eucharistic festival of thanksgiving is a taste, a token, a sign, a promise of creation completely redeemed.

Christ is raised and dies no more.
By water and the word
we share his death
his Eastered life

The new creation comes to life and grows
Everywhere we go!
Alleluia.
Amen!

Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Five Minute Friday :: Longing

dreams from Summer 2000

The days and the summer nights
Berries from the brambles and the vines
Yearning for a future still not yet
Recalling how to dream…

• Five Minute Friday :: Longing Linkup and major congrats to Kate on another book!


From about a year ago, here's one place I wrote about:

• Home is Always the Place You Just Left: A Memoir of Restless Longing and Persistent Grace

Home, yearning, longing, belonging form a familiar and familial group. What can I say about longing today?

A person feels longing in their gut, in their heart, throughout their body. It's visceral. It's organic. It's powerful and it's often noticeable to outsiders.

As I explained:

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me.

My scripture reference was, "God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me." Psalm 18:19

Finally I wondered,

Can home be in a place of blight, broken glass, fragile dreams, when there were any dreams at all? What name would we give that place? Is that the kind of situation we need to be rescued from? God would rescue us from?

Longing for Home is a buzz phrase—if ever there was one. Other longings and yearnings include hankering after lost connections with people, objects, experiences, and broader, larger places. Yet those individuals, those experiences and artifacts, that wider broader city or countryside all are components of home.

Longing is for something or someone you've had in the past but that's missing now. You can't long for what you haven't known or experienced. Or can you?

Longing and yearning can be visceral. Sometimes they're vascular. What happens if the longing ends because the object of our yearning has arrived? It's in the house!

As the phrase goes, "I'm so old" I remember everything about Tuesday 11 September 2001, a.k.a. 911. Even before then, I remember the hope many of us felt with the arrival of a new century called Y2K. My header collage illustrates the summer of 2000. I still love Y2K fashion. I remember the excitement of my first internet endeavor—an urban space in the old MSN groups. You can look back. I can reminisce. But yesterday's gone.

I remind myself, "Pray – remember – dream." Pray about now. Remember then. Dream about the future God is preparing to bring your longings home.

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California African American Museum

Another Tuesday outing, this time to the museum complex for my first ever visit to the California African American Museum for some art, history, and culture.

Colorful collages line the walls.

Albert Chong, Aunt Winnie

Dominique Moody, Reunion, 1996. Collage front and back

Henri Paul Broyard, born 1989, Los Angeles. UGDA, 2021.
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

I didn't get the title or the subject

Doyle Lane, born 1923 New Orleans, died 2002 Los Angeles. untitled, 1980-1989
Nine earthenware glazed fish

Dinosaur ironing board and irons

MLK Boulevard

Power to the people!

Engraved placard

How about this United Airlines DC-8?

Five Minute Friday :: Cold

Detroit city photograph by Ken Lund

• Five Minute Friday :: Cold Linkup

How many times have i announced, "I'd be in Detroit now, expect for the weather?" When is the last time I said that? Probably a week or ten days ago. Kate's serendipitous cold photo reminds us every kind of weather has its own kind of beauty, although her description of West Michigan sounds chillier than my memories of Boston… however, the North Atlantic adds a special grace to New England winters. What's that, you ask? Learning how to properly dress in layers, to knit cozy hats and mittens, to try old or new recipes and keep the fireplace lit because you'll have snow days that require you to stay indoors.

Although I currently reside in Los Angeles city and county, it's probably no surprise that I usually associate the word "cold" with the temperature inside the house or outside in the weather. More often than not, I pair snow and cold; Andrew recently had us write about snow.

Most years on this blog I've mentioned Lessons and Carols that some venues offer early in Advent, some close to the Feast of the Nativity, others on the first Sunday of Christmas because everyone still wants to sing carols. Do those lovely songs moderate or even mitigate the discomfort of cold days and nights? In my experience yes, if only for the duration of the event.

Because I mainly connect cold with the ambient temp, I also connect cold with the winter months. As much as I enjoy wearing shorts and sundresses during warm weather, winter clothes always feel as if they're better quality, more durable, and more style forward—for a taste of redemption for the cold!

I'll conclude by quoting Valley Winter Song again:

You know the summer's coming soon

Though the interstate chokes under salt and dirty sand
And it seems the sun is hiding from the moon
And late December can drag a person down

While the snow is falling down
In our New England town
What else is new?
What could I do?

I wrote a Valley Winter Song
To play for you.

You know the summer's coming soon

by Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger

The warm winter hat and hot winter drink are courtesy of Creative Market

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Five Minute Friday :: Unusual

• Five Minute Friday :: Unusual Linkup

Intro

I'll start by saying I have no idea what Kate meant about Gatlinburg Tennessee being so unusual. Long ago late in Bright Week, I spent a few days in Gatlinburg and made memories so unforgettable I still review them every so often. Those memories include a stack of randomly shaped diner pancakes smothered with butter, and the best vanilla soft serve on the planet.

I did the tourist thing over to northern North Carolina and had a lunch so wonderful the menu has become one of my standards. Gatlinburg is a gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and for sure it's been developed with tourism in mind, but so has almost every Cape Cod town, so has the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Boston's Freedom Trail, and countless attractions worldwide.


Unusual

Given that Gatlinburg isn't in my unusual category, what does belong? Although I don't consider my art and design unusual because most of it is natural to me, other people often wonder about it. Outside of the design industry and classroom, where everyone takes it in stride because they expect the creative and the unusual, real-life mixed responses have ranged from, "That's dumb" to "What are you trying to prove?" to "This is brilliant!"

One of my saddest experiences happened when a classmate who evidently didn't know me as artistic was visiting. She looked at the few dozen pieces of my original art I'd posted on the wall and asked, "Where did you get these?" I replied, "I did them" (well, yes, of course) and she said, "No you didn't! Don't lie to me."

• My header for today: January afternoon
• Top footer is my interpretation of a piece of kettle cloth
• Next one is a favorite pair of summer sandals in their original color
• A fun frog

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Baptism of Jesus 2026

Matthew 3:13-17

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented Jesus, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God's Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from the heavens said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

The Baptism of Jesus

As always, this is approximate, but I'm still happy to have enough notes to blog. As always, the real thing last Sunday was more dramatic and maybe even a little poetic.


The baptism of Jesus! Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by his cousin John the … Baptist! John baptizes Jesus in the wilderness, away from centers of commerce, politics, religion. Far from the establishment. In the Jordan that was the boundary and the border to the Promised Land for God's people Israel after their lives of slavery in Egypt and their long trek through the exodus desert as they trusted God's total provision.

We find this event in all four of the gospels, so let's sit up and take notice because it must be important, maybe even pivotal. Today we hear from Matthew that has been our featured gospel since the church opened wide a new year of grace on the first Sunday of Advent. Each gospel has a distinct personality because the writer(s) wanting to convey particular facts and events.

Matthew views Jesus as the new Moses, a new King David. Moses is about the Reign of Heaven, Kingdom of Heaven rather than the reign or kingdom of God because Matthew wrote to Jewish Christians and Jews do not speak the divine name. Matthew never lets up on justice and righteousness.

Near the start of Matthew, an angel tells Jesus' stepfather Joseph to name the soon to be born baby Emmanuel or "God with us." This infant will be the presence of heaven in our midst! At the very end of Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells us to remember his promise to be with us forever, even until the end of time. (Matthew 28:20)

Matthew starts by announcing a book of beginnings or origins – biblios (book) geneseos (origin), A new creation, a new Genesis. Do you think that's why the committee that compiled the New Testament placed Matthew first?

We know Jesus' conception, birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension as the first fruits of the new creation. But look where we are for Jesus' very first public appearance as an adult. It's away from the movers and shakers, far distant from the religious, commercial, and political establishment. It reveals God's paradoxical way of making all things new—starting at the edges!

Doesn't that remind you of Jesus' mother Mary's Magnificat? She sang how God has:

• Scattered the proud
• Brought down the powerful
• Lifted up the lowly
• Filled the hungry with good things
• Sent the rich away empty

* * *
Jesus' mikvah or baptism wasn't the same as our Trinitarian baptism into Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It was more of a new beginning for the nation, with the individual, the smallest unit participating as part of the larger whole.

Our Trinitarian baptism is a sacrament, a means of grace, a mighty act of God. As the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, in baptism we became part of the new creation.

We famously consider Jesus baptism a Trinitarian theophany, or revelation of all three persons of the trinity. Theo = God; Phan = revealing, showing forth. And there are similarities between Jesus' baptism and ours.

Baptism begins Jesus' public ministry; baptism begins our public ministries outside of the immediate household. On this day many churches have a renewal of baptismal vows; today we gave thanks for our baptism with water and word, as we remembered and renewed God claiming, calling, and sending us in baptism.

* * *
But where are we as we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus? We're in the season of Epiphany that emphasizes Jesus as light of the world, God's salvation for everyone everywhere. We often symbolize that by light that reaches around the globe and can't be extinguished.

Light was the first element of creation. Without light there is no life.

We try to prayerfully honor our baptismal calling to work for justice, to act in ways that increase the greater good and maybe result in Good Trouble!

However, this country and the world, as well as most of us are in pain, loss – full of uncertainty about the future that's never a known factor; we're unsure more than usual of our next move or what tomorrow will bring.

Though we can't neglect or ignore those big concerns, let's try to focus on the micro level as we live out our baptism during this season of Epiphany.

Let's be light and life to each other at home – work – school – church. Let's how up for each other. And please tell each other what you need. Don't assume anyone read minds.

• We can do this!
• We are baptized!
• Amen!
* * *
Again today Jesus invites us to the Table of Grace. Jesus welcomes everyone to a taste of the New Creation where all is healed, all is whole, where creation's bounty knows no limits, where love embraces all.

Come, let us eat, for lo, the feast is spread.
Come, let us drink for lo, the cup is poured.

You are welcome.
I am welcome.
We are welcome!

To God alone be glory.
Amen!

Five Minute Friday :: Horizon

Today's header is my Sky Horizon painting.

Welcome back, Kate! Andrew and Sylvia were excellent hosts with some super-fun prompts.


• Five Minute Friday :: Horizon Linkup

When you draw in perspective, you draw a horizon line to help accurately locate all the elements in your drawing. You know the sight and the feeling of an open road with that distant horizon you think you're getting closer to as you travel, but if the terrain is a certain way, you can approach it but you never can really really reach it. Horizons shift and change.

Downtown in the city or walking around the 'hood, you don't often get the horizon experience because there are too many objects and distractions in the way. We know about spending time in creation in order to gain perspective—besides glorying in God's incredible creation, which in itself helps us face more uncertainties, at some locations you can see the horizon and you can see forever into eternity.

What about the horizons of your life calling, your life's purpose, the horizons of the unknown? The horizons of where you are right here and right now?

I began this FMF with perspective drawing. Drawing a horizon line so you can accurately locate everything on your canvas, screen, or paper has a nice parallel when you assess your current and future life horizons and locate important elements on it. Have you ever done that in your journaling? Or in conversation with a friend, mentor, or therapist? At least for me, doing it with pencil and paper is essential.

As I focus on the future, what does today's horizon tell me? If I compare my current life horizon with a different time, maybe a different place, what do I see? Can I move the pieces around for a more pleasing perspective? How about trying this as part of your daily prayer, maybe early in the morning, or right before you (at least try to) sleep at night?

Are you getting closer to the horizon as you travel throughout each day and week? Or have your horizons shifted?

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Santa Monica Promenade & Pier

After plans to visit the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades on my day off fell through due to its being closed on Tuesdays, I ventured to downtown Santa Monica – DTSM – and the beach. At first I thought I'd wait for my monthly rundown before blogging any of it, but I got more good pictures than a summary blog can accommodate and I needed to write about the Third Street Promenade.


Third Street Promenade

During my first year in LA, Third Street Promenade was one of my best and favorite places to have fun; it was well-landscaped for pedestrians-only shopping and dining, packed with national retailers and some local ones, and included many spots along the way to sit, lounge, or socialize. Its current City of Santa Monica website describes it as world-class, and back then it probably qualified—or close to it.

Third Street Promenade in Spring 2016
Since 2016, online shopping has taken more of a hold (understatement), as it probably would have even without help from the Covid pandemic, so that's an obvious factor in what I saw on Tuesday. Related more specifically to Santa Monica, after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, riots and looting in contiguous Los Angeles spilled over into Santa Monica and a police department that may have been capable of controlling and dispersing more conventional crowds and uprisings, but… this was different.

"I'm so old" I used to love browsing, shopping, and hanging out at malls, but as I recently blogged, the decline and death of the North American mall has disenchanted me and I'd basically quit the habit, anyway.

Returning to "what I saw on Tuesday." A ghost town trying to act brave. A dead mall that hasn't been buried or converted to another use necessarily pretending it won't always be like this. I didn't even try to count the number or percentage of storefronts without tenants. Though I don't recall Third Street Promenade ever being packed with people any time I visited, "sparse" is too generous a word for the current decimation of everything.

I didn't recognize the names of most of the stores! The only brands represented that I'd ever buy from were Barnes & Noble, Anthropologie, and Urban Outfitters. There was a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf I determined to return to before I left, but instead I got a hazelnut frappe at CB&TL when I visited the pier after leaving the promenade.

In the category of "what can we make of this," although Tuesday was January 13th and Christmas is long over (even if you include January 6th, the day of Epiphany as part of the Nativity season), both brick and mortar and online retailers have taken down their Christmas trees, reindeers, and jingle bells because it's time to sell and shop for Valentine's Day, with maybe a thought for MLK Day and Black History Month along the way. But Third Street Promenade still was about trees and lights.

You don't need to search deeply to find articles that analyze all of this from almost any perspective. It doesn't make me feel nostalgic; it just makes me sad. It feels like an icon of so many pasts we knew yet don't truly want to return to, but we don't know what to do with the memories of those pasts or the realities of this present.

Santa Monica Pier

Because I was close to the beach, a visit to Santa Monica Pier was logical. I could pretend to be a tourist! Maybe you already knew that's where Route 66 ends?

I'll wrap this up with some pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

On the way back from the pier I met a flock of seagulls, but I was only quick enough to picture this one.