20th September 2026 

Caring for Creation

Sometimes in life, you have to take the wins when they come. This week, when I looked at the school assembly planner, which is on a 3-year cycle, I remembered the topic from September 2023. I went to the drawer labelled "School Assemblies" - and I found, all ready to go, a set of resources I'd made three years ago. I'm counting that as a win!

The assembly in question was based around pizza. We talked about our favourite pizza toppings, and then, using my flashcards, thought about how many miles those toppings had travelled to our plate. The aim was for the children to celebrate God's gift of a wide variety of foods, and also to become more aware of where their food comes from. We finished by reflecting together on a passage from Deuteronomy 8:

"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig-trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing...When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day." (Deuteronomy 8:7-11)

I'm intrigued here by the juxtaposition of abundance and warning. It's as if, as soon as the people start to enjoy this plentiful diet of varied, delicious food (to a people who for 40 years have survived on manna), they are almost guaranteed to forget God who has given it to them. As if a people who are full and satisfied are more likely to turn away from the abundant generosity of the God who fills and satisfies them. As if a people who have everything that they need are less likely to trust in God to meet their needs...

The gospel tells us that God created a good world, rich in diversity, abundant in provision, but that this world has been broken and damaged by human sin. Over the summer, with heatwaves, wildfires and the recent floods in Tibet and Nepal filling the news headlines, we have been reawakened to the cost of our forgetfulness of our creator, our failure to observe his command in Genesis 2 to tend and nurture the earth. Have we gone too far? Is there any hope? The gospel tells us that there is - that Jesus' life, death and resurrection is for the renewal not just of individual human lives but for the whole of creation. The call to us, as it was to the first disciples, is to "repent and believe. To turn away from those behaviours that are leading humanity to cosmic-scale disaster, and to turn in trust towards God, our creator, who has not given up on us nor on the world. 

Throughout the Anglican Communion, this gospel imperative is expressed as the Fifth Mark of Mission. It calls us to treasure God's world: to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth. We'll be reflecting on this in our services on Sunday. Will you join us?