As one of our Northwest Synod of Wisconsin’s resolutions at our synod assembly we will join the churches of our synod and the world from September 1 to October 4, for this worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home. It is a time when people of faith around the globe will come together to pray and care for creation.
The Season of Creation spans five weeks between the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (September 1) and the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4). As followers of Christ from around the globe, we share a common role as caretakers of God’s creation. We see that our wellbeing is interwoven with its wellbeing. We rejoice in this opportunity to care for our common home and the sisters and brothers who share it.
This year, the theme for the season is:
A home for all? Renewing the Oikos of God.
It is our hope to work together to develop a larger Biblical and cosmological horizon, not only to be edified by the texts themselves, but to develop a new way to see Scripture, life, and Earth all in the Oikos of God and to acknowledge the wisdom from countless sisters and brothers helping all to renew our world as an interconnected and interdependent global beloved community.
In Genesis God set a dome over the Earth. The word ”dome“ is where we get words such as ‘domicile’ and ’domestic’ — in other words, God puts us all is — all people, all life —under the same domed roof — we are all in the house, the oikos of God. God gave humans the ministry to take care and cultivate this oikos of God.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have called the oikos of God ”the Beloved Community,” a community in which all of life are equally members, though each has a different role. The oikos is a home for all but it is now in danger because of greed, exploitation, disrespect, disconnection and systematic degradation. The whole creation is still crying out. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution the geography where we recognize God’s creative power has continued to shrink. Today only scraps of the human consciousness recognize God acting to restore and heal the Earth. We have forgotten that we live in the household of God, the oikos, the Beloved Community. Our fundamental interconnectedness has been at best forgotten, at worst deliberately denied.
It is our hope and prayer that we can become again this beloved community of intentional discipleship. We hope to move beyond the programmatic and didactic aspects of life to the prophetic and spiritual life, to the action and way of life, which is shaped by Jesus.
May we be the champions to renew life, the servant leaders of all life in the Beloved Community, the oikos of God.
In God’s Grace,
The Season of Creation Committee
