Ecological Sainthood

Sermon for the Sunday in the Octave of All Saints

It’s a bit of a surprise why we don’t often hear much from the Church on ecological matters. Should we be praying for animals? Should we be more involved with preserving God’s Creation?

Some people might say, “It is the business of the Church to care for souls, not to prop up Creation which is run by God for His pleasure.” There are others that say, “human beings are just animals. Why bother praying in the first place? We evolved from animals and we will die like animals.”

Of course, the Church believes that human beings are not animals. Human beings have a rational soul. We are able to question, do philosophy, and build civilisations. We are also able to sin.

Really, it is sin that marks us out from the animals in God’s Creation. We are able to reject the one who created us. Every sin which we commit tears into the fabric of Creation. Stephen Fry might accuse God of creating the parasite which infests little children and thus deny His Goodness. Yet what of the Western business that has changed the climate and economy and thus has forced little children to live in areas in which they can be infested with parasites. It is not God who is to blame for the misery in the world – it is human sin.

It only takes one fracture in a crystal to spread and break it. It only takes one sin in Creation to bring a fracture into our being in which Evil dwells. All sin cascades through Time from that first sin.

The only remedy for this is Sainthood.

[PAUSE]

We know that we are simultaneously saints and not-saints. St Paul will call us saints because he fully expects us to fulfil our destiny in becoming these citizens of Heaven, able to behold God in His glory and able to rejoice for all Eternity with Him. Yet, we cannot do so now. We can only see glimpses of God in snippets and never see Him face-to-face unless we are blest enough to behold Our Lord Jesus Christ, for to see Him is to see the Father.

We choose sainthood but know that this involves suffering as our lives are broken apart and remade in order to be transformed in the likeness of God. We can only achieve that state of blessedness by realising how poor we are in our spiritual life and accepting that poverty which distances us from the ownership of things. We must weep for our sins and recognise the pain that they cause others. We recognise the sham that is earthly power, knowing only the rule of Christ the King. The driving force of our transformation has to be our single-minded desire for God’s righteousness and yet we have to remember that this desire of ours cannot be fulfilled unless we are prepared to hold close to us even those who do us the greatest wrong, reconciling even those who a diametrically opposite.

Are you daunted by this task?

[PAUSE]

It is only those who do not feel daunted and even discouraged by this who don’t really understand the task that we have in front of us. It is frightening and we know we can’t do this of ourselves. This is where sainthood has its greatest trick – one that confounds the Devil at source.

[PAUSE]

We do not acquire sainthood by our own efforts. True holiness comes from God Himself. We have to honour this by doing what we can, recognising that, of ourselves this is not enough, but trust in God to supply whatever is lacking and correct whatever is amiss. The greater our Love for God, the more we will love Him. Like a mustardseed, that faith will grow but only if we let it go. It is through turning to God that our sins are forgiven and our lives’ course altered.

Yet, the power of Sainthood is immense.

In his Revelation, St John sees four angels with the power to hurt the earth with the results of human sin. Yet, he also sees a fifth angel who says, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” It is only when our sainthood is sealed in us that the old creation passes away and the New Creation comes. While we are saints in progress, we are bringing to birth the New Creation as God works with us and within us to transform us into that which is Holy.

It is our respect for God which means that we use our sainthood to sanctify this world. By caring for His creation, His animals and His people, we make the presence of God deeper so that this fractured reality passes away simply by being healed in God.

Of course we should pray for humans, but we should also pray for animals and raise them up as God’s good creation, and seek their welfare and His glory in their being. When we see Creation perfected, then we will see God within it and within ourselves. Then we shall be like Him, indeed.