Celebrating Creation and Caring for Our Planet

A Choral meditation to mark the conclusion of the Great Big Green Week

Led by Rev Barry Lotz

Prologue

Reading: Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Introit – For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth over and around us lies,

 Lord of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light,

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild.

For each perfect gift of thine, to our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven

John Rutter
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Welcome and Prayer – Revd Barry Lotz

Hymn – For the healing of the nations

For the healing of the nations,
Lord, we pray with one accord,
For a just and equal sharing
Of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love in action,
Help us rise and pledge our word.

Lead us forward into freedom,
From despair your world release
That, redeemed from war and hatred,
All may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care and goodness
Fear will die and hope increase.

All that kills abundant living,
Let it from the earth be banned:
Pride of status, race or schooling,
Dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice
May we hallow life’s brief span.

You, Creator God, have written
Your great name on humankind;
For our growing in your likeness
Bring the life of Christ to mind;
That by our response and service
Earth its destiny may find

Fred Kaan 1929-2000
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God created our world and entrusted us to care for it

Reading – Genesis 1 (selected verses)

Choir – Awake the harp (Creation)

Awake the harp, the lyre awake! In shout and joy your voices raise!
In triumph sing the mighty Lord! For he the heavens and earth
has clothed in stately dress.

Haydn
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Job reminds up that God made and sustains every detail of Creation

Reading – Job 38 (selected verses)

Reading – The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry

Choir – The Gift of each day

The gift of each day rising out of darkness
The promise of light and the birth of new life
The dawn of new hope and a new beginning
If we turn to the light, if we turn to the light

The gift of each day stirring all around us
The sights of the earth, and sea, and sky
Forever fresh as the day we first saw them
Forever new as creation’s first day

Domine, gratias agimus tibi
Lord God, we give You thanks, blessing and praise
Behold creation, so filled with miracles
Benedictus es, benedictus es, Domine

The gift of each day has been freely granted
The gift of creation in glory revealed
We thank You, Lord, for all its blessings
We thank You, Lord, for the gift of each day
Your good gift of each day
We thank You, Lord, for the gift of each day

John Rutter
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Hymn – God in his love for us gave us this planet

God in his love for us lent us this planet,
gave it a purpose in time and in space:
small as a spark from the fire of creation,
cradle of life and the home of our race.

Thanks be to God for its bounty and beauty,
life that sustains us in body and mind:
plenty for all, if we learn how to share it,
riches undreamed-of to fathom and find.

Long have our human wars ruined its harvest;
long has earth bowed to the terror of force;
long have we wasted what others have needed,
poisoned the fountain of life at its source.

Earth is the Lord’s: it is ours to enjoy it,
ours, as God’s stewards, to farm and defend.
From its pollution, misuse, and destruction,
good Lord, deliver us, world without end!

Fred Pratt Green (1903–2000)
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Thomas Traherne celebrates God’s created world. Psalm 65 is a
hymn of thanks for both spiritual salvation and physical
sustenance, revealing God as the ultimate Provider whose
unseen work results in visible, joyous fruitfulness.

Reading – Enjoying the World Aright
by Thomas Traherne

Choir – Psalm 65

Thou O God art praised in Sion:
And unto thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem.
Thou that hearest the prayer: Unto thee shall all flesh come.
My misdeeds prevail against me: O be thou merciful unto our sins.
Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and receivest unto thee:
He shall dwell in thy court and shall be satisfied
with the pleasures of thy house even of thy holy temple.
Thou shalt shew us wonderful things in thy righteousness
O God of our salvation: Thou that art the hope of all the ends of the earth
And of them that remain in the broad sea.
Who in his strength setteth fast the mountains: And is girded about with power.
Who stilleth the raging of the sea:
And the noise of his waves and the madness of the people.
They also that dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth
Shall be afraid at thy tokens:
Thou that makes the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise thee.
Thou visits the earth as blessest it: Thou makest it very plenteous.
The river of God is full of water:
Thou preparest their corn for so thou provident for the earth.
Thou waters her furrows thou sendest rain into the little valleys there of:
Thou makest it soft with the drops of rain and blessest the increase of it.
Thou brownest the year with thy goodness:
And thy clouds drop fatness.
They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness:
And the little hills shall rejoice us every side.
The folds shall be full of sheep:
The valleys also shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing.
Glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy ghost:
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

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In Leviticus 25 we learn about caring for the land.
We are urged to exercise wise stewardship and to have faith in God’s provision

Reading – Leviticus 25, 1-7

Reading – The world beyond my window
by Joshua Sasse

Hymn – Now we hear Creation groaning

Now we hear creation groaning
like a prisoner held in chains,
yearning for unbridled freedom,
healing from its present pains:
for the cosmos is in labour,
bearing worlds as yet unknown,
incomplete without the people
God has chosen as his own.  

But the saints are also groaning
with this aching hope we bear;
through involvement in life’s turmoil,
Jesus’ wounds are ours to share:
in the church, the world’s frustrations
can be focused, felt and healed,
as a better, new creation
is foreshadowed and revealed.

So we find, in all this anguish,
God’s intentions are expressed,
for the groans the Spirit utters
are the deepest and the best:
and those painful, strong emotions
human words can never tell –
God the Spirit, who evokes them,
now interprets them as well.

Since this fallen, splendid cosmos
is the womb to greater things,
and since we, in all our frailty,
serve the broken King of kings,
teach us, God, to hear your Spirit
whose maternal, wordless call
is the heart of our vocation
and the truest prayer of all.

Martin E. Leckebusch (b.1962)
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In Romans 8 we learn that human mismanagement
and neglect have caused Creation to become imperfect.
George Mwaura reminds us that we are damaging it further today.

Reading – Romans 8: 18-22

Reading – The Earth is Not Silent
by George Mwaura

Choir – I shall not see the shadows

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Between the March and April line—
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows and grows,—
The birds, they made it in the spring,

At night’s delicious close.
The saddest noise I know.

Christopher Tin
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Each part of God’s Creation has a unique and immensely
valuable part to play. Everything is meant to be in balance –
we are called to be stewards and act in God’s  image of a caring,
inclusive, generous power, loving the world and wanting to see it thrive
and be once again in perfect balance.

Reading – Matthew 6, 25-33

Choir – Set your mind on God’s Kingdom

Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal;  but store up treasure in heaven. For where your treasure is there will be your heart also.

The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eyes are sound you will have light for your body;  if your eyes are bad your whole body will be in darkness. How great will that darkness be!

No one can serve two masters, for either he will.jste the first and live the second, or be devoted to the first and despise the second. You cannot serve God and money.

This is why I tell you, do not be anxious about food and drink to keep you alive, and clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more then food, the body more then clothes.  Look at the birds of the air;  they neither sow nor reap nor store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than the birds?  And why be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies, how they grow in the fields;  they do not work, they do not spin;  and yet I tell you even Solomon in all his splendour was not attired like one of these.   If that is how God clothes the grass in the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown on the stove, will he not all the more clothe you.  How little faith you have! Do not ask anxiously, ‘what are we to eat?’; ‘what are we to drink’?; ‘what shall we wear?’. All these things occupy the minds of the heathen, but your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Set your mind on God’s Kingdom, and his justice before all else, and all the rest will come to you as well. Do not be anxious about tomorrow;  tomorrow will look after itself.

(Matthew 6,  19 – 34)

Reflection and Prayer – Revd Barry Lotz

Choir – Water of Life

Water of life, sparkling like crystal, flows from the throne of the Lamb.
Tree of life yielding twelve fruits for each month of the year.
Tree of life leav’d in splendour for the healing of the nations.
There shall be no more night, no need of light of lamp or sun
The Lord shall give them light.

Adrian Boynton
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In Colossians 1 we learn that Christ is the sustainer, holding Creation
together and bringing hope for the world.

Reading – Colossians 1, 16-20

Reading – God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Choir – Let all the world in every corner sing

Let all the world in every corner sing,  my God and King!
The heavens are not too high, his praise may thither fly;
The earth is not too low,  his praises there may grow.

Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!
Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!
The Church with psalms must shout, no door can keep them out;
But above all the heart must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King!

Vaughan Williams
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Blessing – Revd Barry Lotz

Hymn – All creatures of our God and King

All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam:
O praise Him, O praise Him,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong,
Ye clouds that sail in heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice:
O praise Him, O praise Him,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
Make music for thy Lord to hear,
Alleluia, alleluia!
Thou fire, so masterful and bright,
that givest us both warmth and light:
O praise Him, O praise Him,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Dear mother earth, who day by day
Unfolded blessings on our way,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,
Let them His glory also show:
O praise Him, O praise Him,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness.
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One:
O praise Him, O praise Him,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

St. Francis of Assisi (1225)
Paraphraser: William H. Draper
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