Kenosis and Creation

Wednesday, October 05 2011 09:50

dali_christ The thrust of the previous post asserts that our stewardship of creation has the ultimate goal of glorifying and honoring the Creator. Such an environmental theology is grounded in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. This of course begs the question: How can we determine if our use of nature exalts and honors God? The answer to the question lies in the Paschal mystery that is at the heart of the Meal. Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection effect the renewal of the cosmos: “To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.”[1]

Thus creation care that exemplifies a cruciform engagement with the world tends towards the exaltation of God. On the cross Jesus Christ poured himself out in self-giving love to the Father. Following this eucharistic environmentalism by definition comprises kenotic love (kenosis refers to Christ’s emptying of himself in sacrificial love, cf. Philippians 2:7) for God that seeks the good of the neighbor at the expense of one’s on comfort and consumption.

The Eucharist and Our Environmental Vocation

Monday, October 03 2011 11:28

In this post I am continuing the discussion of how the Eucharistic Prayers for the Great Thanksgiving in the 1979 prayer book help form our environmental discipleship.

rhonevines To begin with, it’s important to notice that the environmental affinity of these prayers is in no way limited to simply acknowledging that God made the cosmos. Rather, humanity’s particular vocation of ordering, nurturing, hallowing, and offering creation back to God is acknowledged and enacted in these eucharistic celebrations.

The prayer book’s version of the liturgy of St Basil (Rite II, Eucharistic Prayer D) clearly addresses this vocation: “You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures.”[1] Further, in Rite II, Eucharistic Prayer B the words of self-oblation (i.e., the prayer offering ourselves as living sacrifices) are stated in this fashion: “And we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to you, O Lord of all; presenting to you from your creation, this bread and wine.”[2] Prayer D presents the oblation as “…offering to you, from the gifts you have given us, this bread and this cup.”[3] These simple phrases contain the linchpin of environmental theology: Humans are created to be priests who offer the creation back to God as a cosmic Eucharist.

Bread, Wine, and the World

Thursday, September 29 2011 11:31

In this post we will turn our attention to the connection between Holy Communion and environmental eucharistii discipleship. The best place to start is with the texts of the various versions of the Great Thanksgiving in the prayer book.

The diverse eucharistic prayers[1] in the Book of Common Prayer offer rich fare for environmentally focused theological reflection. Indeed, the 1979 book demonstrates a renewed concern for praising God for the material creation. The Alternate Form of the Great Thanksgiving in Rite One, new to this prayer book, intentionally adds thanksgivings for creation and the incarnation which are absent in the previous rite:

All glory be to thee, O Lord our God, for that thou didst create heaven and earth, and didst make us in thine own image; and, of thy tender mercy, didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him….

The God-Touched World

Tuesday, September 27 2011 19:22

earth-and-hands In my previous post I referred to the ancient Christian view that Jesus blessed the physical world through his baptism. This understanding of baptism has two distinct implications for environmental discipleship. First, the created order is doubly sacred because it is made by God and then, in Christ’s baptism, reclaimed and hallowed by God. The God-touched natural world still reverberates with this encounter with its Maker. This claim is affirmed in Holy Scripture. Following hard after his assertion in Ephesians 4:5 that there is one baptism, St Paul continues by declaring that there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:6, emphasis added).” Thus, the Lord’s baptism invites our veneration of the material world without falling into the error of idolatrous pantheism. In other words, Christians highly honor and respect the physical world as holy, but we don't worship it.

Baptism and the Environment

Wednesday, September 21 2011 11:47

I closed the last blog post by noting that for Christians worship is a physical act as well as being an inner disposition of praise and adoration for God. The clearest biblical warrant for this statement is Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” orthodoxbaptism

Holy Baptism is the first step in presenting our bodies to God as living sacrifices. In Baptism Christians sacramentally die to the self-directed living which consumes creation as a means to satisfy our disordered passions (cf., Romans 6; 1 John 2:15-17). In Baptism they are raised to a new life that is conformed to the self-giving love Jesus demonstrated on the cross. Offering our entire being in love to God points to the priestly role[1] we play as we offer creation back to God in the Eucharistic celebration. More will be said of this in future posts.

If we take a look at the rite contained in the Book of Common Prayer, we see that the baptismal liturgy elevates concern for the created order. In the traditional threefold renunciation of the world, the flesh, and the devil in the liturgy, candidates are asked: “Do you renounce the evil powers of the world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”[2] This question is intentionally broad enough to include not merely renunciation of the forces that harm humans, but anything that spoils God’s creation. It logically follows that the corrupting and destroying forces of environmental degradation are included among the “evil powers.” To follow Christ as a baptized believer is to reject such forces.

Kenosis and Creation

The Eucharist and Our Environmental Vocation

Bread, Wine, and the World

The God-Touched World

Baptism and the Environment

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