Season of Creation

Beginning a New Season of Service to God’s Creation.

The 2024-25 season marks the eighth year of the St. Matthew Green Team and our congregational celebration as stewards of God’s creation. It also represents the second year that St. Matthew enters the season celebrating the Season of Creation, the month-long annual, global, ecumenical time of prayer and action to protect our common home. The congregational theme this year is “The Skies Declare God’s Glory.”

Each week Pastor Eric and the Worship Ministry will be incorporating themes related to the sky into our worship and prayer schedule. Globally, the 2024 Season of Creation theme is “To Hope and Act with Creation.” Some reflections on the “Hope” of the Season of Creation, and what it might mean to “Act” in ways that serve God in creation (excerpted from the 2024 “Season of Creation Celebration Guide”.)

To Hope.

The Season of Creation “is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers in the ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home.”

The Season had its origins in 1989, and the World Council of Churches was instrumental in extending the celebration from 1 September, the Orthodox Day of Prayer for Creation, until 4 October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations. until 4 October. Pope Francis made the Roman Catholic Church’s warm welcoming of the season official in 2015. Throughout the month-long celebration, the world’s 2.2 billion Christians come together to care for our common home.

General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, the Rev. Dr. Anne Burghardt, says: “At our 13th General Assembly in Krakow (September 2023), the Lutheran World Federation affirmed that as churches in ongoing reformation, we are called to work for peace in the world: between people, countries, and with the whole of creation. The relentless rise in global temperatures has meant loss of biodiversity, lives, livelihoods, and whole communities. Creation cries out in suffering. We acknowledge the urgent call to action, and we acknowledge that we can only respond to it on the basis of faith. The Season of Creation is a source of strength and communion, encouraging us truly ‘to hope and act with creation.’”

To Act.

“Hope is an instrument enabling us to overcome the natural law of decay. Hope is given to us by God as a protection and guard against futility. Only through hope we may realize the gift of freedom in fullness….However, hope is not merely optimism. It is not a utopian illusion. It is not waiting for a magical miracle. Hope is trust that our action makes sense, even if the results of this action are not immediately seen (cf. Romans 8:24). Hope doesn’t act alone.”

“We know how much bold action to restrain the climate and ecological crises is urgent, and we also know that ecological conversion is a slow process as humans are stubborn to change their minds, their hearts, and their ways of living. Sometimes we don’t know what our actions should look like….We might not fully comprehend all that is happening, we might not understand the ways of God, but we are called to trust and follow with concrete and sustained actions, following the example of Christ, the redeemer of the whole cosmos (cf. Romans 8:25).”

This year, one way that St. Matthew is called to action is through Ministry participation in the New Jersey Synod/LEAMNJ 2024-2025 Bishop’s Challenge: “Caring for God’s Good Creation.”

During this year, our congregation is challenged to take action in at least one of the following categories: Community Action, Worship & Education, Building, Grounds, & Programs. As longtime stewards of Creation, St. Matt has a great head start! To gain inspiration for ideas for you or your Ministry’s action, please visit: https://www.leamnj.org/bishops-challenge, and click “learn more” under each category.

“If ‘the universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely… there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face’. The world sings of an infinite Love: how can we fail to care for it?”
His Holiness Pope Francis