Communing with the whole world

Genesis 1:3-2:3

All things come from God. All that is flows from the being of God. 

God is love. All that is, is then a work of love. 

Everything. Everywhere. Everyone.

Note that as we gather around the Communion table on this special Sunday morning. Today is World Communion Sunday, the one day of worship when we openly acknowledge that everyone everywhere is in the presence of God as a beloved child of God. 

God is with the whole world.

There is no one with an edge. There is no one who can claim to corner the market on God’s attention and care. There is no one holier than anyone else. There are only children of God. God named all of us good on that Sixth Day.

There are children of God who live in the world that God provided for them. This world is our home. It is the only home you and I will ever have. It has all we need to live within it. It produces a miraculous abundance for our care and nurture. There is room for everyone. No wonder God also named each aspect of it good.

God is with everyone in the world. To breathe is to know the presence of God. God breathes in us and through us. God quickened us into existence. God continually breathes that life into us. God is here. God is here because we live. God’s love is here. Love, then, is our life.

That is reason to stop again and think deeply on what the implications are of such a profound statement. 

If love is our life, then we are to live in and through love. If we are to fulfill our potential as the children of God, then love needs to direct our words and actions. We need to stop and consider what we say and do before we say or do much of anything. Will it be an expression of love? Will it love others as I have been loved? Will it be compassionate? Will it help someone? Will it make the world a better refuge for the children of God within it, particularly those children who are immediately before us?

These questions become a necessary practice as we go through our daily routines. They are a way to fulfill the Apostle Paul’s admonition to pray without ceasing. They become a way to recognize the sure presence of God in every moment that we have. They are a way to allow ourselves to fall within the confines of God’s love as we meet the inevitable conundrums, crises, and corruptions of the day. 

They are a simple way for us to communicate to anyone we might encounter that they are a child of God, a unique act of God’s creative will, worthy and valuable as such.

But World Communion also offers the opportunity to more fully acknowledge the world in which we live--creation itself. This is our home. It is the home of all our friends and neighbors. It is home to myriad upon myriad of human beings we do not know so well, if at all. It is the home of our children, and it will be the home of our children’s children. World Communion reminds us of our responsibility to care for the world so it will continue to be the source of all that we need to live and to thrive as the children of God.

Yes, on the Sixth Day, God granted human beings dominion over creation, but with an eye to love. Again, to live in and through God is to live in and through love. That means that as we practice our dominion, we do so as God practices God’s care and nurture of us--with other-centered, self-emptying love. What that means is that as we use the resources of the world, we do so thinking not only of ourselves, our immediate wants or hungers, our gratification, and our comfort, but also with acknowledgement that there are more to follow--our children’s children must also have access to the bounty of the earth, so, we need to live in such a way that we do not trash the earth and all that is in it so no future people can use it. 

Perhaps you know well this scenario. You plan to visit one of the many beauty spots all around us to have a picnic with your family. You set aside the day. You have a wonderful time packing the picnic, choosing everyone’s favorites to share. You get in the car, and everyone is so happy to be going on a picnic. The day is wonderful--crystalline sky, crisp breeze, and autumn trees beginning to show their color. You get to the spot, unload the kids and the car, and trundle everything down the path to the picnic tables by the small cascading waterfall you love. But then you get in sight of the picnic place. Already you see the garbage strewn all over. You can even smell the putrid leftovers no one bothered to clear away. You get there and it is a complete mess. There is no way to have the picnic now. So, sadly, you trudge back to the car. Now what?

Everyday is somebody’s picnic.

In love, we need to tend to creation so that no one’s picnic need to be altered or ruined.

Too simplistic?

Love is never really all that complicated. It is thinking of others. It is thinking outside of oneself. It is considering that every word, action, and even thought carries with it consequences that effect and affect someone else and how we respond to someone else. Love is not a taskmaster, but rather an invitation to see with our hearts in such a way that we can help everyone, even ourselves, realize they are children of God, brought into being God, loved by God, and able to live in full realization and actualization of that love.

That is the message and the call of creation itself.

Remember that as we gather at this table on this day.

Love one another.