Never ceases

Today, we know that the Earth that seemed to our ancestors to be unchanging, unassailable and enduring is actually in endless transition, that change is its only constant.

Of course, the changes take place on a timescale almost unimaginable to us, over millennia upon millennia, and mostly they are invisible to us, except where scientists have been able to interpret their observations.

But we also know now that the pace of change – geological, climactic, ecological - has been vastly accelerated by human activity and the evidence of that is all around us, visible and indeed unavoidable.

‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’, wrote St Paul in another context. Humankind has not deliberately sought to degrade and destroy its habitat; mostly it has sought to improve it, for the human species at any rate.

But the determination to bend the earth to the will of humankind, to see ourselves as creator not created and the failure to recognise ourselves as a species among species, inextricably interdependent, is a judgement now being read back to us.

To be creature, one among many, is to come face to face with our limitations. We are not God, and God is not just an idealised version of us, sometimes expressed as if we had a monopoly on divine truth! God is other, and speaks to us in other voices.

Our judgement, our 'wormwood and gall' is, in truth, that which holds us most to account. This we call to mind, and therefore we have hope. For the steadfast love of our God never ceases.

Explore our Talking Climate Justice Lent discussion guide, full of Bible readings, stories and prayers offer to inspire ideas of how you and your church can act together for climate justice.

God is good. 
On all whose lives are open to change 
from guilt to grace 
from fear to trust 
from resentment to love. 
God pronounces forgiveness and gives peace. 
Thanks be to God. 

Amen.

Today’s contributor is Kathy Galloway, a practical theologian and former co-leader of the Iona Community.