It is one of the many benefits, and indeed, one of the purposes of liturgical worship that it cannot easily be manipulated to suit some passing whim. Most liturgical traditions contain the same basic elements: the singing of the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, the Confessions, the Creeds, the reading of the Scriptures, and the ancient hymns that have been passed down to us from the early church. The order of service can be an emotional experience, but it is not driven by emotion, nor does it seek that end. The pre-ordained texts for any particular service may speak to current events, but the service cannot be altered to cater to whatever pet political issues the clergy or congregation may have on their minds. It is oriented towards another more stable world, and does not change with the tides of this one. It is what it is. The words are spoken, the truth is heard, and you may take it or leave it.
Unless, of course, one were to rewrite the entire order of service, which is exactly what the Anglican Environmental Network, an official branch of the Anglican Communion, has done. From September 1st, to October 4th, many churches in the Anglican Communion will celebrate “creation time,” described as “a time dedicated to prayer for the protection of Creation, and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles that reverse our contribution to climate change.”
The theme of this year’s creation time is “Water Justice,” and the Anglican Environmental Network has provided parishes with a list of resources to help commemorate the season. Among them is an order of service prepared by the Student Christian Movement in India.
The order of service contains a hymn, scripture readings, and the Lord’s Prayer, although, most people who are familiar with such basic articles of the faith wouldn’t recognize them here.
For instance, in the new order of service, the Lord’s Prayer now reads:
“Our God, father and mother, from, through and to whom all lives flow, Your name is holy for you water every creature with life. May the ‘waters rolling in justice’ come down among us and dwell as in your presence. Give us water sufficient for our living, and help us to share water and other resources with those who are dying of thirst. Forgive us our insincerity, insensitivity and irresponsibility in saving and preserving water, and for our abuse of creation. And teach us to forgive one another. Lead us not into the temptation of accumulation, greed and power over water, and deliver us from avaricious life styles. For your word is like water cleansing us from evil, your reign is righteousness flowing like an ever-flowing stream dismantling the powers and principalities from generation to generation, from history to history, for ever and ever. Amen”
Incidentally, October 4th, which marks the closing day of creation time, is also the feast day of St. Francis, the Patron Saint of Ecologists. The order of service references this by rewriting the popular Hymn All Creatures of Our God and King with text that is largely borrowed from St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun. On closer inspection, however, some important differences are revealed.
A portion of the rewritten Hymn reads, “O sister moon with silver gleam, O praise ye O praise ye, Alleluia, Alleluia.” The similar wording throughout the Hymn makes it impossible to discern if praise is being offered to God, or to some pantheistic conception of nature. In contrast, the original line from St. Francis reads, “Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.” St. Francis opens every line of the Canticle with the same careful words “Be praised, my Lord, through,” and in case there remained any lingering doubt about the object of his praise, he opened the Canticle with the clarifying “All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.”
It may seem like a small and insignificant change in wording, but it is all the difference between pantheism and Christianity. As Chesterton so wittily said:
“What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn’t there be a quarrel about a word? If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.”
None of this is to say that conservation and care of the environment is not a worthy goal. Roger Scruton, who incidentally happens to be an Anglican, is a strong advocate of conservation. However, he is an equally strong critic of those who put religious zeal into the environmental cause so as to render “the Earth as both an object of care and of worship,” and therefore have “Mother Earth fill the place vacated by God, though in the form of a goddess wounded by our mortal carelessness.”
Scruton contends that the answer is in rejecting the modern and secular view of society as a contract between those who are merely living, and embracing the more Christian view of society as a contract between God, the living, the unborn, and the dead. He argues that “We mistreat the unborn when we take away the legacy that they are entitled to inherit, and we mistreat the dead by regarding ourselves as the sole proprietors of the things that they have left to us. In ignoring and despising the dead, we traduce the unborn.”
Scruton’s reasoning brings to mind the passage from Cicero, who in a dialogue was asked why a farmer continued to cultivate the land even though he was old in age and it was therefore doubtful if he would survive to enjoy the fruits of even the present season. He responded by quoting the words of a poet: “He plants the trees to serve another age.”
As Christians we are called to care for our neighbors and our families, and that inevitably involves being a steward of the environment that God has created and our ancestors have preserved. Such care, however, need not resort to pantheism, and can only be properly understood when we recognize our correct relation to God and to our fellow man. Such recognition does not begin by rewriting the prayer book, for such an action is revealing of the arrogant and un-Christian attitude that “we know better.”
It is a rather amusing coincidence that the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity falls right in the middle of “creation time.” If a parish were to keep the traditional order of service on this Sunday they would read the words of Christ telling us that the “heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
