Some Thoughts on Oikoumene in this Season of Creation

This week is the third week of our celebration of the Season of Creation, using the title of “Oikos- a home for all” where we join Christians from across the world in proclaiming that ALL life belongs to God, and our need to work with God protecting and healing God’s gift of our common home. As we contemplate the central image for this year, Abraham and Sarah’s tent, we are invited to consider this world as God’s tent where all are offered welcome, shelter, refuge, and safety. The Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. and others have called the oikos of God “the Beloved Community”, a community in which all of life are equally members, equally precious to God.

Over recent years the world seems to have become smaller, and we talk of globalisation more. Vast multinational corporations who work to maximise profit for their shareholders, seeking countries with the lowest labour costs and environmental protections, have played a significant part in creating climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

In contrast this week we are offered the concept of oikoumene. This refers to the whole inhabited world. We usually use “ecumenical” to describe the whole church living in God’s reconciling mission. Rather than profit, this prioritises justice, equity, reconciliation, and the flourishing of the whole of creation. It reminds us that those who suffer environmental damage and impoverishment by globalisation are our brothers and sisters, with names and families. And in our sense of powerlessness, we are reminded that we join the whole church throughout our common home in seeking to bring healing and hope.

The readings set from scripture remind us of our need to be guided by divine wisdom in our response, and how easily we might be like those disciples in Mark, responding to Jesus’s teaching with arguments based on self-interest and power. In contrast Proverbs can be read as offering an image of wisdom being like the strong and courageous (rather than capable) wife, whose actions ensure that everyone, and everything can flourish: her family, the poor, the land and the economy!