Let Justice and Peace Flow

Because I am away during this year’s Season of Creation, I have decided to move our engagement with this time to July. And maybe that will encourage us to take part in the actual Season is some more active ways. This year’s theme, chosen by young people working with the International Steering Committee, is Let Justice and Peace Flow. The Prophet Amos cries out “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5: 24). This year we are invited to join the river of justice and peace, to take up climate and ecological justice, and to speak out with and for communities most impacted by climate injustice and the loss of biodiversity. 

We are invited in this week’s readings to reflect on what stops us joining this mighty river. In his letter to the Romans, Paul speaks of how Christ breaks the power of sin that enslaves us. While there are many ways to understand sin, I wonder if in the context of climate change, biodiversity loss and life-threatening pollution we might describe it as being our sense of importance, self-reliance, entitlement, and independence from creation and others. All of which has severed our relationships with God, with other people and with creation. We seem enslaved to the status quo, even though we know the dire consequences of that. 

In contrast we hear in Matthew 10: 40-42 the last part of Jesus sending out his twelve sent ones (apostles). We often read this as instructions to welcome others, but in fact it is for those sent ones to accept the welcome they are offered. They are to be reliant on God and on the welcome they receive. They are to be vulnerable, as Jesus is vulnerable. In accepting the welcome offered, even a cup of water, they mirrored the way of Jesus and helped the reign of heaven become real. Even in the smallest of actions they restored relationships and lived interdependence. 

May this Season of Creation be a time for us to find ways to let go of our sense of self reliance and look for ways to foster interdependence with others and with this gift of creation.