@ChurchLifeND Where Williams’s Augustine opens directly onto New World Creation—Incarnation binding discipleship to material, temporal, creaturely existence, opening upon transfiguration—Creation husbandry is no ecological add-on, but the _inhabited_ form of an inaugurated Christian vocation.
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11/ Ordinary material practices are not temporary moral exercises, but meaningful forms of participation in a future already inaugurated by Christ. Husbandry, Sabbath, repair and sharing belong to God's Kingdom, the New Creation already breaking into and transforming the present. Quote tweet: 2/ "Heaven and earth in biblical cosmology are not two different locations within the same continuum of space or matter...They are the twin interlocking spheres of God's single created reality...designed for a symbiotic relationship within an ongoing purpose." @profntwright Let us then remind ourselves of the starting point. The created order, which God has begun to redeem in the resurrection of Jesus, is a world in which heaven and earth are designed not to be separated but to come together. In that coming together, the “very good” that God spoke over creation at the beginning will be enhanced, not abolished. This, as we have seen, is what the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit are all about. They are designed not to take us away from this earth but rather to make us agents of the transformation of this earth, anticipating the day when, as we are promised, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing, close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term, in the future. And what he was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project. N.T. Wright
Open original document1/12 Here’s something new. Most ‘Creation-care guides' amount to environmental ethics with biblical support added. This is different: a discipleship framework for New World Creation, centered on ordinary, creaturely practices of resurrective husbandry. Art, acrylic inks on paper. x.com/permachristians/status/2090937836908503101
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“Behold, I am making all things new.” * Revelation 21:5 Dear Lord, eternal power, everlasting love, In You we live and move and have our being. Prepare our hearts for what is being revealed, And make us able to bear the light. Give us this day the grace of Your blessing. Open our eyes to behold Your kingdom, Already among us, pressing into the present As leaven quietly transforms the whole. Let Creation’s long groaning be known As the labor of its freedom being born.’ Make us fellow workers In the renewal You have begun. Let us receive the bread You provide, The nourishment of the age breaking in, The first taste of the New Creation, The feast prepared for all. Let your fire reveal what each thing is. Let the world’s false order pass away. Search us and bring every hidden thing to light. Release us from accusation and vengeance. Teach us to forgive as we are forgiven, Let mercy triumph over judgment. Shelter us as the chaff is driven before the wind. Keep us humble beneath the gathering storm. Deliver us from evil, From the power that lives by lies, That mocks justice and casts righteousness down, And preys upon those who resist. Gather what is scattered into Your Covenant. Draw every nation into your peace. Make us ministers of the reconciliation Made flesh in the Incarnate Word. Crucify in us what belongs to the Old World, And free us for the new life beyond its rule. Keep us awake through the unveling, Wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Let Your reign encompass all things. Let it be on Earth as it is in Heaven. Lead us in the way everlasting, Through the Risen Life and the Spirit poured out. For Yours is the Kingdom among us, Yours the glory being revealed In us and throughout all Creation, Now and to the day of its fullness. Amen
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