Seeing the Value in All Creation

Dear Friends,

The great holy days of spring are over, and our liturgical calendar moves into Ordinary Time. During these long, wide-open weeks until Advent, I like to explore other themes in the Christian life as well as ideas that run in currents through our culture.

Here’s one such thought that popped into my mind recently.

            What do these things have in common?
                        the quality of the wine at Cana
                        the birds of the air
                        the wildflowers
                        the barren fig tree.

Jesus, during His public ministry, paid attention to these apparently small matters in nature and life, which, in the grand scheme of things, were not life and death issues, not issues of exclusion or injustice. Jesus cared about people enough to seek them out, recognize His kinship with them, heal them, bring them to life literally and in new ways that stirred their being. But in His love and kindness, He also focused His attention on the ordinary, the insignificant, things that might otherwise be discarded, deemed irrelevant or crushed underfoot. Jesus knew that God, His Father, looked upon all creation and saw that it was good (Gen.1.31) and from Psalm 24 that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that it holds.” He knew from the Wisdom of Solomon that God, His Father, “loves all things that exist and spares all things” for they are His (Wisdom 24, 26). Jesus, who knew the Scriptures, treasured all creation as His Father did.

We love Jesus for the way He healed Bartimaeus and the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman, how He welcomed Dismas on the next cross over and Nicodemus who was skittish and uncertain about whether he could follow Jesus openly. But He also cared enough about bread, vineyards, lakes and fish to include them in His life and teachings. Jesus was not so people-centered that He missed the value of the rest of creation.

I like to think of the barren fig tree, revived and in full bloom, standing sentinel at the gate of heaven, a welcome to all who recognize the breadth of Jesus’ love for all creation.

Given what we are coming to know and love about Jesus, and His Father’s care for all creatures, will you, will I look at creation with new eyes this summer?

~ Sister Joan Sobala

*Image above is All Creation Sings His Praise, a painting by Jen Norton