Scriptures: Psalm 24:1-6 and Psalm 148
Sermon Series: Reboot! JP21
Humans are as much a part of the natural world as are other animals and plants, trees, rivers, mountains, sun and stars. We have developed over centuries and millennia in direct contact with the natural world, and human psychological health is dependent upon continuous engagement with the rest of creation. However, human civilizations have increasingly become separated and even alienated from the natural world. By losing contact with nature, humans can forget the fact that they are also creatures. We have a Creator, however you conceive of that Creator. The human hubris of thinking that we are the authors of our own existence and the final arbiters of our actions arise out of this creaturely amnesia.
Thus, the Path of Jesus for the 21st Century moves beyond simply caring for the earth into reintegrating ourselves into the natural life processes of the earth. This reintegration begins by spending time in the natural world, not as a consumer of experiences, but as a natural being participating in the processes of the ecosystem in which you find yourself. Spending time in natural places, and especially wild places can restore us to our place in creation.
