Creation celebration added to church year

Key points:

• United Methodists are joining a Christian movement around the globe that aims to put more focus on God, the Creator.
• Observances include a new ecumenical Feast of Creation in Christ on Sept. 6, with new lectionary readings focused on Scripture passages that highlight God’s creative work.
• The new worship focus, shared by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and fellow Protestants, comes as Christians of various traditions have committed to an Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action.

Christians across traditions already reserve set times of the year to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, the birth of the church and all the saints who preceded us.

So why not have a special time to celebrate what God did at the beginning of it all — the creation of the heavens and the earth?

From Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, many United Methodists will have a chance to do that by joining with Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians and fellow Protestants in observing the Season of Creation. The new addition to the church calendar honors the triune God’s role as creator. This year’s theme, “Living Water,” is based on Ezekiel 47:9 and 12 — a biblical vision of hope and ecological restoration.

For many Orthodox and Protestant churches, the new liturgical season will kick off with the ecumenical Feast of Creation in Christ. For the Orthodox, the feast day — also called Creation Day — is Sept. 1. Protestants will celebrate the feast day on the first Sunday in September — Sept. 6, this year. While the Vatican has not fully adopted the feast day yet, the Roman Catholic Church is moving in that direction.

In the meantime, many Christians across traditions still plan to share a focus on creation through Oct. 4 — the feast day of the nature-loving St. Francis of Assisi and a time when many Catholic and Protestant churches already hold pet blessings.

Not all traditions have the same understanding of what a feast day is. United Methodists rarely use the term, but in the wider Christian tradition, a feast is often another way of referring to a church holiday.

“More theological work has to be done. That doesn’t mean that we don’t invite churches to celebrate the Feast of Creation in Christ — starting right now,” said United Methodist Bishop Rosemarie Wenner, co-ecumenical officer for the Council of Bishops and outgoing Geneva secretary for the World Methodist Council.

“We have good reasons to celebrate creator God and to rejoice in creation, which will hopefully inspire us to better care for God’s gifts.”

The new observance that brings together Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians quite intentionally comes amid the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025-2034), organized by the World Council of Churches. The ecumenical organization, which counts United Methodists among its founders, includes both Orthodox and Protestant member churches.

As it happens, the world has just seen the devastation that can be caused by a warming planet with the rupture of a glacier that triggered flash flooding in Nepal and Tibet. At least 939 people are dead and more than 3,900 are missing as a result of the Aug. 26 floods.

“The climate emergency is not merely an environmental concern — it is a spiritual crisis and gospel moment rooted in our faith,” the World Council of Churches proclaims with bolded letters in its call. “This is a kairos moment — a decisive time when the world must choose between life and death (Deuteronomy 30:19).”

The Christians leading this movement are clear: The new season, feast day and call for climate justice are all spiritually deeper and broader than Earth Day. All of these initiatives put God at the center.

Christian groups, including Discipleship Ministries and the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement, have assembled prayers, hymn suggestions and worship resources to mark both the new feast day and season. If churches don’t have time to join in this year’s festivities, they can always adopt the new holy day and season next year.

The Consultation on Common Texts, an ecumenical group that curates the Revised Common Lectionary used by United Methodists and other Protestants in worship week by week, in April adopted a new selection of Bible passages for the feast day each year. This marks the first time the common lectionary has added a new feast day since 1983, when Baptism of the Lord and Christ the King Sunday were adopted.

Lisa Hancock, the United Methodist representative on the consultation, served on the committee that developed the biblical selections. She is also the director of worship arts for United Methodist Discipleship Ministries.

“This feast is really the result of recognizing a gap in our worship that is not just impacting us theologically or liturgically, but is also impacting the very way we go out to be disciples in the world,” she said. “The theological, the liturgical and our discipleship all work together. So, if one of those or two of those are not being lifted up and formed within us, then our ability to go out and do is harmed.”

Fittingly, the suggested readings for this year include the accounts of God’s creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 or Genesis 2:4-25. The Gospel lesson is the parallel passage in John 1:1-5 that starts: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The passage in John also responds to the fall of humanity in Genesis, reminding Christians that even now, “the light shines in the darkness.”

The hope, Hancock said, is that feast day and season can help inspire Christians to bear Christ’s light into dark places and act for the good of all creation.

The celebration of creation in September has its roots in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Since the fifth century, Byzantine Christians have marked Sept. 1 as the day when God said, “Let there be light.” The day also marks the start of Orthodox Christians’ liturgical year, just as the first Sunday of Advent does for churches in the Western tradition.

In 1989, the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I invited Christians around the world to join with their Orthodox siblings on Sept. 1 in a day of prayer for the protection of the environment.

Pope Francis gave a boost to the ecumenical environmental movement in 2015 with his encyclical “Laudato Si’”, which in English means “Praise be to You.” The subtitle explains that the encyclical is “On Care for our Common Home.” That year, Pope Francis also proclaimed a Day of Prayer for the Protection of Creation on Sept. 1, and in 2019, declared the Season of Creation through Oct. 4 as well. Pope Leo XIV has continued the tradition, with the addition of a Creation Mass last year.

At this point, 13 world Christian bodies — including the World Council of Churches and the World Methodist Council — have joined in developing resources for the Feast and Season of Creation.

The Rev. Tony Franklin-Ross, of the Methodist Church in New Zealand, represents the World Methodist Council on the Season of Creation’s advisory team.

“There is actually an incredible potential here for visible unity,” Franklin-Ross told the World Methodist Council during its Aug. 12-16 in San Salvador, El Salvador.

He added that the name Feast of Creation in Christ is significant because it highlights the belief shared by all Christians, as detailed in the Gospel of John, that Christ was present as the very beginning. The Nicene Creed, whose 1,700th anniversary Christians celebrated last year, asserts that Jesus is “of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. …”

The World Methodist Council on Aug. 14 adopted resolutions that affirm the Season of Creation and Feast of Creation in Christ and commend the development of ecumenical resources that reflect local contexts for marking the observances.

The World Methodist Council also called on its more than 80 member denominations, including The United Methodist Church, to engage in the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025-2034).

“One of the things I think is important is for United Methodist church leadership to get educated on what celebrating the Season of Creation means,” said the Rev. Jean Hawxhurst. She is the ecumenical staff officer for the United Methodist Council of Bishops and the North American regional officer for the World Methodist Council.

“It’s more than starting a recycling team or celebrating the beauty of what is outside our windows,” she said. “We need to incorporate the fullness of what God has created into our worship through our prayers, litanies, sermons and teaching.”

United Methodists are already planning to join in during various ecumenical festivities.

For example, the Pacific Northwest Conference is inviting church members to join in the ecumenical Feast of Creation in Christ service at 6:30 p.m. U.S. Eastern time Sept. 1 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Seattle. The service, hosted by the ecumenical and interreligious center at the Jesuit-related Seattle University, marks the feast’s first appearance in the Revised Common Lectionary. The service is scheduled to be livestreamed.

Bishop Wenner added that both she and her co-ecumenical officer, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, are grateful for all these opportunities for United Methodists to work with their siblings in Christ and all people of good will.

“We have much to offer from our Wesleyan tradition,” Wenner said. “John Wesley was clear that God is continuously at work in all creation and that we are stewards, not owners of the earth. And he called the people called Methodists in to become co-workers of God towards life for all.”

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Friday Digests.