Responding to God’s Call in the Season of Creation

By Zoe Matties, Manitoba Program Manager

September 2, 2025

When my husband, Tim, and I started attending saint benedict’s table, a church in the Anglican tradition, we were immediately drawn in by the contemplative liturgy, home-grown music, and thoughtful preaching. While neither of us grew up in the Anglican Church, over the years I have come to appreciate the tradition of celebrating the seasons of the church year. The seasons of Lent, Ordinary Time, Advent, Christmas, and Easter bring a comforting rhythm and orientation to life that is different from the ways we usually mark the passage of time. They invite us to remember and celebrate the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, and God’s ongoing work in the world.

In recent years, many in the global church have noticed a gap: the church year rarely pauses to recognize God’s first, foundational act of creating the heavens and the earth. So, the Season of Creation was proposed “as an annual season of prayer, education and action to protect the gift of God’s creation.” It is celebrated each year from September 1^st (the International Day of Prayer for Creation) until October 4^th (the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi).

This year the theme for the Season of Creation is “Peace with Creation.” This theme struck me as particularly potent this year, as violence against God’s creation, both human and other-than-human, feels like it is at an all-time high. So many of our human activities cause suffering and destruction to creation. Our broken relationships with each other, with God, and with creation disrupt the peace of creation.

How might Christians and the church respond when faced with such a crisis? How might we respond as we ourselves participate in violence against creation? The last few weeks, I have been reading Elizabeth Johnson’s book Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth, and I think one of her chapters gives a good response to this quandary.

She draws the reader’s attention to a passage from Baruch, one of the books of the Apocrypha: “The stars shone in their watches and were glad; God called them, and they said, “Here we are!” They shone with gladness for the One who made them.” (3:34-35)

This poetic response of the stars to God’s call evokes the many other times throughout scripture in which humans respond to God with “Here I am!” Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, all respond to an experience of God with this phrase, indicating their readiness to listen, and to serve. These words speak of a relationship with God that is based on trust. Johnson writes,

“The readiness is rooted in a hopeful conviction that the living God is present and active with gracious intent and will be with the person wherever the road ahead leads.”*

We humans have not always answered God’s call willingly. Often, we have chosen violence over peace. In doing so we have caused the joyful “Here we are!” of creation to become a mournful groan of “Here we are, suffering, and dying, and going extinct!”* Nevertheless, God continues to call, inviting us into right relationships with one another, with creation, and with God’s own self. Now it is up to us to respond, “Here we are!” in return.

The Season of Creation celebration guide points out that “God’s peace emerges when we work for justice, solidarity, reconciliation, and harmony with Creation.” Our acts of advocacy, restoration, and care for creation are ways of answering God’s call, and bringing about peace with all creation. This season may we join the stars, and all creation in joyfully saying, “Here we are!” as we pray, worship our Creator, and take hopeful action to protect the gift of God’s creation.

“The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever. My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.” Isaiah 32:17-18 (Season of Creation theme verse)