I remember being shocked reading something by highly respected Christian thinker and writer, Richard Rohr. He described Creation as God’s first Bible.
Even for me, someone passionate about the environment and biodiversity, Rohr seemed to be pushing it too far.
Really? The first Bible.
Although I wasn’t persuaded the thought stayed with me.
With that thought lodged in my mind, I began to notice certain passages in the Bible in a new light.
After a while, the weight of biblical evidence convinced me to see my initial scepticism was misplaced. God does reveal who he is through creation.
God does speak through Creation.
We all have the capacity to recognise and experience the reality of God through God’s generous and extraordinary gift of Creation.
These last few weeks of October are between the harvest thanksgivings in schools and churches and just before the massively important international gathering in Egypt – COP 27.
It seems no time at all since many of us were focussing on COP 26 in Glasgow.
The matters discussed, the commitments made last year and the ones which, please God, will be made this year are critical for the whole earth.
Just as I can’t imagine asking people in our church to bring all their Bibles, before putting them in a pile in the car park and setting fire to them or shredding them.
That’s not just destruction, it’s desecration.
So, if Creation is God’s first Bible, how can I stand idly by and allow the destruction of one of the universal ways that God self-discloses, the desecration of one of the means by which God speaks to us?
COP 27 needs to be a focus for prayer and I invite you to join me.
It needs to be a topic of conversation to raise its profile.
The Revd David Shaw is the minister of Wesley Methodist Church and Superintendent of the Reading and Silchester Methodist Circuit, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Reading
