Suggested Readings:**
* Genesis 1:26-31 and 2:15 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”
* Psalm 104:24-30 – “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all.”
* Romans 8:19-23 – “Creation waits with eager longing… to be set free”
* Matthew 6:25-34 – Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.
Beloved in Christ,
On this first day of September, Mother Church invites us to begin not with ourselves, but with the world around us. Since 1989, at the initiative of the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios, and embraced since 2015 by Pope Francis for the Catholic Church, this day has been set aside as the World Day of Prayer for the Preservation of Creation.
It is no accident that it is today. For the Orthodox, September 1st is the beginning of the Church year – the Day of the Indiction. What better way to begin a new year than by remembering whose world this is?
The Psalmist says it plainly: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” – Psalm 24:1. It is not ours. It is given to us.
And that changes everything.
**1. Creation is a Gift, Not a Possession**
In our first reading from Genesis, we hear two verbs that we often forget. In Genesis 2:15, God places the human being in the garden “to till it and to keep it.” In Hebrew: *avad* and *shamar*.
*Avad* means to serve, to cultivate, to work. *Shamar* means to guard, to watch over, to preserve – the same word used for a shepherd watching his sheep, or Aaron’s blessing: “May the Lord bless you and keep you” – *shamar* you.
We were not placed here as owners, or as conquerors, or as consumers. We were placed here as gardeners. As keepers. As priests of creation.
Pope Francis in *Laudato Si’* calls this our vocation to be stewards, not masters. St. Basil the Great asked: “The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat in your closet belongs to the naked.”
Creation is not raw material for our endless appetite. It is a gift, a sacrament of God’s presence. As Patriarch Bartholomew, the “Green Patriarch,” teaches, to harm creation is a sin against God.
Look today at the world God made. The forests around Prešov, the water, the sky after rain. St. Francis of Assisi called them brother and sister for a reason. They are our kin.
**2. Creation is Groaning – Romans 8**
But St. Paul tells us a hard truth: creation is groaning. “Creation waits with eager longing… in bondage to decay.”
We do not need to look far to hear that groaning.
We hear it in the polluted rivers, in the forests that burn every summer, in the air that grows heavy, in the waste we throw away without thinking. We hear it in a climate that becomes more extreme, affecting first the poorest, the farmers, the most vulnerable among us.
When we wound the earth, we wound our neighbor. And when we wound our neighbor, we wound Christ himself.
The environmental crisis is not only a political or technical problem. It is a spiritual crisis. It comes from forgetting who we are. When man forgets he is a keeper, he becomes a destroyer.
An old Desert Father was asked why he wept looking at the trees. He answered: “Because creation obeys God perfectly, and I do not.”
**3. What Then Must We Do? The Hope of Renewal**
This day is called a Day of *Prayer*. So what do we pray for? And what must we do?
First, **we repent.** We confess that we have taken more than we need, that we have been indifferent, that we have thought of ourselves as separate from creation rather than part of it. Repentance in Greek is *metanoia* – a change of mind, a new way of seeing.
Second, **we give thanks and we contemplate.** When was the last time you simply thanked God for water? For bread? For light? The Eucharist itself – *eucharistia* means thanksgiving – takes bread and wine, fruit of the earth and work of human hands, and returns it to God. Every Liturgy is a prayer for creation.
I invite you this week to do one small, contemplative act: walk outside without your phone for 15 minutes. Look at one tree, one river, one hill. And pray Psalm 104.
Third, **we act with humility.** Preservation of creation does not require grand gestures. It requires faithful, small ones:
To till and to keep in our own homes – to waste less food, to use less, to repair rather than throw away, to plant, to clean a stream, to respect Sunday as a day of rest not only for us, but for the earth.
As St. Therese taught us, small acts done with great love can change the world.
God did not need us to create the world. But He chose to need us to keep it.
**Conclusion**
Brothers and sisters, today the Church begins its new year with a prayer for the world.
Let us leave this church today not only as forgiven sinners, but as renewed gardeners.
The earth is the Lord’s. We are its keepers. And one day, Paul promises, creation itself will be set free and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.
May we be worthy of that freedom.
Amen.
—
**Prayer for the Conclusion of the Sermon**
*You may use this as the final blessing or intercession:*
O God, Almighty Creator,
You created the heavens and the earth and saw that it was good.
You placed us in Your garden to till it and to keep it.
Forgive us when we have forgotten that we are dust,
and that the earth does not belong to us, but to You.
Teach us to see Your face in all creation,
to hear Your voice in the wind and the water,
and to serve as faithful stewards of all You have made.
Through Christ our Lord, who makes all things new. Amen.
—
If you want, I can adapt this for a specific tradition – Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical – and for a specific length, 10 minutes or 20 minutes, or translate it into Slovak.
