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Week 6 (Monday) Web Of Inter-connectedness, Peter Bean
When I was a boy of 7, I can distinctly remember climbing the huge walnut tree in our backyard. We lived at 7 Surrey Road Keswick. I was the 7th one in my family: 2 parents and 5 children and so I would climb my walnut tree ship, as I considered it, which had a huge number 7 in its imaginary sails. It was a vital part of my growing up. Not surprisingly when we moved to Mount Barker a couple of years ago, one of the first trees I planted was a walnut tree. It connects me back to my childhood. We “absorb atoms that were once part of Joan of Arc and Jesus Christ, of Neanderthal people and woolly mammoths. As we have breathed in our forebears, so our grandchildren and their grandchildren will take us in with their breath.” David Suzuki and Amanda McConnell |
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We are all interconnected; you might have heard of six degrees of separation: the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. In Adelaide they say it's 3 or 4.
Some of you may have an interest in genealogy: looking back to your forebears. I can trace my own back to 1650; Johann Rehmstedt, who had 5 children, beginning the great web of interconnectedness that is my family history. If you read the gospel of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus links him back through David to Abraham. How far back can you trace your family, and the web of interconnectedness?
Some of you are connected to animals: think of the bonds you have shared with pet dogs or cats or horses or whatever. And we are linked to Earth. The first man in the Bible is called Adam his name comes from the Hebrew word “adamah” which means earth. Have you ever let soil run through your fingers? Or have you ever hugged a tree? It might sound silly but when you stand alongside some of the huge River red gums or ghost gums that dot our continent; Mountain Ash at Mt Field in Tasmania, or amongst the glorious trees in northern Queensland, you might choose to do so. It's a magnificent feeling;
There are veins of interconnectedness running through life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeOU5vydSBY
(up to 1.10)
In the funeral service, the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” are used as a reminder that we come from Earth and then return to Earth in our burial or cremation. We all live on in some way. Personally, I believe in the physical resurrection of the dead, as won for us by Jesus on the cross. I don’t know how that is going to happen, but I look forward to God revealing it in God’s own time. Whether you believe that or not, we all live on in some way.
When my parents died 25 years ago, already then the funeral company planted a tree for each person they buried or cremated. Some trees growing in Kuitpo Forest which you may have walked by, represent the ongoing nature of my parents’ life; but we also live on through our genes. Sometimes I catch myself saying or doing things that remind me of my father. I can look at each of my four children and see that they have characteristics they have inherited from my wife, as well as from me. I can even look at my grandchildren and see that while they are completely unique and different to each other, they all have some characteristics that have come down from my wife and I.
Colossian 1:15-17
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
All things: those words occur 4 times in these verses. The Greek words are Ta Panta. All things means what it says: all things: human beings, animals, birds, fish, the ocean, mountains, trees, earth, micro-organisms in the soil. All those things make-up life and our environment.
Some of you may have an interest in genealogy: looking back to your forebears. I can trace my own back to 1650; Johann Rehmstedt, who had 5 children, beginning the great web of interconnectedness that is my family history. If you read the gospel of Matthew, the genealogy of Jesus links him back through David to Abraham. How far back can you trace your family, and the web of interconnectedness?
Some of you are connected to animals: think of the bonds you have shared with pet dogs or cats or horses or whatever. And we are linked to Earth. The first man in the Bible is called Adam his name comes from the Hebrew word “adamah” which means earth. Have you ever let soil run through your fingers? Or have you ever hugged a tree? It might sound silly but when you stand alongside some of the huge River red gums or ghost gums that dot our continent; Mountain Ash at Mt Field in Tasmania, or amongst the glorious trees in northern Queensland, you might choose to do so. It's a magnificent feeling;
There are veins of interconnectedness running through life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeOU5vydSBY
(up to 1.10)
In the funeral service, the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” are used as a reminder that we come from Earth and then return to Earth in our burial or cremation. We all live on in some way. Personally, I believe in the physical resurrection of the dead, as won for us by Jesus on the cross. I don’t know how that is going to happen, but I look forward to God revealing it in God’s own time. Whether you believe that or not, we all live on in some way.
When my parents died 25 years ago, already then the funeral company planted a tree for each person they buried or cremated. Some trees growing in Kuitpo Forest which you may have walked by, represent the ongoing nature of my parents’ life; but we also live on through our genes. Sometimes I catch myself saying or doing things that remind me of my father. I can look at each of my four children and see that they have characteristics they have inherited from my wife, as well as from me. I can even look at my grandchildren and see that while they are completely unique and different to each other, they all have some characteristics that have come down from my wife and I.
Colossian 1:15-17
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
All things: those words occur 4 times in these verses. The Greek words are Ta Panta. All things means what it says: all things: human beings, animals, birds, fish, the ocean, mountains, trees, earth, micro-organisms in the soil. All those things make-up life and our environment.
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Part of life in the ongoing environment in which we live is remembering those who have gone before us. Traditionally we do this here in November on All Saints Day but we thought it appropriate to have an event like this as part of our environmental focus highlighting our connections to each other. So this morning we would like to give you the opportunity to make use of these leaves which are scattered around the parquetry floor and on tables at each of the entrances in the narthex.
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We invite you to write on them the name of a loved one who has gone before you: it might be a parent or grandparent, a cousin or friend, a dog or horse, it might even be a tree you had in your backyard that you climbed on when you were younger like the walnut tree I mentioned earlier.
This is a sign that we are all connected; we are part of God's ongoing creation and whatever we do, whoever we are, our impact on the environment affects each other. |
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So, I invite you now to go your way remembering how you are connected to all things, and all things hold together in Christ. And as you go your way write on a leaf at the front here, or as you leave, the name of a loved one – human, animal, plant - gone before you.
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