Celebrating the Gift of Sacred Earth, with Rev. Sharon Edwards.

Celebrating the Gift of Sacred Earth, with Rev. Sharon Edwards. Series: This Sweet Earth A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Genesis 2:1-3, Romans 12:1-2.

Feeling disconnected? Discover how you’re deeply woven into the fabric of creation this Sunday. Join us in-person or online as Sharon explores our profound connection to earth, each other, and the divine. Come curious, leave inspired.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

Thank you for your support of the mission of the First Presbyterian Church of Bend. Visit https://bendfp.org/giving/ for more information.

Keywords:

Celtic spirituality, interfaith dialogue, climate crisis, spiritual transformation, third eye, creation, interconnectedness, environmental science, Richard Rohr, contemplation, sacredness, natural world, mental health, spiritual worship, ecological sciences., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:40):
Welcome to worship At First Presbyterian we, at First
Presbyterian, practice aspacious Christianity, which
means no matter where you are inyour faith journey, you belong
and there is space for you atthe table, there is space for
your doubts and questions. Webelieve doubts and questions are
a gift that invite us intodeeper conversations and a more
authentic faith. We believediversity is a strength. Every

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story is sacred and everybodymatters. We do our best to live
the spacious and radical love ofJesus so that all might have a
chance to flourish in thisworld. We are so glad to connect
with you in this way. We wouldalso love to worship with you in
person if you're ever in theneighborhood on Sunday mornings
at 830, or 10am and neverhesitate to reach out to us to

(01:25):
learn more about us or how wemight support You. I hope you
enjoy This worship service.
Welcome.

(04:55):
in the first chapter of the bookof Genesis, it says that on the
sixth day of creation.
Man. God looked over all thatGod had created. God examined
the skies, the oceans, themountains, the forests, the
streams, the high deserts, TheRolling Plains. God laughed at
the centipede, the tumbleweed,the scampering puppy in the

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platypus. God rejoiced in theapple blossoms, the tadpole, the
glacier and the gloriousconfiguration of wrinkles and
neurons that make up the humanbrain.
The Bible says that God saw allthat God had created, and God
saw that it was good. So verygood.

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The original Hebrew we translateas very good
is Tov my old? A bettertranslation of Tov my old
is that God looked upon allcreation
and saw that it was Wow.
An even more accuratetranslation is that when God

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took in the majesty, beauty,wonder and sacredness of all of
creation, God was so overcomewith awe
that God was speechless.
The Bible says on the seventhday, God rested, delighted and
celebrated, cherishedall that God had created.

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May we recover a sense of aweand reverence for the beauty of
the earth?
May we remember that God hasentrusted us with the gift of
this holy earth to cherish,share and protect.

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God looked at all that God hadcreated
and declared it all Tov meal. Sovery good
May we remember our firstand holiest calling from God
is to live as an expression ofGod's love for all of creation,

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so that God might once again bemoved to exclaim with joy and
delight told from kneel andAmen, thy presence, I,

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wisdom And thou, my Trueword. I,

(09:16):
I Hello. My name is Sharon, andI have just recently joined the
pastoral team at FirstPresbyterian Church in Bend, and
I'm so grateful to be here.
I grew up hearing nuggets oftruth from my parents.
One God loves everyone, even ifwe don't, cleanliness is next to

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godliness.
You cannot hide liver and onionsin your napkin.
And from my mother,the Ocean Salt water is good for
anything that ails you. And.
The human body is made up of 50to 79% of water.

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Water plays crucial roles forall of our physiological
processes, removing waste,regulating temperature, cellular
function, joint lubrication,organ protection and even brain
functioning.
We can only survive a few dayswithout water.

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We are ocean.
Trees have trunks and roots andveins transport nutrients and
water throughout the entire bodyof a tree.
Trees transform through seasons.
A tree breathes.

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We have trunks and veins andarteries and branching airway
systems.
There is a love affair betweenour lungs and plants.
They release and we breathe in,and we breathe out and they

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breathe in our breath.
We are trees.
Our bodies are made up of themost common elements found in
earth,hydrogen, neutral, oxygen, iron,

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97%of our atoms we share in common
with the earth, and we are alsotold with the galaxies,
we are Earth, soil,humus, Stardust, in Genesis two

(12:12):
Thus the heavens and the earthwere finished, and all Their
multitudeand God saw that it was good.
And on the seventh day, Godfinished the work that God had
done, and God rested on theseventh day.

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So God blessed the seventh dayand hallowed it.
And from Romans, 12,I appeal to you, Therefore,
brothers and sisters, to presentyour bodies as a living
sacrifice,holy and acceptable to God,

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which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to thisworld, but be transformed by the
renewing of your minds, so thatyou may discern what is the will
of God,what is good, acceptable and
perfect,often translated as whole,

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the climax or pinnacle ofcreation is not the creation of
humankind day six, but ratherthe creation of The Sabbath day
seven,when God pauses to savor, to
delight in all that God hasmade,

(13:47):
and breathes in the goodness ofthat creation.
John Philip Newell is a veryfamous and leading teacher of
Celtic spirituality and anadvocate for more interfaith
dialog and relationships.

(14:07):
He is writes and lectures aboutan ancient form of Christianity
that evolved far away from therigidness of Rome and is finding
renewed resonance today,especially as we face the
climate crisis.
Newell writes CelticChristianity views all of

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creation equally,all of Earth is formed from the
substance of God.
God's own Son walked on theearth. So sacred is the soil
and how we live and work in ourown bodies, and the body of the

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earthreflects our care for God and.
And it seems there needs to bemore care.
Many of us humans have viewedthe natural world as a resource,
which it is, it does provide forour living. Of course,

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we have also come to view it asa commodity.
Its value is only in what itgives us.
There are many of us who live inbeautiful places, who appreciate
the beauty and experience thenatural world as something that
contributes to our mental andphysical health, yes,

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but there is something morewe may be missing,
and in our missing, we are doingharm
as we Experience the climatecrisis, it is the view of many
scientists, and in particular anexpert in the environmental

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science field, Gus Speth, whosays this,
the top environmental problemsare selfishness, greed and
apathy.
And to deal with these we need aspiritual and cultural
transformation,and we scientists don't know how

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to do that.
Perhaps one of the ways we dothat is to rediscover an ancient
way of seeing.
Richard Rohr is a prolificspiritual writer and the founder

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of the Center for contemplationand action,
and in his book The naked nowlearning to see as the mystic
See, he offers a way for us tonot only practice the truth of
our relatedness to creation, butalso to deepen our experience of

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it, and therefore betransformed.
He writes about three peoplestanding at the ocean watching a
sunset,one person sees the absolute
beauty of it,like 80% of the world. Roar
suggests this person likesdealing with what they can see

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and feel and touch and move andfix this is the first eye seeing
flesh.
This is gooda second person enjoys the
beauty, but also enjoys thepower to make sense out of why

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the sunset isa lover of coherent and rational
thought, technology and science.
This is the second eyeexplanation and reason.
This, too is good.

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The third person sees thesunset, knowing and enjoying all
that the other two did, but thisperson is able to move through,
seeing through, explaining totasting,
dwelling in awe before anunderlying mystery,

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spaciousness and connectednesswhere, though, is no separation.
This is the third Iunderstanding or contemplation.
Rohr falls behind a long line ofspiritual teachers from many

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traditions when he says, thethird eye is best. This is the
eye that creates poetry andmusic and lights the fire under
people who transform the world.
This way of seeing is reinforcedby ecological and biological and

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Biological Sciences, we areabsolutely connected and deeply
dependent with every part of theplanet and even beyond
without the third eye. Way ofseeing everything divides into
oppositions, or dualisticthinking, there is only this or

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this missing the beautiful, wisegray space in between.
Seeing with the Third Eye bringsus to the truth of our
interconnected.
Ness and all creationsacredness.
It is a way of beinga presence that dwells in

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humility and compassion,and it is a source of creativity
and effective problem solvingthat honors the sacredness of
alland opens new wisdom, or some
would say old wisdom.

(20:34):
You see friendscreation was not just a one off
event or just a long evolutionof eons.
Creation is not yet finished.
Creation continues today. Wecontinue to form the earth and

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the world. Creation continues tohappen.
We are co participants with theCreator and all of creation.
We continue to create in the waywe inhabit our bodies and the
body of creation.

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We do this by how we live,how we breathe,
the conversations we have,the choices we make,
how we walk and how we walk ourtalk,

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what we eat or don't eat, andhow we eat, to
how we move about in the world,to how we do laundry, how we
spend our money, our time, howwe live Day in and day out. All
of us together.

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It's going to take a whole lotof us presenting our bodies, our
lives, seeing with this thirdeye, way to transform this
world.
I have an invitation for youfor this week and perhaps
beyond,take a moment to use your third

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eye,perhaps go outside barefoot or
look outside your window atsomething that is in the natural
world, a plant, the sky, acreature.
Take a deep breath.

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Feel your feet. Feel yourbreath.
See, move to knowing,move to tasting
fully present, fully alive,your deep connection with
creation,quieting your mind and being

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held by the beautyor perhaps take a pause in the
midst of your dayand notice what you are creating
by The decisions you are making.

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Transformed people transform theworld,
and science even tells us whathappens in the micro affects the
macro. Your little can affectthe big.
But that's a whole nother sermonfor a whole nother time

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pause for a moment.
What are you hearing?
What is stirring within you?
What perhaps Are you beinginvited to do?

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Oh, dear human, you are ocean,you tree, you river, you Earth,
you soil, you stars, you createdyou, creating you.

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May it be so Amen,Friends receive this ancient

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Gallic blessing, deep peace ofthe quiet Earth to you, deep
peace of the shining stars toyou, deep peace of the calming
waters to you, may the moon andstars shine their light upon
you, and may Christ's lightshine on you, in you and through

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you.
Amen.
Thank you so much for joiningus, and we hope you enjoyed this
worship service. If you wouldlike to make a donation helping
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Thanks again. I hope to see younext week. You.