What this sermon aims to say is God is amazing and it shows in his creative spirit and concern from all nature.

What this sermon aims to do is help people to take time to appreciate the gift of creation, our part in it, both good and bad.

Consider for a minute, pull from your memory, a moment in time when you stood in the midst of creation and something, a sight, a smell, a sound, maybe even a touch or taste made you stop, take a breath, and stand in awe of what you were experiencing. I have been fortunate enough to have had many of those experiences, from ocean front beaches in Cuba, to a cloud forest in Costa Rica. Though it has happened over many years, I have literally seen Canada from shore to shore and in that traveled to Vancouver Island, through the Rocky Mountains, the Prairies, the Canadian Sheild, been to Niagara Falls, and the Bay of Fundy. The views and vistas, the sounds and sights, the heights and depths, have given me many moments to stand in awe of what I experience as God’s creation.

But one need not go far from home to experience the expanse, the awesomeness, and joy of nature. Just in this area around Thunder Bay there are lakes upon lakes to be explored. With Lake Superior, we have the largest freshwater lake, by surface area, in the world at our doorstep, and the powerful and mesmerizing Kakabeka Falls just down the highway. There are hundreds of trails to be walked, biked, or hiked, and roads to drive. This city has parks with flower beds, gardens, trees, birds, and animals. You can even readily find deer in places of this city.

I haven’t even mentioned the hunting, fishing, farm fairs, and farmlands one can visit!

We often forget just how fortunate we are that all of this is so accessible to us. We can be so rushed to get to the next thing or recuperate from that string of appointments or commitments, that we forget that creation is there for us to enjoy. In fact, it was created out of joy and for joy.

As people who believe that we are created in God’s image, we then also see or view creation as God’s creation. Through the lens of faith, we read Psalm 104 as an ode and a prayer regarding God’s creative power in all that has been and is being created and God’s ongoing care for that very creation.

If you have not taken the time to read Psalm 104, please go and read it so that you can see what I am talking about. The imagery, the expansiveness, and expressiveness of the Psalm is truly beautiful. I have to say, up until preparing for this sermon I couldn’t have even told you what Psalm 104 was about, but now I don’t think I will forget.

When reading it, take your time. In your mind’s eye, try to comprehend the vastness of phrases like,

Dressed up in sunshine,
and all heaven stretched out for your tent.
You built your palace on the ocean deeps,
made a chariot out of clouds and took off on wind-wings.
You commandeered winds as messengers,
appointed fire and flame as ambassadors.
You set earth on a firm foundation
so that nothing can shake it, ever.
You blanketed earth with ocean,
covered the mountains with deep waters;
Then you roared and the water ran away—
your thunder crash put it to flight.
Mountains pushed up, valleys spread out
in the places you assigned them.

The Psalm continues with line after line giving us another image of what God has done and what God continues to care for and about. Humans are included in this creation; however, we are not put in a position over it. All of it, along with us, is God’s good creation.

What is different for humans in contrast with all of the rest of what has been made is that humans alone are said to be the image bearers of God. We see that in Genesis where God says, we will make human beings in our image, in our likeness. This does not put us above the rest of creation but rather gives us the unique position of having the capacity to care for creation as part of God’s continuing work in the world.

Minister and professor, Scott Hoezee writes about our human capacity as caregivers of creation saying,

One of the most interesting features to being God’s image-bearers is precisely our ability to pay attention to others the same way God does.  So far as we know, no other creatures in the world are able to make a study out of others.  But we can and we do.  Go to most any library and you will find whole sections devoted to books that catalog different types of grasses, trees, fish, grasshoppers, ants, birds, and flowers.  No other species on earth bothers to look at anything else.  Fish in the Caribbean spend their lives on the reef and yet they never try to study different kinds of coral.  But we humans do study both coral and the fish that live amidst the coral.  That’s the God-likeness in us at work!  We can rejoice in God’s works in a similar way to how God himself rejoices in them![1]

It is because we are capable of studying creation, plants, animals, earth, and sky that we are also very aware of how deeply injured creation can be due to human activity. Only humans exploit the earth for our personal gain. It is not that we cannot use the resources of the earth to enjoy life and provide us with sustenance, but have we demanded so much from the earth that now the earth is groaning under our constant use, misuse, abuse, and consistent demands that it produce and provide all that we desire.

It makes one wonder if that one negative line in the whole Psalm, that seems to come out of nowhere, is about that very thing. In verse 35 we hear, “But clear the ground of sinners— no more godless men and women!”[2]

Now I realize that I benefit from all that the earth produces along with everyone else. It is why it is so difficult for many of us to both name and pay attention to that which is excess and harmful. What are we willing to change in order to protect and care for creation? I know this does not have an easy answer, and given the many opinions flying around about good energy and bad energy, what works and what doesn’t work, all of this can be confusing and overwhelming.

Yet, are there some things we can do, some action we can take? What we all can do is pay attention, get informed and stay informed. We can stop hiding from difficult conversations and difficult questions. Creation is counting on us to get this right, to speak up for the creation that cannot speak for itself or defend itself. And trust me, this message is as conflicting for me as it could be for anyone because I enjoy the many things that I get to do, including travel, that are reasons the earth is moaning under our demands. And we can’t just think about our Canadian context. The whole world is God’s good creation. Every person is an image bearer of God. As people of faith and followers of Jesus, we have to care, we have to notice, we have to pay attention, and we have to act.

What that means for me and for you may be different things. Which means each of us has a role to play in this continuing story of creation. Each of us is called to be sensitive to the pain of the earth and of our fellow human beings. This means calling out those things that we determine are creating pain and suffering for people and this planet we call home.

God has given us life, has given the world life, from the blades of grass, to the birds of the air and fish in the ocean. We praise God for this wildly wonderful world! God made it all, with Wisdom at his side and made earth overflow with wonderful creations.

Thanks be to God and may we set our hearts, minds, and bodies on doing our part to speak up for the creation that cannot speak for itself. Amen.

[1] Hoezee Scott. Psalm 104:24-34, 35b: How Many Are Your Works?: Pentecost C. Psalm 104:24-34, 35b: How Many Are Your Works?: Pentecost C - Center for Excellence in Preaching. Accessed September 19, 2026.

[2] The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson