Interfaith crowd attends Season of Creation service to pray and call for climate action
Creation Justice Ministries and partners promote eco-focused time of justice, peace and reflection during September
Louisville — Interfaith leaders gathered in Washington, D.C.’s Upper Senate Park on Tuesday to mark the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation and to promote September as the Season of Creation, a time of reflection, witness and action for the protection of the planet and those who live on it.
The outdoor service filled with song, prayers and calls for climate action was organized by Creation Justice Ministries, a partner of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), along with Interfaith Power & Light DMV and 14 national faith-based organizations with a desire to protect God’s Creation.
“We are here because Creation is a gift, because Creation is sacred, because Creation is crying out, and we are here because too often, especially these days, our leaders have failed to protect the Earth and its people, leaving us to face the disastrous consequences in the places and the communities that we love,” CJM Executive Director Avery Davis Lamb said to those gathered in person and online for the service. “We come together to pray with (the prophet) Isaiah, with the global church, and with the whole community of Creation underneath the witness of these trees, that justice will dwell in the wilderness, the righteousness will bring peace, and that all of Creation will be reconciled and made whole.”
The service was part of a series of public witness events and faith gatherings that will be held throughout September in key cities, such as Phoenix and Atlanta. The theme is "Peace with Creation" and the biblical text is Isaiah 32:14-18.
Lamb was joined by an array of representatives from faith-based organizations and advocacy groups, calling for urgent action to address climate change and to safeguard environmental protections.
“Friends, we don't have time to debate what science and seeing with our own eyes and feeling with our own bodies has already proven,” said Bishop Julius C. Trimble, General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church. “We have an urgent ecological crisis that is an insult before God, and we need, right now, spiritual and moral courage, a spiritual and moral response.”
Trimble bemoaned that children are suffering in schools, sometimes without air conditioning, books and meal assistance, and that crucial agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are under fire.
“We have an emergency when FEMA is handicapped, and the EPA proposes rolling back regulatory standards that promote public health, protect our neighbors and our communities,” Trimble said, then prayed: “Help all of us today to be like the prophet Isaiah, refusing to fall victim of despair or apathy, instead to proclaim your vision for a secure, peaceful and sustainable world.”
the Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli, lead pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church, spoke of overlapping crises for people in the D.C. area who are grappling with lack of voting representation in Congress and increased militarization due to federal intervention
“What is being done to the people of D.C. is wrong,” she said. “It is sin against God's Creation and against the dignity of all God's children and as people of faith, we must resist. We must resist the silencing of a city's voice. We must resist the stripping away of resources needed to protect Creation and to care for our neighbors. We must resist policies that criminalize poverty and militarize our streets. We must resist the denial of dignity to Black and brown communities, immigrants, the unhoused and all who are vulnerable, and we must resist every system that places profit and power above people and planet.”
The relentless march of climate change and the fierceness of the disasters that have lashed so many states, regions and countries was brought home during a participatory rendition of the song, “Don’t Negotiate,” by Alice M-A, a performer and music educator from the Melting Virgo project. Asking the crowd to repeat after her, she sang, “The rain don’t negotiate. The wind don’t negotiate. The fire don’t negotiate. Oh no, the climate don’t negotiate.”
Further urging the crowd along, the Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, declared that it’s time to restore, redeem and renew, and urged people to use their voices as a game-changing renewable resource.
“Rather than be despondent, today, let's press forward in faith,” he said. It’s time “to push relentlessly for a sea change in policy and political priorities."
The Rev. Christina Cosby of the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness and Jessica Maudlin of the Presbyterian Hunger Program are both on CJM's board. Learn more about the Season of Creation and upcoming events here.
You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.
