6 September - Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – Year A

A downloadable version of this page is available for anyone who would like to save or print it out.

The Faith Action Programme would like to thank Eco-Congregation Scotland for their thoughts on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost and throughout this Season of Creation Time.

Revised Common Lectionary material

Weekly worship material throughout Creation Time is hosted on the Eco-Congregation Scotland website and can be found, along with other resources for the Season at Eco-Congregation Scotland.

Introduction

Welcome to this year's Scottish resources for Creation Time/Season of Creation, this special season of ecumenical solidarity. Each year from 1 September to 4 October the Christian family unites for this worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home. It is a special season where we celebrate God as Creator, and acknowledge Creation as God's continuing work, calling us as collaborators to love and care for all that is created. As followers of Christ from around the globe, we share a common call to care for Creation. We are part of all that God has made. Our wellbeing is interwoven with the wellbeing of the Earth.

The global theme this year is based round "Living Water" – water which sustains life, as in Ezekiel 47:9,12. These resources are based on the Revised Common Lectionary, which for the first time offers dedicated readings for Week 1 as ‘Creation in Christ'.

These resources are curated by EcoChaplain Rev David Coleman for Eco-Congregation Scotland, with guest contributors, offering notes and prayers, and thematic items in poetry and video. You're very warmly invited to explore our new webpage at https://ecocongregationscotland.org/resources/season-of-creation-2026/. The five full-length video reflections may be used in sermon slots, viewed by groups or individually.

Permission is given for devotional, not commercial use, for the material presented, and copyright remains with the writers.

Themes for this week

For the full resources for this week visit Eco-Congregation Scotland's website.

Readings for the Feast of Creation – Summary

A New Hope: Creation in Christ

The Season begins with our first chance to engage with the fruit of painstaking and very ecumenical consultations to provide, for the first time, dedicated readings to help us reflect on Christ in the context of God the Creative Trinity. These readings have been chosen with utmost care to be complementary, but in a local church situation, choices have to be made. We therefore offer the option of a condensed version [820 rather than 1800 words] of the Three Beginnings of Genesis 1, Genesis 2 and John 1, but please work according to what is best in your location.

  • Genesis 1:1-2:3or Genesis 2:4-25 Some previous attempts to be ‘inclusive' have fallen at the fence of ‘division of labour', casting the first person of the Trinity only as Creator. It's out of concern also that we're not celebrating some bland and theologically toothless ecological festival, but delighting that when "the Earth brings forth" this is also how "God makes" [Genesis 1] . Creation is God's doing, so mission too is of the Earth. Do you really need a sermon after reading the whole of Genesis 1:1-2:3?
  • Psalm 148:1-14 We're invited in this selection to join our song with the universal – and above all diverse – praise of every living fellow creature.
  • Acts 17:22a, 24-28 We're reminded (as too in Paul's craftily consensual and respectful outreach to the people of Athens) of the prophetic and indeed the missional voice of the Earth, again through variety, diversity and concern for God's justice.
  • John 1:1-5 Finally, with the majestic opening of John's Gospel, so well-fitted to be the opening words of the Season as a whole: "All things came into being through [Christ], and without [Christ] not one thing came into being.

RCL standard readings – Summary

  • Ezekiel 33:7-11 Ezekiel affirms both the deadly seriousness of chosen injustice and the transformational value of changing course, even when it seems too late.
  • Romans 13:8-14 Paulcontinues to work on the moral quality and integrity of the worshipping, witnessing community: where ‘Green Church = More Church', fellowship and mutual love are the foundations of effective action.
  • Matthew 18:15-20 This leads into the extraordinary care to be shown in church discipline, noting how harmful attitudes and actions left unattended can disrupt the entire community – and yet how a beloved albeit wayward member should not simply be sacrificed ‘for the common good'. Be proud of this heritage and don't be afraid to assert it out loud against less loving ways.

Prayers

Gathering Prayer
We come from the Earth, shaped from soil, breathing borrowed breath.
We come in the name of the Word through whom all things were made,
in whom all things hold together.

We come in this Season of harvest and heat,
of church festivals and climate reports, of stubborn hope and stubborn grief.
Creator God – You who breathed life into the dust,
who named every creature before we named a single one,
who set the stars singing and the seas roaring with praise –
gather us now.

Gather us into right relationship: with You, with one another,
with the Earth that is our kin and our home.

Come, let us worship together.



Prayer of Confession / Forgiveness
How long will the land mourn,
and the grass of every field wither?
For the wickedness of those who live there
the animals and birds are swept away
because people said: "God is blind to our ways!"
Enough!

Tell a story instead
of a ground that is holy!
Sing a song of wide welcome
for those who've messed up!
Paint a picture, forgiving:
to save from despair …

Friends – we are forgiven
before we have fixed things.
It's Jesus who says: "Do not fear tomorrow –
you're up to your eyes in today!"
And Jesus who says: "You're forgiven, you're free."

[Hold a time of silence]

God: Forgive!
Christ: Remake!
Spirit: Repurpose!

Prayer of Thanksgiving / Gratitude
We give thanks, Creator God, for the stubborn beauty and ruggedness of the world –
for soil that still yields, for bees that still find flowers,
for the rocks that bear us,
for the kindness of strangers and the courage of campaigners.

We give thanks for those who relate to the Earth with love and with science and with faith –
for eco-congregations who refuse to look away,
for farmers and foresters and climate scientists,
for the young people who march and the elders who remember.

We give thanks that the Light still shines in the darkness,
that the Word still speaks in wind and water,
that we are held, even now, in the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Thanks be to God.

Prayer for Others and the Earth
We pray for a world in crisis and a Church learning to respond.
We pray for communities on the frontlines of climate change –
for those losing land to rising seas, for those whose harvests fail in drought,
for those displaced by floods and fires they did nothing to cause.
May our advocacy be as loud as our prayer.

We pray for our political leaders –
for courage to act beyond the next election cycle,
for wisdom to choose justice over short-term growth,
for ears open to the cry of the Earth and the cry of those with lived experience of poverty,
which are so often one cry.

We pray for Eco-Congregation Scotland and congregations like us –
may our buildings, our budgets, and our voices reflect the values we profess.
May we be communities of genuine belonging –
belonging to this earth, belonging to each other, belonging to You.

We pray for the more-than-human world:
for species on the edge, for rivers running low, for soils stripped bare.
May we be part of their healing, not the continuation of their harm.
Hear our prayer.

Closing Prayer
Go now, as creatures of the Earth,
loved by the God who breathed you into being
Go as kin to the cedar and the sparrow, to the mountain and the microscopic.
Go as people who know that the first sin was separation –
and who are called, day by day, to practise reconnection.
Go to love your neighbours near and far,
to tend the ground beneath your feet,
to speak for those with no voice in the halls of power.
And may the Word who was in the beginning still speak through you.
May the Light that the darkness cannot overcome shine in all that you do.
May the God in whom you live and move and have your being
go with you, in you, before you –
now and always. Amen.

Musical suggestions

God Welcomes All is the new supplement to Church Hymnary Fourth Edition. This exciting new collection features over 200 hymns and songs in a wide range of styles by writers from Scotland and around the world.

The full music and words-only versions are now available; and digital resources, including the expansion of the existing Church of Scotland music website, will be published in due course, with streaming functions and further information on each song; backing tracks; and lyric videos. God Welcomes All is available to order from https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786225573/god-welcomes-all

Our online music resource is on the Church of Scotland website; you can listen to samples of every song in the Church Hymnary 4th edition (CH4) and download a selection of recordings for use in worship. You will also find playlists for this week and liturgical seasons and themes on the Weekly Worship and Inspire Me tabs.

  • The Compilers of God Welcomes All recognise that Creation is a major contemporary theme, and the book includes a whole section (numbers 153-165) devoted to issues of celebrating and care for Creation, climate justice, and more.
  • You can find further musical suggestions for this week in a range of styles on the Songs for Sunday blog from Trinity College Glasgow.

Reflecting on our worship practice

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, the way we worship has changed and we need to reflect on the changing or newly established patterns that emerged and continue to emerge as a result of the disruption.

We can facilitate worship for all by exploring imaginative approaches to inclusion, participation and our use of technologies in ways that suit our contexts. This is not an exhaustive list, but some things we could consider are:

  • Framing various parts of the worship service in accessible language to help worshippers understand the character and purpose of each part. This is essential for creating worship for all (intergenerational worship) that reflects your community of faith.
  • Holding spaces for reflection and encouraging prayer to be articulated in verbal and non-verbal ways, individually and in online breakout rooms.
  • In online formats the effective use of the chat function and microphone settings encourages active participation in prayer, e.g. saying the Lord's Prayer together unmuted, in a moment of ‘holy chaos'.
  • While singing in our congregations is still restricted, we can worship corporately by using antiphonal psalm readings, creeds and participative prayers.
  • Using music and the arts as part of the worship encourages the use of imagination in place of sung or spoken words.
  • Use of silence, sensory and kinaesthetic practices allow for experience and expression beyond regular audio and visual mediums.

The following questions might help you develop a habit of reflecting on how we create and deliver content and its effectiveness and impact, and then applying what we learn to develop our practice.

  • How inclusive was the worship?
    Could the worship delivery and content be described as worship for all/ intergenerational?
    Was it sensitive to different "Spiritual Styles"?
  • How was the balance between passive and active participation?
  • How were people empowered to connect with or encounter God?
    What helped this?
    What hindered this?
  • How cohesive was the worship?
    Did it function well as a whole?
    How effective was each of the individual elements in fulfilling its purpose?
  • How balanced was the worship?
    What themes/topics/doctrines/areas of Christian life were included?
  • How did the worship connect with your context/contemporary issues?
    Was it relevant in the everyday lives of those attending and in the wider parish/ community?
    How well did the worship connect with local and national issues?
    How well did the worship connect with world events/issues?
  • What have I learned that can help me next time I plan and deliver worship?

You can listen to samples of every song in the Church Hymnary 4th edition (CH4) and download a selection of recordings for use in worship in our online hymnary.

You are free to download, project, print and circulate multiple copies of any of this material for use in worship services, bible studies, parish magazines, etc., but reproduction for commercial purposes is not permitted.

Please note that the views expressed in these materials are those of the individual writer and not necessarily the official view of the Church of Scotland, which can be laid down only by the General Assembly.