Season of Creation (Ezekiel 47)

 The Season of Creation is an ecumenical observance that occurs each year. As I mentioned, it starts on September 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. It ends on October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.

The Season of Creation was started by the Orthodox church in 1989, but is now widely embraced across many denominations. The World Council of Churches quickly hopped on board; and then, in 2019, Pope Francis began celebrating it within the Roman Catholic Church.

The 2026 theme for the Season of Creation is “Immersed in Living Water.” By sheer coincidence, Disciples congregations in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan are currently finalizing our merger into one region that will be known as the Living Waters region.

*******The scripture we heard this morning, from Ezekiel 47, is the scripture that many congregations will be using today as well as in the coming weeks. I hope that, as it was read, you were able to picture the scene it describes: the water flowing out of the temple, toward the east. 

Where it begins, the water is ankle-deep. A little further on, it is knee-deep. A little further still, it is waist-deep. And then, it becomes too deep to stand in.

And, it is water that brings life. 

Water is life. Nearly all of the world’s great cities and great civilizations were and are located near water. In grade school, we learned about Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent, that land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, rivers that are even mentioned in the creation stories of Genesis.

We also learned about Egypt, and that great empire, which developed along the Nile River, and depended upon the annual flooding of the Nile to fertilize and water the land, enabling it to be used for crops.

*******Here in the United States, most of our big cities are located near lakes or rivers. Los Angeles, and its surrounding suburbs (where I’m from) is not, so engineers built rivers—canals—hundreds of miles long, to bring water to L.A. from the Sacramento Delta and the eastern Sierra and from the Colorado River.

Because water is life.

In the beautiful, poetic imagery of Ezekiel, the fresh, life-giving water flows eastward from the temple, into the desert, allowing trees to grow and fish and other creatures to thrive.

*******This makes me think of our Disciples camp in southern California—Loch Leven—which is located in a mountainous desert region at the base of southern California’s tallest peak, Mount San Gorgonio. Loch Leven is located where two canyon streams meet, so the camp is filled with beautiful oak and sycamore and dogwood trees, along with a few pines and cedars, that provide wonderful shade and keep the camp cooler than the surrounding areas, where there are no trees. During free time, campers love to hang out by those streams, and sometimes even in the streams, letting that refreshing, living water flow over them, keeping them cool and refreshed on a hot summer day.

Some of them may not realize that up the canyon a little ways, water is drawn from that same stream to fill the camp water tank, providing the water we need. Without that water, we wouldn’t be able to have camp.

The Disciples camp in northern California does not have a stream or lake to draw water from. Instead, there is a well that goes down almost 1,000 feet to reach water. And sometimes that well could be temperamental, at least when I was at that camp. That was always a nervous time, because if the well stopped working, we’d all have to go home.

As beautiful as that camp in northern California is, I do wish it had a stream. Water is necessary for life in so many ways. 

A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology noted that gazing at bodies of water can help lower your heart rate, blood pressure and increase feelings of relaxation. Moving water has also been shown to release negative ions, and that spending time near a rushing stream, a waterfall, or crashing waves has other health benefits.

****** No wonder one of my favorite spots in town is a spot in Ewing Park where Sugar Creek cascades over a small ledge. After rainstorms, the sound of that rushing water is incredibly soothing, and—I guess—releases a lot of those negative ions into the environment.

****** There is one thing in the passage from Ezekiel that I find quite intriguing. It says that the river reaches the sea of stagnant waters—which would be the Dead Sea—and it makes that stagnant water become fresh.

Ecologically speaking, that doesn’t make sense. Fresh water flowing into a sea doesn’t make that salty water fresh. Streams that flow into the Great Salt Lake in Utah, or into the Salton Sea in California, don’t remove the salt from those bodies of water.

But Ezekiel was a poet, and was talking about a different kind of water. Ezekiel’s water is: the grace of God. It is: the Holy Spirit. It is: healing and restoration. 

This grace and healing and restoration flows through us when we open ourselves up to receive it. And then, it flows out of us into those around us: our neighbors, our community, our world.

And it is as life-giving as a mountain stream in the desert, and as powerful as ocean waves, releasing all those negative ions that, in very real ways, restore one’s soul.

****** Although the concept of a river of fresh water flowing into a sea of stagnant water, making the stagnant water fresh, isn’t quite ecologically correct, it does remind me of a certain ecological phenomenon.

The first church I pastored after I got ordained was in Morro Bay, California. The bay there is protected from the ocean, which makes it a great harbor for fishing boats. But as you move into the upper part of the bay, the water becomes shallower; much of the upper bay consists of mud flats that are underwater at high tide, but exposed at low tide.

And into these mud flats flow two creeks: Los Osos Creek, and Chorro Creek.

In summer (the dry season) these creeks are quite small, but in the rainy season, they can overflow their banks, and even cover the road that goes around the bay, connecting the town of Morro Bay with the town of Los Osos.

What’s remarkable is that, because of the fresh water flowing into the estuary from these creeks, and mixing with the salt water, those mud flats and the web of water channels that flow through them host an incredible array of unique—and sometimes endangered—species.

Now, driving by on the road, those mud flats don’t look like much. Yet the mixing of fresh and salt water creates an environment that is home to more than 250 species of land, sea, and shore birds, including endangered species like the Peregrine Falcon. 

I read online that, in Morro Bay, “California brown pelicans search for fish, rafts of southern sea otters float on their backs with pups on their bellies, and bat rays glide over the shallow mudflats at high tide. Invertebrates such as Pacific oysters, Washington and gaper clams, ghost shrimp, and shore crabs inhabit the mudflats. Fishes including topsmelt, shiner perch, bay pipefish, and Pacific staghorn sculpin also make their homes here. The dense meadows of eelgrass found [there] are nursery grounds for rockfish, flatfish, and a variety of invertebrates, and serve as an important resting and foraging area for the black brant, a small goose that feeds on eelgrass.”

In short, though it may not look like much, that estuary is remarkable in the amount of life that is made possible… all because of the unique mixing of fresh creek water and salty ocean water.

****** Ezekiel, of course, is not the only place in the Bible where water is mentioned because of how it gives and nurtures life. There is the Red Sea, through which the Israelites passed on their way to becoming a new nation. There is the water from the rock in the desert. There is the stream of water flowing from the temple that we heard about today, an image that also appears in Revelation. There is the momentous crossing of the Jordan river in the book of Joshua, which certainly inspired John the Baptist to go out to the Jordan River, preach repentance, and baptize people in its water.

And Jesus, on more than one occasion, referred to himself as living water, or as the one who offers living water to those who are thirsty… thirsty for life.

One more thing about the water in today’s scripture: the temple cannot contain it. It flows out from the temple. It does not stay in a little basin or pool within the temple walls. And people are not expected to come to the temple to be blessed by the living water.

We in the church are blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to others… so that we can go out into the world and share God’s blessings… so that we can spread grace, and healing, and restoration; allowing God’s spirit to work through us to bring wholeness to this fragmented world.

Water needs to flow.

And water needs to be protected. Especially in this day and age. So many of our waterways are threatened. 

The estuary at Morro Bay is especially significant, because so many other estuaries and wetlands have been lost to development. Just like the prairies of Illinois, what’s left is just a small remnant of what once existed.

***** On my bookshelf I have a copy of Unbowed, a memoir by Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. A single mother of three, she began a movement and founded an organization to plant trees across Africa and restore indigenous forests. 

The forests had been cut down for development, for agriculture, for profit today at the expense of a sustainable future.

The trees didn’t just provide shade. Their roots protected the land and the water. They held the soil together, and slowed down the flow of water, so that the creeks wouldn’t overflow when it rained, and so that they would still have water flowing in them when the rains stopped.

In so many ways, the work she did, planting trees, provided life.

****** We, too, are called to protect the water—as well as the trees, the prairies, and every other aspect of God’s creation, for all these things are related. 

We see the consequences of our failure to protect creation. Just the news of catastrophic flash floods in the past two weeks, from Nepal and Hawaii and the Grand Canyon—not to mention the record number of tornadoes Illinois has experienced this year—are examples of how weather events are becoming more intense, more frequent, and more deadly because of climate change.

Protecting earth’s waters—and protecting creation—is protecting life. All forms of life. Including human life.

And life is sacred. Thus we are called by God to protect life.

This week, I invite you to ponder these things every time you take a drink of water… every time you take a shower… every time you see rain falling or water flowing. Notice where the rain lands: does it land on soil? Asphalt? Does it sink into the ground and nurture the plants that grow there? Does it flow down the gutter, mixing with oil and debris and litter?

If you go shopping this week, ponder how water is used to provide the things you buy. Water for the crops that become your food. Water for the material that becomes your clothing. Did you know it takes about 2,000 gallons of water to produce just one pair of jeans?

How can you recognize and honor the sacredness of water this week? And how can you let God’s living water flow through you, bringing life to the world around you?