HOMILY: "The Pelicans of God"

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Genesis 1, according to "The Voice"

1.

If “the heavens are telling the glory of God” as the psalmist says, then it often seems to me, on the cliffs of the California coast at least, that pelicans are God’s holy handwriting.  God’s holy handwriting.  The way they soar across the bay in what seems like effortless perfection; the way they skim the tips of waves in perfect formation.  So often, on that particular coastline, I have to stop and wonder: How can it be that God blesses us, over and over and over again, with these particular companions, these soaring siblings—whose every lift and every dip, whose every journey reveals the glory of God?  Right there in front of me?  It’s beyond miraculous.  And it activates something ancient, something big within me.  How can it be that a creation so diverse, a creation so precious, is gifted to us to love, and to bless, and to care for in faith?

And on sabbatical in August, I took just a little extra time to watch those pelicans in California, to stop and observe their flight, to cherish their ways and wonders.  What a gift, and maybe even responsibility, it is—to watch, observe and cherish!  This, perhaps, is the great invitation of Creationtide: our vocation, our practice, even.  These three verbs.  To watch, observe and cherish in creation!  Notice: not to speculate, purchase and own—but to watch, observe and cherish!

And what I think I observed out there, on the rim of the Pacific, on the shimmering surface of Monterey Bay, is a kind of sweet and holy intimacy.  Not just a flock of 20 great birds winging across the bay, but a community (maybe even a communion) of pelicans in deep and persevering relationship with one another, in deep and dependent relationship with the thermals and gusts and the air itself, in deep and playful relationship with the ocean as well.  I noticed at times that these flocks of pelicans, great wings outstretched, flying in V-formation, were skimming the surface of the bay so closely, so intimately, that I could imagine love as their motivation, love as their flight plan, love as their purpose.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I understand that they’re looking for dinner, foraging for fish.  And that’s cool, right?  But it’s all so, so intimate—birds at sea, fish below, wind gusts above, a communion of pelicans relying on instinct and ancient history and (yes) one another to live and thrive and declare the glory of God.  So, yeah, I imagine love as their flight plan!  Intimacy and communion and love.

2.

And this morning, deep into this Season of Creationtide, I wonder if this isn’t the very intention of the first Genesis story, the ancient poetry of the Hebrews?  Isn’t the poet most interested in wonder, and awe, and respect?  And isn’t the purpose of this poetry to cultivate in our human community a dynamic and intimate practice of creation-care and creation-delight and (yes) holy communion?  

What I hear in this morning’s translation—the version Gretchen and Mattea have read—is hardly a scientific treatise or a play-by-play explanation of how it all happened.  What I hear is a celebration of divine creativity, a glad and grateful “AMEN” to the community of creation God speaks into being—waters down below to receive waters from above; seed-bearing plants, fruit-bearing trees and a vast variety of living creatures to roam together and soar together and care together; lights to mark days and nights, seasons and years, patterns of life for whole communities.  Intimacy and communion!

You see, we are not birthed into this earth-bound family of beings to simply or passively waste time on rage or bet on football games like it matters.  We are not conceived in divine love and sacred sweat simply or passively to shop online or amass a great fortune in the stock market.  We are born for communion: intimacy and communion.  And together, we are gathered as the church to nurture among us creation-care and creation-delight.  To watch, observe and cherish in creation!  Broken as we humans can be, sadly addicted to violence and consumption—that’s not all we are.  We are also gathered up of the holy dust, the good earth.  We are also delightfully complex and wired for wonder and praise.  So praise be to the Breath of Life, the Ruah of All Beginnings, the Evolving Genius of God, the One Abiding in Many; praise be to the God who continues to imagine all of this: the pelicans dipping wings in the sea’s surface as they whip across the sea, the schools of tasty fish shimmying through tidal streams below; and the glorious (if befuddling) human community ashore.  For all this, says the poet, you and I are always open, always open to the fresh winds of repair, repentance and renewal that find us and name us and call us to partnership and praise.  To be human is not to lord it over creation, and certainly not to dominate and destroy creation.  To be human is to love creation with all our being, even as God loves.  Even as God loves.  For we are made in the image of God.

“It happened,” says the poet.  “It happened just as God said.  God made earth-creatures in a vast variety of species: wild animals, domesticated animals of all sizes, and small creeping creatures, each able to reproduce its own kind.  And God saw that Her new creation was beautiful and good.  Beautiful and good.  Beautiful and good.”

3.

And what does this look like in the 21st century church?  How might we reclaim wonder and delight at the heart of our faith and practice?

Well, here’s an invitation:

Next Sunday we will gather, down by the riverside at Jackson Landing, to praise God for life and water and light, and to baptize five dear and beloved friends into the Body of Christ.  Five full immersion, total experience, dripping wet, beautiful and good baptisms!  In the Oyster River!  Tabitha and Margo, Fiona and Charlotte and dear Sean.  

When these five dear friends step into the river, they will step boldly and gratefully into a dynamic and ever-evolving community of creation: waters above and waters below; lights to mark day, night, seasons and years; pelicans winging it across the Pacific; loons on the lakes of New Hampshire; families seeking shelter and families fleeing violence and couples seeding gardens and setting tables for great feasts.  To be baptized in Christ is to be named by such gratitude, to be claimed by it, to be joined to a beloved community committed to the ways of mercy, abundance and communion.  Breaking cycles of fear and violence, shame and despair!  Disrupting authoritarian projects and claiming the gospel of love!  Joining our energies to the life and spirit of the Resurrected Christ!

And there’s a profoundly intimate dimension to all this, to life in the Body of Christ.  There’s our flesh dripping with waters millions of years in the making.  There’s the ancient sun bathing us all in contemporary light.  There are schools of fish in the river and hawks overhead.  And Tabitha and Margo, Fiona and Charlotte, and Sean and you!  And make no mistake: the heavens will be telling the glory of God!  All of it, all of us, made in the image of God!

So let this serve as an enthusiastic invitation to you all: that you too join us at Jackson Landing Sunday afternoon.  It won’t take too long: 30, 40 minutes maybe.  But bring a beach chair if you like.  And join us for a joyful and intimate celebration of creation, and baptism, and five friends who’ve come to our church for just this.  For communion within the great community of creation!  For celebration when so much of the world is distracted by despair!  For the Christ whose arms are not fists to do battle, but arms outstretched in holy, welcoming, transforming love!  This Creationtide we lean into new possibilities in liturgy, new opportunities in celebration, new understandings of communion.  

Because, indeed, now and always, the heavens are telling the glory of God!

Amen and Ashe.