The Rev’d Elizabeth Farrands

October 4, 2026 – Feast of St Francis

Readings: Daniel 3:51-65; Galatians 6:14-18; Matthew 21:33-46

I am glad to be invited to speak on this last Sunday of the Season of Creation. For I believe that as a Church world wide and locally our love and concern for this planet, for the creatures and people that live on the earth, and for creation itself is something we share with many others, not only faith communities.

As Ilia Delio, Franciscan Priest says “What we do matters to the Matter of the Universe”.

I invite you to think for a moment of the care and concerns you have for our world and for Creation. …
And alongside that ponder for a moment, experiences of Awe and Wonder that you have felt in relation to our natural world! What comes to mind?
Many of us will have had experiences of being apprehended by the beauty of this world, nature and creatures who are part of it. Many of us have deep concerns in these extraordinary times.

Thomas Berry poet and author writes…. “The Human community and the Natural World will go into the future as a single, sacred community or we will both perish in the Desert.”

These are harsh words yet Berry contrasts this with his wonderful vision of “going into the future as a single sacred community.” a vision both inspiring and challenging!

The Eco group came into being in response to the vision and partnership of the Anglican Church with Eco Church Arocha, Aotearoa.

My hope for today is that we might weave together-
-the purpose and work of the Eco Group,
-some learnings from St Francis
-and the message of the gospel
so that we might live with Hope, Awe and Wonder, in the midst of catastrophic events affecting out world and civilization, with a sense that we are far from powerless!

An experience that left me with hope awe and wonder was visiting the site of massive wild fires on a peninsula in Tasmania (where I was born), after the fires and then again several years later. I was startled not only by the restoration and clean up from wonderful community action but also to see many trees, which had stood blackened and seemingly dead, sprouting green again! Nature and our Creator are awesome especially when loving community is motivated!

Our All Saints‘ Community sees Care of Creation and our World as an essential part of our faith and how we express it.

So what is the role of the Eco group within this vision?
Our Parish ‘Notices’ describe the Eco Group as
“committed to learning, advocating and taking practical steps to protect and nurture the environment as an expression of our love for God and our neighbours”.

We relate to Parish Council and to other groups, like the Tuesday Gang, working together for sustainable environmental practices.
Our Ethos statement includes helping our community to understand both the theological and ethical importance of Ecological sustainability.

Putting this into practice is key.
You will have seen some of the evidence as we work toward planting more native plants, reducing invasive environmental weeds notably the Agapanthus, which though many of us love the tall blue flowers, tend to take over. They are very bossy plants!

Our Herb Garden is on hold at the moment as we learn what plants will actually be used by visitors to the food bank and parishioners.

We are in the process of updating our booklet on recycling locally. And hope to support small group learning to further reduce our personal, and our parish environmental footprints.
So often we think we know what is sustainable practice but actually may not. An example would be the amazingly complex interconnectedness between what we do or fail to do and the effects this has on our earth.

Our recent Workshop lead by Climate Club on Home Composting offered us and our wider community, insights, and practical information.

We would love you to join us in the work of the Eco Group. You do not need to be part of the committee itself to join in the work we do. Just let us know of your interest as we seek together to do what is ours to do.

And today we also celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the death of St Francis of Assisi with Franciscans throughout the world giving thanks for the life of this extraordinary man of faith!

When (Saint) “Francis spoke about living out of the virtue of poverty, he did so in the context of community”. And he lived this out to the highest degree, dedicating his life to following and making Christ known, spreading the spirit of love and harmony, and living simply.
How might all this link with the gospel reading we have heard?

The gospel presents Jesus understanding as conflicting with those of the religious leaders of the time. As more and more people follow Jesus the leaders become defensive. Jesus typically tells a parable.

A farmer has leased the vineyard to tenants who are to share the fruit produced with the owner.
Instead they use the vineyard for their own profit and unscrupulously kill those sent to collect the produce including the son of the owner.

When Jesus then asks the religious leaders how they imagine the owner of the vineyard would deal with these tenants, the leaders give the answer “he would throw them out and punish them harshly!” Only then do they become conscious that Jesus is speaking about them.

Not recognizing Jesus, as the Son of God, at that moment they may easily have wanted him out of the way! Jesus turns things on their head!

In the parable those who had not expected to be included in God’s reign find themselves embraced by God while those who thought they were by right included…are not!
The gospel is complex. It invites us in our Care of Creation, just as it invited Jesus hearers into a new way of living in this world and our amazing universe.

As John van der Laar notes “Every time we undergo some change in our world, perceptions and experiences, we are born again-and again, and again!”
If we view our spiritual journey as a simple straight path toward increasing holiness and understanding of “a fixed complete, perfect and unchanging God” we may need to think again

My hunch is that if your journey is more like mine it’s a more organic process –we take steps forward, trip up, may even have a sense of being ‘crushed’ and yet then being resurrected, finding new life. Jesus then and now invites his hearers into such a process!

The challenge in how we approach this parable is significant. We can leave it fully in its first century setting, as just an intriguing story, about the tenants, and the times when instead it is more about who Jesus is.

Scholar (Ira Brent Diggers) holds this view that the parable is not so much about the tenants but more about Jesus himself
He suggests that the title of the parable more helpfully would be “the parable of the rejected and vindicated Son”.

As by concluding his parable in this way, Jesus declares that he is the stone, on which hearers either trip up and deny, or embrace! Though rejected by some, Jesus would be the foundation of a new community embodying his new, just and loving way of being,”

To apply these understandings to our lives today is the challenge. How are we to be members of this community and to embody this “new just and loving way of being?” Especially in relation to our world and the whole of Creation?

Reading this passage through a gospel lens for today, and allowing the passage to speak to us-

1) We need to nurture the humility to receive criticism; and correction by others, especially those who are vulnerable and powerless. Often these are the ones we need to listen to the most because they are those experiencing the reality of the harsh effects of what is happening to our environment, such as the rise of sea level or wild fires.
2) While it is easy to criticize others, this Season of Creation invites us to search out the ways in which we ourselves may be acting or failing to act. The Eco group seeks to discover how we might live in relationship with our precious earth right here in our own community. And to put these principles into practice we may need to challenge destructive regimes, yet not seek to destroy them!
3) When we listen to this parable we find ourselves invited to question the principles from which we live. Allowing the image of the ‘rejected stone‘ to become our “cornerstone’, helps us apply Jesus radical approach to the crises of our planet.
4) Building our lives on the reign of God helps us to ‘stumble over ‘Jesus and his message!

While not always comfortable we may just begin to foster Christ’s humility, love and compassion in our lives.

Our Eco group finds- to live this out means practicing daily being honest with ourselves. What do we purchase? Can it be recycled? Do we actually need it?
What fosters life on this planet and what does not?
Do we challenge policies which result in destruction of the sea bed? When does our vote have real relevance or does it mainly support profit in the hands of a few?

This Season of Creation reminds us that in our relationships with the world around us Peace begins in the heart and flows outward as “Living Water”

From the time of his conversion, Saint Francis lived his life from the understanding that everything, absolutely everything, is interconnected! In his humility even in his dying he asked his brothers and sisters to lay him naked on the earth. Such was his profound interconnection with Creation. We are told that his wish was granted and then his body covered with his simple robe. As wished he lay in the arms of his Creator.

Francis’ final words to those around him and equally to us were. “I have done what is mine to do. Now it is yours to do what is yours to do! “

The invitation to us I believe stands.

Reading Sources include:
Ilia Delio, OSF. In Care for Creation {a franciscan spirituality of the earth} / Ilia Delio, Keith Douglass Warner, Pamela Wood. 2008
Thomas Berry quoted in above book.
John van der Laar :https:sacredise.com/proper-22a/
Ira Brent Diggers, Commentary on Matthew 21:33-46, Working Preacher, October 5, 2008