Creation remembers

A reflection on climate justice and the olive trees in Gethsemane

The Gethsemane garden in Jerusalem is full of olive trees. They produce fruit annually, life-giving olives that can be pressed into oil that nourishes and nurtures. Some of these trees are more than 2000 years old — their trunks thick and gnarled, shaped through the centuries.

From the time of Jesus until our time they have been there.

Imagine what they have experienced through centuries and millennia - drawing nourishment from the soil below, the atmosphere that surrounds them, the sun that warms them throughout the day.

I'd like to believe the olive trees have been observing and documenting. In their way of course – as trees do. A few of them, living through the two millennia since Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. Living and listening to the people who have prayed there since.

Imagine the prayers the trees could have heard: people coming from all around the world, sharing their fears and expressing their hopes for individuals, for the world, and creation.

Watching, worrying, hoping

I'd like to believe the olive trees in the Gethsemane garden remember. That creation remembers. That its memory runs deep. The memory of how we treat and care for creation.

This week climate advocates from around the world gather in Katowice, Poland, for COP24. And the world is watching, worrying, hoping. We watch the negotiations, we worry about the devastating effects of climate change, we hope for a change of heart that will change the course the world is currently on.

May the prayers for creation – expressing our deep conviction that creation is not for sale - also reach the olive trees in Gethsemane. May they be heard and may that be seen in the actions of those sitting at the table, negotiating the future of our world.

Because change is possible.

And change is needed.

May the prayers for creation – expressing our deep conviction that creation is not for sale - also reach the olive trees in Gethsemane. And may they be heard, and may that be seen in the actions of those sitting at the table, negotiating the future of our world.

There is no time to lose.

Creation is not for sale.

COP24

LWF Climate Justice

Biographical info

Rev. Árni Svanur Daníelsson is Head of Communication for the Lutheran World Federation.

COP24

A delegation of young people from the member churches has been representing the LWF at the annual conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. At COP 24, the seven delegates from each of the seven LWF regions, come with different experiences and expertise in climate action, climate advocacy and theology of creation.