July 27. 2025
All Creatures of Our God and King
Psalm 148 & Revelation 5:11-14
This morning we’re continuing our series, “How Can I Keep from Singing,” focusing on our congregation’s favorite hymns. This has been a really engaging summer sermon series for our congregation and our pastors! Today’s hymn is “All Creatures of Our God and King.”
It is one of the grandest hymns in our collection. You may not know that it comes from a poem by one of the most beloved figures in Christian history: Francis of Assisi. We’ll get to Francis’ story in a minute, but first I want us to understand the ancient text and theological conviction that inspired him: Psalm 148. This Psalm speaks a word of theological clarity and urgency to us in our world today.
Listen to how Psalm 148 begins:
”Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host! Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!”
Now, the Psalms are full of theology. They give poetic words to praise, lament, confession, petition, mercy, and justice. Psalm 148 is very near the end of the collection. We're hearing a theological crescendo that brings the whole psalter to a rousing conclusion of praise. Here’s what lies in the cultural background of this Psalm.
In the ancient Near East, the sun and moon weren’t just celestial bodies—they were gods. The Babylonians worshiped Shamash, the sun god. The Canaanites bowed down to Yarikh, the moon god. They believed these powers controlled human destinies, and these various gods demanded sacrifice and obedience.
The psalm presents a very different vision. The sun isn’t a god to be worshiped—it’s a creature called to worship. The moon doesn’t rule the night—it praises the one who made the night. The stars don’t determine our fate—they sing hymns to their Maker.
This is why the psalm can call on sea monsters and fire and hail, mountains and fruit trees, wild animals and flying birds to join the song. Everything that exists has one fundamental purpose: to give glory to God.
Now, this is where, for many of us in modern Western society, Psalm 148 speaks a word we need to hear. Most often in Western society, we think of nature and the environment in terms of its usefulness. In the best sense, this means nature is useful for sustaining life: trees and shrubs provide for flora and fauna, creatures are interdependent and rely on each other to regulate the ecosystem, and to be food.
In an even more utilitarian way, nature is valuable to the extent that it serves human needs. A forest is good for lumber; a coastal bay is good for a fishing business; minerals are good for energy or jewelry or chips to power phones and washing machines. In this utilitarian view, nature is raw material, there for human convenience or economic growth.
Biblical theology tells us something different. Creation does not simply exist for our benefit. The fundamental purpose of creation is to praise God. The song of the blue whale is a hymn of praise – not just for communication or mating. The natural forest is a cathedral of worship, not just a complex ecosystem, or a stockpile of timber, or a covering for minerals underground.
The word “praise” appears twelve times in this short psalm. Everything is called to praise. From the tiniest insect to the most distant star, from mosquitoes and gnats to blackholes and comets, everything pulses with the rhythm of praise.
Even in a world that groans with drought and disease, with war and starvation and injustice, the rhythm of praise can be heard. That’s the theological conviction behind Psalm 148, and the hymn “All Creatures of our God and King” based on a poem by Francis of Assisi.
Eight hundred years ago, a young man named Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone was having the worst year of his life. He’d been captured in battle and spent a year as a prisoner of war. When he finally returned home to Assisi, he was broken—physically, emotionally, spiritually.
His father wanted him to take over the family cloth business. Giovanni—who we know as Francis—had other ideas. He claimed to have seen a vision of Christ telling him to “restore the church.”
So he did what any reasonable person would do: he gave away all his possessions, renounced his inheritance, and became a poor itinerant preacher.
His father was furious. The townspeople thought he’d lost his mind. But Francis understood something they didn’t see yet.
Francis began preaching not just to people, but to birds. He would gather flocks of sparrows and swallows around him and tell them to praise their Creator. He called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. He talked to wolves and convinced them to stop terrorizing villages. He spoke to fire as a friend and praised God for “Sister Water” who was “useful and humble and precious and clean.”
To anyone watching, this looked like a very disturbed man. The wealthy merchants of Assisi thought he’d completely lost touch with reality. How do you run a successful business when you’re having theological conversations with livestock?
But Francis was learning to see creation the way Psalm 148 sees it: as a community of creatures oriented toward communion with God, all participating in praise. Where others saw resources to exploit or obstacles to overcome, Francis saw brothers and sisters in the great choir of creation.
Francis was not only a preacher, but he was also a gifted poet. He wrote his “Canticle of the Sun” in 1224, shortly before his death, he was translating Psalm 148 into medieval Italian. “All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing.” His poetry expressed a vision of redemption: Christ healing our relationship with all creation.
When he was preaching to the birds, Francis grasped the gospel: through Christ, we’re no longer masters exploiting resources, or outsiders observing nature. We are a new creation, called into God’s project of restoring creation’s praise.
Our reading from Revelation 5 is the cosmic fulfillment of the promise of Psalm 148. God’s story doesn’t end with individual salvation but with cosmic renewal; not with souls floating to heaven, but with the garden of creation restored.
“And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’”
Psalm 148 is fulfilled in the new creation of Christ. Every creature—in heaven, on earth, under the earth, in the sea—worshiping the lamb on the throne.
Francis lived this redemptive vision in practical ways – preaching to animals, and calling nature his sister and brother; but also caring for the sick, rebuilding churches, advocating for the poor. He saw that when Christ redeems our relationship with God, Christ changes our relationship to all creatures great and small.
Sometimes, it can feel like care for creation is a small thing compared to serving the poor. Environmental stewardship seems abstract, or a luxury, when we compare it to providing food for the hungry, or housing for the homeless, or education for the poor. But these things are connected: love for Jesus, love for neighbor, and care for creation go together.
The evangelical leader Tony Campolo articulated very clearly how this connects. Campolo, who died earlier this year, gave a memorable speech at Baylor University not long ago. He was an advocate throughout his life for the poor, and he said in this lecture:
“Dealing with the environment is very important to me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because I’m concerned about the poor. When we talk about who is going to suffer as a result of environmental degradation, there’s little question that it’s the poor who are going to take it in the teeth.”
That’s vivid – and he’s right.
Climate change hits hardest in places like low-lying communities along rivers and creeks in the mountains, which are vulnerable to flash floods.
In farming communities, which depend on water and are vulnerable to high heat.
In nations like Bangladesh and Madagascar, where rising seas displace communities and erratic weather patterns devastate crops.
When drought comes to sub-Saharan Africa, chocolate gets more expensive, and commodity traders adjust their portfolios—but subsistence farmers can lose everything.
Environmental destruction is never just an environmental issue. It’s always a justice issue. Often, the people least responsible for environmental harm are the ones who suffer most from its consequences.
The stakes of environmental change reach beyond policy debates, economic growth versus environmental protection, or personal carbon footprints. Ultimately it’s theological: we’re talking about loving neighbors and worshiping God, about preserving creation’s ability to give glory to God while protecting those most vulnerable to environmental harm.
So what does this look like in practice? Campolo’s words reminded me of our mission partners, Dan and Elizabeth Turk, and the work they’re doing in Madagascar. On Monday, I reached out to them to tell about this Sunday’s sermon and ask for an update on their work. Dan, as many of you know, grew up in this church.
Dan and Elizabeth are mission partners supported by our congregation, and many others, working with the FJKM Church to help farmers grow fruit trees. Several years ago, our congregation donated toward the Mango Fruit Center (Fruit Palace). I learned this week that the Turks recently inaugurated their third building at the Mango Fruit Center and are preparing to open a tree nursery that will supply grafted mango trees across southern Madagascar.
That may not sound immediately like Christian mission, but growing these trees preserves native ecosystems, lifts families out of poverty, and develops local economies.
As the Psalm said, “Praise the Lord! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars…” ‘
When farmers learn to work with the land instead of against it, when families escape poverty through sustainable practices and growing a product to sell, when native forests are preserved alongside human flourishing—creation’s song grows richer, not poorer.
Dan will be presenting at the FJKM General Assembly on “The Church and the Protection of Biodiversity in Madagascar.” His title captures our calling to preserve creation’s diversity of praise.
The promise of Christ’s new creation means that we are empowered by God’s grace to participate in God’s restoration of a good creation. We are empowered to take up the fundamental human calling: which is to steward and nurture and grow the praise of all creation.
Our Creation Care team here at First Presbyterian works to keep these connections in our field of vision. They’ve been giving us tips about our personal decisions—what we buy, how we travel, how we use energy.
But it goes beyond personal tips. Love for neighbor and love for creation, environment and justice, are connected. The theology of Psalm 148 and the future promise of Revelation, shapes who we support and what we advocate for now, pushing for policies that serve both environmental health and economic justice.
The world exists for more than human enjoyment and economic growth. Creation exists to give glory to God, from the gnats to the night sky. We’re called to live in ways that help rather than hinder that ultimate purpose.
Every living thing will sing Christ’s praise. You and I are called to assemble the choir and rehearse them today: creatures great and small, the mighty and the meek, people and animals, ecosystems and landscapes that have their own ways of declaring God’s glory.
Creation has an ultimate purpose, a song of praise to sing, renewed in Christ. All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing: Alleluia!
Amen
Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church
Asheville, North Carolina