Sr. Joan Chittister interviews feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson about her book, Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth. Johnson is pictured here with her cat Orion, named because "she is a constellation of beauty." (Courtesy of Elizabeth Johnson)
In a special three-part series, Sr. Joan Chittister interviews feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson about her latest book, "Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth" (Orbis, 2024).
In Part 1, Johnson, a Sister of St. Joseph, discusses the title and the basis for the accompanying meditations. She then details why Christianity has to rediscover God's relationship with the earth, highlighting God's care for all creatures. Throughout the episode, she speaks of "deep incarnation," or God's active engagement with all of creation, not just with humans, a dimension that takes on heightened significance in this era of climate crisis.
Come, Have Breakfast by feminist theologian Elizabeth A. Johnson (Courtesy of Elizabeth Johnson)
In the middle stanza of the series, Sister Joan and Johnson discuss creation's relationship to the Creator. Johnson sees Jesus as exemplifying that relationship. She draws on a scene in Mark's Gospel where Jesus is placed "with the wild animals."
The setting, she said, "embodied the Jewish hope for redemption that included all of creation." Jesus' coming of age in a rural town, she says, made him familiar with not only the animals but all of the flowers and trees and the work of planting and harvesting that became integral images in his preaching.
Joan Chittister is pictured with her bird Lady Hildegard. (Courtesy of Joan Chittister/Anne McCarthy)
In the third and final episode exploring the book, both Johnson and Chittister explain their ideas about God and the understanding that how a believer sees others and the whole of creation depends on how that person imagines God. Johnson explains that the Western Christian world for too long has focused on humans as sacred apart from the rest of creation. Our view of creation would change dramatically, she says, if we had a view of nature as sacred and in which God is continuously active.
Listen to the third and final episode of the series here.
"Risking the Questions" is a joint project of Benetvision and NCR. This podcast has been made possible in part by the generosity of Bill and Jeanne Buchanan.
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