"The Creation Waits"  Pentecost Sunday--San Williams

Scriptures: Romans 8:14-25

In the days following the recent Gulf Coast oil spill, words of blame, accusations and denial flowed almost as freely as the oil gushing from the imperiled well.  For this reason, I was struck by a report that described Michael Brune, the Sierra Club’s Executive Director, taking a helicopter ride to view the spill from the air.  The report noted that Mr. Brune was silent during the ride, and that he said very little after it.  His silence struck me as altogether appropriate.  It brought to mind that passage in the book of Job which describes the initial reaction of Job’s comforters when they saw the hideous spectacle their friend had become.  We read, “They sat with Job on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, because they saw that his suffering was very great.”  Well, we are beginning to see that the suffering in the Gulf—both human and nonhuman—is very great.  Like Mr. Brune, perhaps we should be silent for a moment in order to hear the cries of endangered sea turtles, the sound of the oil- soaked heron flapping on the sand.  Silent so that we can hear the moans of the red snapper, the dolphin, the blue fin tuna and other fish whose gills are clogged with oil.  Even the spoiled marshes, the wetlands and the beaches cry out.  Not to mention the sighs of all the people whose means of livelihood will be diminished or lost. So given the recent ecological disasters, when Paul writes about the groaning of all creation, the sound of it rings in our ears.   

But of what concern is this to us Christians?  On this Pentecost Sunday, we just heard the good news that God’s Spirit has been given to us, a Spirit that adopts us as the beloved children of God.  What do we, as children of God, have to do with the sea life and bird life, forests and fauna, air and water? 

Tragically, many Christians might answer “not much.”   Christians have tended to edit out everything in the creation story except for the creation of humankind.  We seem to have forgotten that the covenant God established with Noah was for all living things. As a consequence, many Christians think of God’s redemption only in terms of human redemption, salvation solely in terms of the individual person. We’ve written hymns saying “this world is not my home.”  We’ve created a kind of dualism between flesh and spirit, in which everything material or earthly is, at best, beside the point, while the spirit, the nonmaterial, is good.  Such distortions have resulted in a lack of concern for, and often an abuse of, the earth and other living creatures.

That's exactly why we urgently need to hear what Paul says to the church in the 8th chapter of Romans. Paul’s thoughts about who we are as children of God, about the creation’s present suffering, and about our hope—these thoughts are based on the biblical story of creation, fall and redemption. Paul’s reasoning goes like this:  God created the world good—the moon and sun, the stars, plant life, the sea creatures, the birds of the air and human beings—as a diverse and harmonious network of life. But through Adam’s disobedience, all creation became corrupt, futile, trapped in a bondage of decay.  Adam’s sin, you see, did not affect only human life, but all life.  Paul remembers how the Genesis account declares that, as a consequence of Adam’s sin, the ground itself became cursed, and thorns and thistles sprang up.  But just as the whole creation suffers because of Adam’s disobedience, so now, Paul proclaims, the whole creation is being redeemed by the obedience of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. This biblical story of creation, fall and redemption sets the record straight:  Hope, if it is Christian hope, must include the redemption of the birds, the fox, the tree, the rivers and oceans.

So, Children of God, our task is to proclaim that in Jesus Christ something new has happened to creation. Even in the aftermath of something as terrible and destructive as the Gulf oil spill, we don’t despair, because God’s renewing activity is assured.  Like a woman suffering labor pains while eagerly expecting the gift of new life, so the whole creation is laboring to give birth to the New Creation. “The Creation,” declares Paul “is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” Thus endangered forests are waiting with eager longing for the children of God to speak up, to act out, to legislate on their behalf. The sea turtles and lobsters, the wetlands and fragile deserts are waiting with eager longing for the children of God to rise up in their defense. Simply put, God loves all of creation.  As Christians, we are called to reveal that truth, and to work with God for its fulfillment.

Knowing my interest in fly fishing, a member of the church recently gave me a novel by David James Duncan, titled The River Why.  The novel is about fishing, but also much more. In the book’s afterward, Duncan, who has lived on rivers all his life, laments the loss, the decay, the corruption of so many of our natural resources.  Yet he refuses to become despondent or resigned.  Expressing confidence in a justice and redemption beyond human effort, he ended the book with this question:  “Knowing justice is inescapable, and not in human hands, I want to ask, finally, why judge?  Why hate or rage?  Why not just serve, wherever and however and for as long and as gratefully as we can, step by step, heart to heart, move by intricate move?”

Friends, the creation is waiting with eager longing for us to reveal God’s determination to free the creation from its present suffering.  As God’s children empowered by God’s Spirit, we need to sing the song of the New Creation and teach it to the world.  It’s found at the end of the Book of Psalms and it goes like this:

Praise him sun and moon; praise him all you shining stars!  Praise him you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!...Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!  Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!  Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!  Young men and women alike, old and young together!...LET EVERYTHING THAT BREATHES PRAISE THE LORD!  (from Psalm 148 & 150).