Creation Groaning

Romans 8:18-23

Rev. Monte Marshall

 

I don’t about you, but I find Paul’s metaphor deeply engaging:  Creation Groaning.  What is creation?  Matthew Fox answers: “Creation is all things and us.  It is us in relationship with all things…the whirling galaxies and the wild suns, the black holes and the microorganisms, the trees and the stars, the fish and the whales, the wolves and the porpoises, the flowers and the rocks, the molten lava and the towering snow-capped mountains, the children we give birth to and their children, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs.  The unemployed single mother and the university student, the campesino and the landowner, the frog in the pond and the snake in the grass, the colors of a bright sunny day and the utter darkness of a rain forest at night, the plumage of sparkling parrots and the beat of an African drum, the kiva of the Hopi and the wonder of Chartres Cathedral, the excitement of New York City and the despair of an overcrowded prison….It is the spiraling, dancing, crouching, springing, leaping, surprising act of relatedness, of communing, of responding, of letting go, of being….Thus  all creation is a trace, a footprint, an offspring of the Godhead.”[1]

Creation!  A hymn verse asks the Creator, “God of the sparrow, God the whale, God of the swirling stars:  How does the creature say Awe?  How does the creature say Praise?”[2]

But Paul’s metaphorical language conveys something more.  He writes of this awe-inspiring, praise-inducing creation, groaning.  Groaning is the sound of intense suffering.  Groaning expresses anguish too deep for words.   Groaning is a universal language born of pain.

Paul imagines the creation groaning.  Paul imagines the creation groaning because of its “subjection to transience and futility.”  Paul imagines the creation groaning because of its “slavery to corruption.” 

Now I have a sense of what Paul means. Nearly ten years ago, I went on a mission trip to a remote village in the Mexican desert south of Big Bend.  The mountains were incredible.  The desert floor was harsh but strangely beautiful.  For several hours on a Friday afternoon, three of us hiked to the top of one of the mountains nearest our village.  When we reached the peak, we couldn’t believe our eyes.  The vista before us was breathtaking and unforgettable.

But in the midst of this spectacular natural beauty, I also became aware that danger, decay and death were also woven into the very fabric of the created order.  The mountains I admired in the Mexican desert were formed by volcanic activity and erosion.  In this wilderness place of beauty were insects that could sting, serpents that could strike, and animals that could bite.  The soil upon which we walked was formed from the decomposition and decay of formerly living things—dead plants, dead insects, dead animals. 

And Matthew Fox reminds us that there is a law “in the universe” that “seems to dictate that things eat and get eaten, are born and die for the sake of other generations of evolutionary surprises.”  Fox then quotes another author, Erich Jantsch:  “’With the possible exception of photosynthesizing plants, all life lives off other life.’”[3] 

From a human perspective, it seems appropriate to use the word “suffering” when speaking metaphorically of this evolutionary process because we human beings experience the pain of its unfolding.

But there’s more to the groaning of creation than this.  There are present sufferings that we human beings have inflicted upon the creation and upon ourselves.  So as greenhouse gasses generated by human activity accumulate in the atmosphere, the creation groans; as the earth’s temperature rises and the climate changes, the creation groans; as oceans warm, ice caps melt, and sea levels rise, the creation groans; as coastal areas flood and wildfires rage, the creation groans; as draughts threaten water supplies and whole economies, and heat waves become more intense, the creation groans; as forests die and species become extinct, the creation groans.

And we are not immune from the suffering, both the suffering inherent in the evolutionary process, and the pain caused by own irresponsibility.  We human beings are part of the creation and not separate from it.  Even those of us who know God’s life-giving Spirit still groan with the pain of a creation in travail.   

Pastor Bass Mitchell shares this story:  A man named Baird Callicott was once standing on a river bank.  The river “had become choked with industrial waste and sewage.”  Instead of being clear and pure, the water was tainted “with a black and brown silt.” 

While gazing at the river, Callicott “felt a deep pain inside….He had not planned, he said, to drink from the water or buy land near it, but yet he felt wounded with it.  In that instance, he said, ‘it occurred to me that the river was part of me.’”[4]

So the creation groans, and we along with it, because we are part of it.  But there’s hope!  There’s hope for glory being revealed in us to the benefit of the whole creation.  There’s hope for liberation.  There’s hope for redemption.

Paul makes the point by expanding the metaphor.  The groaning of creation, “from the beginning until now,” is like the groaning of a woman in child birth.  These are labor pains.  Something new is being born and God is pushing it forward toward freedom!  But at the same time, there is resistance—there is struggle. 

Something new is being born through the evolutionary process.  Do we know what this new creation looks like?  No—not specifically.  It’s as if we see in a mirror darkly.  The images and contours are fuzzy. 

Nevertheless, prophets still dream dreams:  lambs and lions resting side by side, wolves and sheep living together in peace; swords beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; justice rolling down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

And we do tell stories.  And the one story that is at the heart of gospel is the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And it’s in this story—a story of God’s work and God’ promise embodied in a human being—that we find hope—hope that this new creation struggling to be born, will come forth in freedom, in life, in love, in justice, and in peace!

But here’s the question for us today:  As painful as the struggle already is for the creation to give birth to something new, will we exacerbate the pain and increase the resistance by continuing to destroy, pollute and despoil the planet that is our home—or will live in hope, claim who we are as God’s children, and move with the Spirit to push forward a new creation? 

Pastor Jim Antal of the United Church of Christ clings to this hope; it keeps him going and it motivates his call to action.  He writes:  “Surely God does not want for us an earth that is uninhabitable.  And so I say to you that we are going to find a way to keep 80% of the known carbon reserves in the ground….Within our lifetime, mining coal, drilling for oil, mountain top removal and fracking will all be as unthinkable as it would be to own slaves today.  You heard me right:  our generation is now engaged in a new abolition movement.

 “Sisters and brothers:  we must not settle for a shriveled hope resigned to the inevitability of drowned cities, massive extinction, ruined crops, forests ablaze, melted glaciers, and repeat hurricanes.

“Climate change is already testing our coastal cities, our farms, our national parks, our rivers.  It’s also already testing the poor, the marginalized, the elderly, the hungry and the homeless.  Now it’s time for us to test our politicians.  Now it’s time to test any who would profit by wrecking God’s creation.

“And most importantly—now it’s time to test our faith.  I urge you to allow a great hope to enter your heart[s]….Face this challenge, follow where God is calling you, and recognize that however impossible, however unlikely, however unreachable, nothing is too hard for God!”[5]

So Travis Park United Methodist Church, with this awe-inspiring, praise-inducing creation “groaning in one great act of giving birth,” isn’t it time for us to pass the test!