Sermon preached July 20, 2014 (Creation Care Sunday for our church)
Texts: Romans
8:12-25
Listen
again to some of the words of Paul from Romans 8, this time rendered by Eugene
Peterson in his translation/paraphrase The Message. The
created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less
held back. God reins it in until both
creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment
into the glorious times ahead.
Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the
world are simply birth pangs. But it’s
not only around us; it’s within us. The
Spirit of God is arousing us within.
We’re also feeling birth pangs.
I
am not an expert on birth pangs. Nor is
Eugene Peterson, nor was Paul, for that matter.
What I appreciate about Paul’s writing here in this part of the Bible is
Paul’s affirmation that God’s redemptive work involves all of creation. We, as human beings, are part of
creation. Some of the readings today
have been chosen to emphasize that point.
We human beings are unique in creation, to be sure, but God’s love and
care extends to all creation. It is a
new heaven and a new earth that God continues to bring into being, not only a
new humanity. On this Sunday where we
are celebrating God’s good creation, a Sunday that is also Lake Superior
Sunday, we want to remind ourselves that we are part of creation and that God’s
redemptive work includes all of creation.
Another
thing I appreciate about these verses of Paul’s is that he is inviting us to
pay attention to the created world.
There are voices to be heard here, voices that speak wisely.
I
am going to be very brief this morning.
It has already been a rich morning with readings and music and there is
more to come. Let me say simply and
quickly three things, rooted in these verses from Romans 8.
Listen
to the voices of creation. In creation
we hear whispers of beauty and truth. We
come to understand that importance of the body and that we belong to the
moon. Listening to the voices of
creation, we can come into the peace of wild things. We can rest in the grace of the world. Listening to the voices of creation can help
clear the fog from our spirits sometimes.
The
voices of creation are not only voices of beauty and truth, there are sometimes
cries of anguish. Yes, these can be
birth pangs, pains that lead to new life, but we have a role to play in
that. When we hear the anguished cries
of a bruised world, will we work with the Spirit of God to repair the
world. It is true that every living
thing has some impact on the world around.
Animals eat other living things – plants and animals – to survive. We humans eat other living things – plants
and animals – to survive. We cut trees
to build homes or make paper for books.
We use water to drink and to grow foods and flowers. We will not live without destroying some
other life, but can we find sensible limits to our destruction, for in the end,
if we don’t, we jeopardize the very life of the planet. The anguished cries of creation can be birth
pangs or death sobs, and we have something to do with that. God’s redemptive work is toward
sustainability.
When
we listen to the voices of creation, we can also hear the voice of the Spirit.
The voice of beauty and truth is always the voice of God. That voice speaks within us, as well. The Spirit “groans” within us. God moves within us, inviting us to newness
of life, inviting us to share in God’s redemptive work. God’s Spirit is both a soothing voice and a
restless force. In Romans 8, Paul writes
that God’s Spirit bears witness “with our spirit that we are children of God.” He also writes that we “groan inwardly.” One of the paradoxical elements of the
Christian life is that there is this deep inner peace in knowing that we are
loved by God and this inner restlessness which continually reminds us that
God’s redemptive work is not yet finished.
Look at the world. There is work
to be done. Listen to the cries of
creation and know there is work to be done.
The voice of God’s Spirit is not only an invitation to action, but also,
and as importantly, an invitation to dream, to imagine, to think. If we cannot think about, dream about, and
imagine a different world, we cannot act as wisely as we might, we cannot live
into it.
Listen
to the voices of creation. Listen to the
voice of God’s Spirit in creation and within.
The third thing I want to say is give a…. When I was young one of the advertised
reminders that we had a role in caring for the world around us was a simple
slogan, “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.”
Give a hoot, care and act on that feeling of caring. If you need some stronger language, give a… and
put a word beginning with a “d” there. That’s a song, by the way. Paul Stookey, the writer and singer of the
beautiful “Wedding Song,” a song Julie and I had at our wedding thirty-two
years ago this week, on that same album had a simple song called “Give a Damn.” It was an encouragement to care and it
remains good advice.
So
care, and act on that caring. Give
a… Do something to make the world a
little better to care for creation a little more deeply, then do the next
thing. The naturalist Loren Eisley
wrote: Man is not totally compounded of
the nature we profess to understand. Man
is always partly of the future, and the future he possesses the power to shape.
(The Star Thrower, 296) There
is a restlessness within us, a groaning of God’s Spirit, that longs for a
better world, a world we have the power, with the grace of God, to help shape. Think, dream, imagine, do. And be.
As we shall hear in a moment, “what we ultimately need most are human
beings who love the world” (Gary Snyder, Back on the Fire, 70).
Think,
dream, imagine, do, love. Give a…..
Amen.
Paul Stookey’s “Give a Damn” (cover
version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb2AaSGExeo
Spanky and Our Gang, “Give a Damn” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFwfe4Sjvmw
Quotes and
Questions for Reflection
Psalm 136:1-9, Inclusive Language Version
O give thanks to God,
for God is good,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever.
O give thanks to the
God of gods,
whose steadfast love
endures forever.
O give thanks to the
Sovereign of sovereigns,
whose steadfast love
endures forever;
who alone does great
wonders,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
who by understanding
made the heavens,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
who spread out the
earth on the waters,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
who made the great
lights,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
the sun to rule over
the day,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
and the moon and stars
to rule over the night,
for God’s steadfast
love endures forever;
“Blossom” Mary
Oliver, from New and Selected Poems, volume 1
In April
the ponds
open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere: frogs shouting,
their desire,
their satisfaction. What
we know:
that time
chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
is a state of paralysis. What
we long for: joy
before death, nights
in the swale –
everything else
can wait but not
this thrust
from the root
of the body. What
we know: we are more
than blood – we are more
than our hunger and yet
we belong
to the moon and when the ponds
open, when the burning
begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
of hurrying down
into the black petals,
into the fire,
into the night where
time lies shattered,
into the body of
another.
“The Peace of Wild Things”
Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems
When despair for the
world grows in me
and I wake in the
night at the least sound
in fear of what my
life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down
where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on
the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace
of wild things
who do not tax their
lives with forethought
of grief. I come into
the presence of still water.
And I feel above me
the day-blind stars
waiting with their
light. For a time
I rest in the grace of
the world, and am free.
“A Reward” Denise
Levertov, from The Life Around Us, Selected Poems on Nature
Tired and hungry, late
in the day, impelled
to leave the house and
search for what
might lift me back to
what I had fallen away from,
I stood by the shore
waiting.
I had walked in the
silent woods:
the trees withdrew
into their secrets.
Dusk was smoothing
breadths of silk
over the lake, watery
amethyst fading to gray.
Ducks were clustered
in sleeping companies
afloat on their
element as I was not
on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.
But after a few steps,
I paused, impelled again
to linger, to look
North before nightfall – the expanse
of calm, of calming
water, last wafts
of rose in the few
high clouds.
And was rewarded:
the heron, unseen for
weeks, came flying
just offshore on his
post,
too up his vigil.
If you ask,
why this cleared a fog
from my spirit,
I have no answer.
from “Writers and the War Against Nature” Gary Snyder, from Back
on the Fire: Essays
One can ask what might
it take to have an agriculture that does not degrade the soils, a fishery that
does not deplete the ocean, a forestry that keeps watersheds and ecosystems
intact, population policies that respect human sexuality and personality while
holding numbers down, and energy policies that do not set off fierce little
wars. These are the key questions worth
our lifetimes and more…. What would it
take? We know that science and the arts
can be allies. We need far more women in
politics. We need a religious view that embraces nature and does not fear
science; business leaders who know and accept ecological and spiritual limits;
political leaders who have spent time working in schools, factories, or farms,
and maybe a few who still write poems. We need intellectual and academic
leaders who have studied both history and ecology and who like to dance and
cook. We need poets and novelists who
pay no attention to literary critics.
But what we ultimately need most are human beings who love the world.
Human beings are both part of nature and unique in
nature. How might we discuss that
theologically? How might we discuss that
in ways that are helpful?
What are some of the ways we can be “human beings who love
the world?”
What do you think are some of the “easy ways” we can better
care for creation? What are some of the
“hard choices” we face?
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