The Groans of Creation… A Sermon
Sermon written and delivered by Meagan Williams for The Church of the Good Shepherd in Covington, Georgia on Sept. 22, 2024.
Romans 8:19-25 (New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Help us remember our oneness with God, each other, and all creatures of creation. You may or may not know that we are in the middle of a time called the Season of Creation. The Season of Creation is an ecumenical effort to set aside time every year to (and this is coming from their website), “renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our siblings in the ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home.”
Now I want to make that joke that always gets made on Earth Day, and it's not a very good joke, but it does make a good point, and that is, shouldn’t every season be the Season of Creation? Right? Aren’t we always living within, and among, Creation? Or rather, living because of Creation?
But the truth is, we don’t remember that every day is Earth Day or every season is a Season of Creation. We don’t remember that act of creativity in the very beginning when God called in the light and painted the sky and the sea, brought up land, and swept over that land, creating vegetation and creatures of all kinds and called it good.
We forget that God created us in God’s image, not to subdue Creation, but to be representatives, bearing the Imago Dei, to protect and care for Creation with God.
Our separateness from God is seen through our separateness from Creation and one another. We walk down the street and we don't know the names of our neighbors, the person we pass by who doesn’t have a dry place to sleep tonight, just like we forget the names of the trees and the insects and the birds… So we have this time to remember and to renew our relationship with the Creator and all of Creation.
The theme for this year’s Season of Creation is, “To hope and act with Creation.” In the materials put out this year, there was a note that they included to emphasize the capitalization of Creation as a reminder that Creation is not an object that has been created for human use, but rather a subject that we are called to relate to and collaborate with as fellow creatures.
We are to hope and act with Creation not just for creation. We are called to remember our connection and oneness with God’s creation.
I remember a class I took in college. I went to a liberal arts school and I studied Sustainable Development, so as you can imagine I took some classes that were kind of “out there.” And I remember I took an art class that was looking at sustainability, environmental degradation, and environmental justice through the lens of art.
One of the assignments we had was to create a mask and decorate the mask to represent an endangered species. The endangered species that I chose was a flower that was native to that area. Now in a moment of confession, I will tell you I do not remember the name of the plant I chose, but what I do remember is that after we had finished creating our masks, we took turns in class, putting on our masks and responding to questions as if we were the species our masks represented.
This was a powerful experience for me. I remember becoming overwhelmed with emotion and surprised and even a bit scared by how connected I felt to this engaged flower. When I was asked if I (the flower) had anything else to share, I burst into tears in front of my whole class, as I felt the question bubble up: why? Why are we as humans not taking seriously our calling to care for Creation? Why had our actions created an inhospitable home so that these flowers could no longer thrive?
I was embarrassed by my unexpected show of emotion in front of my classmates, but deeper than that, I experienced a moment of ecological conversion. I heard, what our scripture today calls, the groans of Creation.
The groans of creation are calling out for relief from exploitation, degradation, and injustice.
We heard a lot of creation groaning this weekend as we witnessed one of the biggest storms of this century devastate states all over the Southeast. I luckily was able to get through the storm relatively easily. I didn’t lose power. That tree in my backyard that I was worried about didn’t fall down. I did get about an inch of water in my basement, and I was sweeping water out of my basement and garage, while also constantly checking my phone to see images coming from other places affected by the storm that weren’t faring as well including places where we don’t expect to see flooding from hurricanes or tropical storms, like up in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where I went to school and still have many friends and loved ones up there. As I continued to frantically check for updates, I couldn’t help but think about the groans of Creation and how we are groaning with it.
Thursday evening as we were nervously waiting for the storm to come in, I had a zoom meeting scheduled with my pastor. A couple of minutes before it was time to hop on Zoom, I got a call from her asking to push back our meeting by 30 minutes or so. She had been spending her afternoon driving around our neighborhood making sure our unhoused neighbors had a place to be that night to get out of the storm. She ran through the list with me. “Well I dropped John off at his sister's house so I know he’s safe. I spoke to Chris and I know he’s okay. But I just ran into Suzy so I need to take her to a friend’s house that she can stay at.”
Friends, we too are a part of that groaning with Creation. We too are waiting for redemption, for our relationship with Creation and the Creator to be in harmony again.
But are we listening to the groans of Creation or are we shutting them out? This includes listening to those who are most impacted by climate change, environmental degradation, and environmental injustice. The voices of people impacted by natural disasters, extreme heat, whose livelihoods were lost due to droughts, people who are forced to migrate to new lands, and people who are sick because their community’s water or air is polluted. The youth who are unsure about what their futures will hold.
Are we listening to the groans of Creation or are we shutting them out?
I think one of the reasons why it is hard for us to listen to Creation groaning is because we do not know what is on the other side. When we sit with the reality of the brokenness of our connection with Creation and how that leads to the misuse and harm of the Earth and all of the complicated problems our planet faces, it is hard to know where to start. But this is where hope comes in. This is where the hope that our scripture is talking about comes in.
One source of hope for me is through getting to be an aunt to my three nephews. They teach me so much about love, fun, and hope. I have to have hope because they are here. They will inherit the world that I am helping to create.
I was honored to be there when my youngest nephew Charlie was born. He is the youngest of my sister’s three children by about five years. My sister and her husband weren't sure they would have another after my first two nephews were born. But one day my sister called me up. I was still in seminary at the time. I remember I was on campus at Emory when she called me and told me they were expecting their third child. The first thing I thought was maybe this one will be a girl and she will finally name one of her kids after me like she promised.
But I remember this conversation was so different compared to the other times she had shared this news with me. When I found out about her expecting her first child. I was standing in the kitchen with a bunch of my family. When they told us the news, I just burst into tears. I elbowed past my other siblings and my parents, to get to my sister and hug her. I was overcome with joy. I knew how much they were excitedly and hopefully waiting for this big change in their life.
But with the third, it was different. This pregnancy was a bit unexpected and unplanned. There were concerns about money and space. They had already settled into their family of four. They were no longer parents of toddlers. For parents, you know that is a milestone when you are no longer parenting toddlers. How was this new baby going to change things? On top of that, while my sister had complications in her other pregnancies, this one was proving to be the most challenging.
As we got closer and closer to the time for Charlie to be born, the anxiety and fear of the unknowns and what-ifs were building. When the day came, I drove down to Alabama to be with my sister and my family. I got to the hospital and my big sister was preparing to become a mom of three. But she is still my big sister so she assigned me a job, and that was to monitor all of the screens on the machines that were hooked up to her that showed her contractions, her heart rate, and her blood pressure.
As it came time for the birth, my sister saw how anxious my mom and I were and asked if we would feel better if we stayed with her through the delivery. I was stunned by her ability to empathize and care for my mom and me in this moment that was painful and scary for her. I was stunned by this invitation, a holy invitation, to witness the birth of my nephew. It was such a beautiful experience that words cannot describe. The only thing I could think to say after all was said and done was that Charlie wasn’t here… and now he is. New life was brought into the world and that was hard for me to imagine amid the fear and anxiety that came beforehand.
Right now, we are in labor pains. We turn on the TV or we open up our phones and we see headlines telling us of record-breaking temperatures, storms, and droughts. We hear of devastating losses to the land and of people from war and conflict. What could possibly be on the other side of this? By the looks of it, it can’t be good.
Our scripture today reminds us though that even as we hear the groans of Creation around us, we wait in hope. We wait in hope for the redemption of humankind, of all creatures, and of our Common Home. We hope for a New Creation that we cannot yet see or understand. It is our faith in God that allows us to be collaborators with God in bringing this new life into the world—this New Creation.
Our scripture also reminds us that this kind of hope is not passive. Paul says in this passage that “if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
I think Paul is reminding us, as he does so often, that this work requires us to be humble—to remember that we are not in control. God is. God simply asks for our faith—our trust and hope embodied in action for a reality that is not yet revealed.
God is not asking for us to micromanage the unveiling of God’s plan.
You might say, well, I am not trying to micromanage God’s plan for creation. I actually have a hard time thinking or doing anything about climate change or Creation care because it is too overwhelming, too scary, or it is simply too far down on my priority list. But I would argue that when we ignore the groans of Creation, when we are frozen in fear and anxiety, that stems from our desire and effort to be in control. We know we can really only control a tiny bit. So we get stuck. We get hopeless.
God is asking us to give what we have to play our part—to remember our neighbors when there is a storm coming. To lift up the groans of Creation while we exercise our power through voting. To remember our role in creation as caretakers and representatives of the image of God.
There is a quote often attributed to Saint Augustine that says, “Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
