Romans
8:15-27
Pentecost
May
24, 2015
William G. Carter
I consider that the sufferings of this present
time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing
of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of
its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation
has been groaning in labor pains until now; 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. For in hope we were saved. Now
hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen. But if we hope
for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps
us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very
Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the
heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for
the saints according to the will of God.
Pentecost
is a noisy day. The last of the fifty days of Easter, we call this the birthday
of the church. And we remember: the early band of Christians gathered in the
upper room in Jerusalem. As they hid from the outside world, God blew in
through the windows. The Spirit of God came upon them like the sound of a
mighty wind. Everybody in the room started preaching the resurrection of Jesus, in all the known languages
of the world. It was a noisy day.
From
the Psalm, Psalm 104, we have a poem about how the world was made. It has seven
stanzas, one for each day of creation, and the psalm is full of noise. Listen
to the thunder in the clouds, the roar of the waterfalls, the symphony of the
birdsong, the mooing of the cattle, the roaring of the lions, the splashing of
the sea monsters. Psalm 104 says the world is full of noise because the Spirit
of God gives life.
In
Romans we hear another noise. It’s the sound of a groan … hhhhhh. It is a belly groan,
like a woman who is ten months pregnant and the baby isn’t here yet… hhhhhh. Paul says all of creation is
groaning… hhhhhh.
He
does say all creation. Paul doesn’t think small. All creation, he
says.
That
makes sense if you read the Bible. Whenever anything big happens in the Bible,
all creation is affected. Adam and Eve disobey God, and the garden becomes a field
with thistles and thorns and snakes that bite. When Israel was in Egyptian
slavery, God spoke to Moses; and there was a bush blazing with fire yet not
consumed. When God gave the law to Israel, there was thunder and lightning,
fire and smoke, and a thick cloud covered the mountain.
And
it continues into the Christian scriptures. When Jesus was born, Matthew said
there was a strange star in the sky. When
Jesus died, Matthew there was darkness and a great earthquake, and the tombs
opened and dead people got up and walked into Jerusalem. At dawn on Easter,
there was another earthquake and the stone was rolled away. And when the Spirit
came on Pentecost, there was wind and fire.
Life
affects life. Everything we do - and everything that happens to us - has some
impact on nature, because all of life is connected. That’s why Paul speaks of “all
creation.” And if there is a single sound at the heart of it all, it’s a groan.
Hhhhhh.
Some
of the scholars say he is using mythological language here. Maybe so, but you
know where those scholars say that? From their desks indoors. If they only closed their books, shut down
their computers, and went outside to listen, they might hear the groan.
My
wife and I went to the Canadian Rockies two summers ago. It’s one of my
favorite places on the planet. I would go there every summer if I could. We
flew to Calgary, drove over to an inn in Canmore, threw our suitcases inside,
and then drove an hour up the road to Lake Louise. Ever been there? It’s one of
the most beautiful lakes in the world, surrounded by ten thousand foot peaks. We
had canoed on the lake on our honey moon, and we couldn’t wait to get back.
There was no way to even get within two miles of the parking lot. The road was
jammed with tourists, people parking sideways, Canadian Mounties turning away
the excess throngs. I didn’t realize that Canada had a Labour Day, too. For
them, like us, it’s the last hurrah of summer.
We
waited in line, couldn’t get in, turned around and came back two days later. When
we got there, we noticed the Victoria Glacier was a third the size that it was ten
years before. It’s melting from the warmer climate. The trash cans were full,
and a lot of the tourists didn’t bother to throw anything in the trash. They
threw it on the ground. And off in the distance, I heard creation groan.
This
isn’t mythological language. It’s real. Paul says it is a form of prayer. When
you don’t have the words, when you don’t know how to pray or what to pray, the
Spirit groans. Hhhhhh. That is one of
the noises of Pentecost, in sighs too deep for words. Have you ever prayed like
that?
I
stood beside a hospital bed this week. In the bed was a man I love as much as I
have ever loved anybody. He’s been having problems swallowing. Apparently the
disease that is affecting his reasoning has affected his memory of how to swallow.
I stood there, and I didn’t know how to pray. The words didn’t come. Here is
the sound that my heart made: hhhhhh.
Is that a prayer? You bet it’s a prayer – a request for him and for all things
to be made well.
Frankly,
some of the prayers that I hear are a lot smaller than that. If we lived in
Atlanta, we could tune in to see that
sparkly TV preacher. His name will tell you everything: Creflo Dollar. Apparently
his given name was Michael Smith, but he changed it to Creflo Dollar. And he’s
all about the dollar. His private jet is getting old, so he says the Lord has
told him to pray that 200,000 of his followers will each give $300 or more, so
he can buy a new $6.5 million dollar jet.[1] If
you ask me, that’s a really small prayer.
Or
there’s that football coach that we had in high school. Before we played a
game, he led us in a prayer. He didn’t care if he got caught, and he didn’t
care if any of the kids actually went to church. One time we were playing a Catholic
high school in Binghamton. It was a small team in height and weight and
numbers, and our coach prayed, “Lord, let our lions devour those Christians.” I
am not making this up. In the grand scheme of things, it was a very small
prayer.
Small
prayers are not worthy of the eighth chapter of Romans. We are talking about
bigger needs than football games and private jets. Paul speaks of the
redemption of the universe. Not merely the individual soul or our little corner
of it, but the entire created order. It has been broken. Back in chapter five,
Paul affirms that “sin came into the world through one man” (Adam), and “the
power of death spread to all because all have sinned” (5: 12). All things have
been damaged by self-centered thoughts and actions. The power of death has
threatened to consume us.
But
thanks to the loving heart of God, one man has broken the power of death, and
it’s Jesus Christ. In his death and resurrection, death has been broken. And in
Paul’s words, “Just as (Adam’s) trespass led to condemnation for all, so (Jesus’)
act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” (5:18).
That’s
why he says the whole creation is groaning, and that we who have the Spirit
groan along. It’s because we are waiting for God to fix everything, to forgive everything,
to renew everything. The groans are labor pains for a whole new world. That is
what God is promising. And while we wait, we groan.
This
is the evidence of Pentecost: that the Spirit of God within us is praying with
sighs too deep for words. And the universal message of Pentecost, that Christ
is crucified and risen, is slowly working itself out in those who wish for what
God wants to do with the world and all those within it. It is God’s wish to
make all things new, not some things but all things. And it begins with
those of us who profess that Jesus is alive and that he is the Father’s agent
to redeem the whole creation. This is God's mission.
Without
a mission, Easter is merely an oddity of nature, a tomb declared to be empty,
and that’s it. The greater mission of God is to make all things well, and all
manner of things well. It began on Easter and it’s still going on.
Sadly,
to hear some Christians talk, their mission is so much smaller than that. I’ve
heard some fundamentalists say they are only interested in making more
fundamentalists, and let the world go to hell. Hhhhhh… It's so much more than that. Let's read
the Bible, all of it, beginning with the eighth chapter of Romans. God is
interested in so much more than our little corners of turf. God loves the whole
world – the entire world - and wills it to become whole.
God
shows this by sending Jesus to preach and heal and feed, to take the world’s destructive
tendencies upon himself on the cross, and then God raises him from the dead,
announcing the power of death is broken. This is the heart of all hope, that
God is redeeming the world.
In
the meantime, what about us? We have to put our hope into action, and take part
in God’s great work of healing and restoring. We must live our prayers, for what
does it matter to pray for things that we don’t also do? Pentecost means the
church must be the church, witnessing to the abundant life of God in Christ through
deeds and words. We live at peace. We offer our lives in love. We pray special
attention to those the world rejects. In the words of one of the great critics
of Christian faith, “I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked
more redeemed” (Friedrich Nietzsche).
We
live the Gospel. We speak the Gospel. We serve the Gospel. And if the cause is
great and the matter is enormous, we trust God will do through us what must be
done, and God will finish what we cannot.
And
in the face of the world’s enormous hurts, if we don’t know how to pray, we groan
... hhhhhh … for in our wordless
sighs, that’s the Spirit of God praying in us and for us, inviting us to do
what we can, promising to finish God’s own New Heaven and Earth.
Today
is Pentecost. The Spirit of God has come among us to continue what God has
begun in Jesus. And among the noises of Pentecost is the prayerful sound of a
new creation being born. Can you say it with me? Hhhhhh.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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