Readings: Genesis 29:15-28; Romans 8: 26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Paul writes, ‘We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves ….’

This reminded me of the story of ‘Bluebonnet’. (This legend of the indigenous people of Texas explains the existence of the bluebonnet wildflower - now the emblem of the State of Texas. You will find the story at Spellbinders.org.)

It also struck me how those words spoke almost prophetically to some of the most pressing issues on this planet for this generation – the serious issues of environmental decline, global warming and human responsibility. The groaning in creation.

We are confronted almost daily by such things as shrinking ice-caps and denuded forests, salty croplands and depleted resources, polluted seas and an atmosphere over-loaded with carbon-dioxide. We respond with much conflict, self-interest and considerable mix of anxiety and denial. What does faith in God say to this?

No doubt the issues that led Paul to write about the ‘creation groaning as in labour pains’, were somewhat different from ours – oppressive Roman rule, widespread slavery, a country-side wracked with drought, even his own body suffering from what he called a ‘thorn in the flesh’. Nevertheless he saw the whole creation subject to decay.

For Paul even wrote, ‘the creation is subject to futility…’ Perhaps it was the same sort of futility we may feel from time to time when all we hear of is calamity and strife, or when we experience things in great pain or serous decline; the disappearance of a species; even the decline of our own bodies, our mortality. But Paul was far from morbid. Rather he held an extraordinary sense of hope born out of his faith in Christ. So while creation in the hands of God had this element of futility about it, there was the 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’.

To understand this we look at God in creation.

God has always created the world in love and continues to do so - not a seven day creation nor one that denies evolution. God was not content to be alone (just as it was not good for the man, Adam, to be alone). The essence of love is relationships. So God chose, because of love, to have a vast array of creatures, a vast inter-woven network of all things, creatures God could be with and could care for and delight in. And through God all things would hold together. But God was never outside it all, but rather within and among all creatures, like a life-giving breath; ever the ‘go-between God’ connecting all things in one great community of life.

However the love of the Creator God is more than a feeling towards all things. Writers (John Macquarrie and John Taylor) talk about God ‘letting-be’ all things not just in any sense of ‘just let it be’, but rather actively enable things to the highest potentiality of their being. Likewise is the love of a parent or a teacher. It is the love enhances the life of every creature. We may speak of this love as nurturing the very best in what that other might be. Therefore love is always creative and generative. What is created by God is ‘good’ and forever God continues creative activity to raise up and expand and make new. And fundamentally this love of God is always self-giving or it is not really love at all.

In the book of the prophet Hosea, we find a glimpse of this Creator God pictured like a mother or a father. Here it is as though God is speaking.

When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son …
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.
I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.

However, as we well know, God in creation exposes Himself to great risk and unplanned possibilities. For God’s love creates all things in freedom, the freedom of each to choose its own way. God is like wise parents who will not hold onto their teenage children forever, but at a point in time release them to be themselves. This means there is the risk that as creatures grow towards freedom and self-determination they may turn the gift of ‘being with’ God in love into ‘being for oneself’ which ignores the creator and the love. Then the God who ‘lifts infants to the cheeks and bends down to feed them’, will be the God who suffers the pain of rejected love. Even more, God suffers pain when the self-interest of creatures leads to decay and the groaning of creation as a whole.

So it is not surprising that we hear in Jesus the heartfelt lament of God.

‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those that are sent to you. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings … but you would not!’ The grief of God shown by Jesus seems to speak about all creation! This is an example of the great pain of God when things are seen to be ‘groaning as in child-birth’.

Israel’s story is liberally scattered with stories of God’s love denied or broken. Much of the story of Jacob and Esau is enough to break the Father’s heart – God’s! How those two brothers fought. Consider the scheming and conniving by which Jacob took his brother’s inheritance in exchange for a pot of stew and then stole the blessing due to Esau, from the dying father Isaac!

The brothers’ squabbles which caused great grief in God were amazingly eclipsed by the mercy and providence of God! So, even when Jacob was fleeing for his life, God met him in that dream of a stairway to heaven. There over against all Jacob’s self-interest and ill-will towards his brother, God gave Jacob the land and the blessing and a promise of His enduring presence. The heavenly Father’s picture of life is always bigger than that of the children! The creative, self-giving, suffering love of God far out-weighs human weakness!

In our story today, Jacob on his return from Mesopotamia has to confront his dark side, his streak of self-interest. At the Brook Jabok, he wrestled with a man, a God-like figure. There the blessing of God was endorsed. Jacob was given a new identity and name, Israel. But the new man, Israel would henceforth proceed with a limp – maybe forever! Consequences!

The story shows that human sinfulness and decadence cannot thwart the providence of God. But we see in all creation two forces. On the one hand there is God’s self-giving, creative love; God’s suffering love. On the other hand there is human self-interest that does not accord with God’s love. However in the providence of God the love of the Creator God will never depart.

Paul expressed the same thing in these words, ‘The principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the principle of sin and death.’ In Jesus Christ, the struggle between the life-creating forces in God and the opposing forces of self-interest and decay has been won!

When Paul saw the whole creation groaning he saw also the suffering of Christ as God’s suffering-love in and with all creation wherever it is found suffering – in Jerusalem’s rejection, in the pain of parents, the oil-scarred wetlands, the war-torn cities, Somalia’s starvation. The God of creation is right in the middle of creation – yes, in all its beauty and grandeur; but too in its turmoil and decaying worst. Why? Because God cannot retreat from His love in and with all things, for God both delights in the world’s beauty and feels the world’s pain - like we feel the pain of our much-loved children who fall and hurt themselves.

So in every age God’s providence is shown to be bigger than all the decay and self-interest. Always there is a returning and overcoming; always a hope beyond the turmoil. ‘In Christ there is a representative new beginning for all things’, says the Basis of Union. In the centre of that new beginning is a new breed of children of God, those who cry, ‘Abba, Father!’; those who have a deep spiritual knowing that they belong to God and are loved by God. These are the ones who are forever being formed into the image of God. The Spirit of Christ within, bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God and heir of all God has prepared for us. One of the marks of these ‘Abba Father’ children of God is that they learn to suffer with Christ wherever he suffers - whether with the denuded forests or among the broken lives of others.

How is this love expressed in this particular situation within creation? The story of Bluebonnet gave one answer – sacrificial love!

Charles Birch gives a different slant. He was a magnificent scientist and Christian man. He writes of these things in his book, ‘Regaining Compassion – for humanity and nature’. It is about human love for all things in creation – a feeling with and for. His last chapter is headed ‘At-one-ment’ (hyphenated). It is about the Christ-like compassion which draws all together in one; the making of peace among all things in the place of self-interest and care-less-ness that uses and abuses and causes much groaning. And Christ is the origin of that ‘making at-one’ and that is founded upon God’s love.

So in Paul, the climax of his great chapter is the declaration of the triumph of love over all things. ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? … No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us.’ The God who began this creation in love and brought it to a new beginning through the atoning love of Christ, will not let any of such things thwart God’s holy providence, that providential love by which creation is ever unfolded and perfected. And this great work of God begins among God’s totally-loved ‘Abba, Father’ children who love all creatures and who look forward with hope to God’s final redemption and glory in company with their everlasting God.

‘For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Amen