Eco-Pentecost & Joy to the World?

 

                                                      Ruth paddling on the Moira River yesterday

 We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor,  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 one already sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 8: 22-25 NRSVue

Joy to the world! the Lord is come:

let earth receive her King!

Let every heart prepare him room,

and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing,

and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

2 Joy to the earth! the Saviour reigns:

let all their songs employ,

while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy,

repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

On Pentecost Sunday (tomorrow) it is the spectacular, chaotic, mystical story of the birth of the Christian church through the work of the Holy Spirit from Acts which understandably takes centre stage.  As always there are other readings for the day, including verses from Romans 8 about the "labour pains" of Creation and the first fruits of that same Spirit. 

Rev Leah Schade has suggested a focus on this Romans passage, an appropriate reading for a sort of Eco-Pentecost. Christians pushed our faith into an anthropcentric blind alley, to our peril. The message that "God so loved the world" that Jesus came among us, and the work of the Holy Spirit is to redeem all of Creation was pushed aside to give human salvation priority. How could we have forgotten that our scriptures begin with Creation and that the Creator declared this as good? 

We do need a passion for healing Creation through restoration and care rather than greed and exploitation. And while we can hear the natural world groaning all around us we also need to celebrate the creatures and ecosystems which allow us to rediscover joy and hope in the midst of so much degradation. 

Perhap we could really confuse folk by singing "Joy to the World", an Isaac Watt hymn we usually associate with Christmas. That wasn't Watt's original intent for the hymn, and for me it resonates with Romans 8 and an eco-Pentecost theme. 

3 No more let sins and sorrows grow,

nor thorns infest the ground:

he comes to make his blessings flow

far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found,

far as, far as the curse is found.

4 He rules the earth with truth and grace,

and makes the nations prove

the glories of his righteousness

and wonders of his love, and wonders of his love,

and wonders, wonders of his love.