These Labor Pains [Proper 11A]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Romans 8:12-25
These Labor Pains
It has been said that “on a long
enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”[1] And I suppose that could be extended to everything as well: animals, plants,
civilizations, even worlds, even planets.
On a long enough time line, the survival rate of everything drops to
zero. Everything has an expiration date.
In many ways St. Paul's world, the
world of the 1st century Roman Empire, was very different from
our own. In a time before refrigeration
and dentistry, “decay” was a more aggressive daily reality. In the centuries since Paul penned this
letter to the church in Rome, from which we heard this morning, we have created
and innovated; we have changed the landscape.
We have built warehouses full of gadgets that slow decay, postpone
decay, delay decay. But never stop
it. We've yet to stop it. Some things never change. For all our technological advances, we still
have expiration dates.
And while, on the one hand, we do
everything we can to prevent our own decay, to ward off the reminders of the
inevitability of death – laser our eyes, lift our faces, color our hair –
collectively humankind puts even more effort and greater resources into
destruction. If the actions of the first
human beings started our fall into exploitation and decay, as a species, we've
done little to stop the fall.
Humankind is caught in a terrible
pattern of self-destruction – and we are taking down the rest of creation with
us. Each missile pushes us closer to an
expiration date; each child killed by violent, war-crazed grown-ups is another
scar on our future; each bomb dropped a reminder that we prefer domination to
mercy.
We kill each other. We pollute the skies, the waters, and the
land. Our pursuit of power and money
leaves behind us the rubble of things beautiful and sacred and
irreplaceable. Decay. Destruction.
Domination. And once it is gone,
once they are gone, we cannot get it back.
The Apostle Paul looked around and
saw a creation subjected to futility by the very ones to whom God entrusted
it. The stewards claimed ownership, and
then wrecked the place. Paul was not the
first person to expect God to step in and put an end to the madness; and he is
certainly not the last. Paul knew we
would never right the ship save the grace of God – and he lived on the good
side of The Doomsday Clock. Some things
never change.
But what if I told you, decay is
not the end of this story? What if I
told you destruction does not have the last word? What if I told you what seems like death
throes are actually labor pains?
I've witnessed labor pains –
all-natural labor pains. I've never felt
them. But I have heard them. I have seen them. I have listened as my wife has reflected on
and processed the experience.
For something that is extremely
natural and highly common, it is an awful event. It is painful, again I've never felt the
pain, but I've seen it, and I have no doubt that the pain is
incomprehensible. And I am told that the
process – the labor pains and giving birth – is something like a death. My wife describes it this way: “Pain,
suffering, joy, and healing...this is how new life comes.”[2] I've seen it; it's true.
A whole creation, groaning in labor
pains. Waiting for what is next, for
what is coming, for what is new. And not
only the creation, but we ourselves.
Waiting for what is next, for what is coming, for what is new. All together.
Waiting together. As the missiles
fall in Israel and Palestine: We wait for what is next. As planes, full of people, fall from the
skies: We wait for what is next. As
cities and villages sink into a warming ocean: We wait for what is next. As the ticker scrolls yet another mass
shooting across the bottom of the screen: We wait for what is next. Because there is something after all of the
pain and decay and destruction. A
salvation. We hope.
We hope because don't see it. Because it is not here yet. Because no one hopes for what is seen. We hope for what we do not see. We hope because where others see death, we
see new life. Coming.
There is a story that goes like
this: once upon a time a boy approached an archbishop and asked him that
annoyingly, probing question, “Are you saved?”
The archbishop replied, “I have been saved, I am being saved, and I hope
to be saved.”[3] Resurrection is the reality. And while we see it only in fleeting
glimpses, it is breaking through in the world in which we live and move and have
our being. Even breaking through in our
own lives – lives that should witness to this impending reality. Our hope has not yet been fulfilled, the
reminders of that are all around us, but we are still called to foolishly and boldly
live our hope even as the bombs fall.
Our hope is resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus has bigger
implications than for which most Christians even dare hope. We satisfy ourselves with a vague idea of a
disembodied afterlife. But Paul expects
more. For Paul the resurrection is the
beginning of something. Through Christ's
resurrection we will be raised. But Paul
takes it even farther. The resurrection
of Christ will change everything. All things
are being made new. The entire cosmos
will experience resurrection. The new
life of Christ will become the new life that rips through everything in all of
creation.
Hope is hope. It cannot be seen. I cannot be proved. But when it is lived, it is powerful. And while the pain and struggle in this world
can be overwhelming, God knows our death throes, our violence and destruction,
are really labor pains. The resurrection
of Christ will one day break through this old reality with new life. It's already happened, it just hasn't
happened yet. The last word has not yet
reached our ears, but it has been spoken.
And that word is resurrection.
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