Sermon September 18, 2011

Romans 8:18–27

“Celebrating God's Wilderness”

From only my personal experience, I find it hard to imagine what it is like to be in the wilderness beyond contact with human civilization. That's not to say that I haven't spent time in rustic settings, but I've never truly been out in the wilderness without access to vehicles, roads and other human technology or support system.

I've seen wilderness, but I haven't had to live in the wilderness—and while I'm much more comfortable because of it, I would have to say that my life would be richer with more wilderness experiences. Most of the world has had much more experience I have and that many of us have had in direct contact with God's created wilderness—those untamed and uncivilized places where the ecosystems existing above and beyond the physical presence, if not the influence, of human activity.

When we read of the wilderness in the bible, we realize that while wilderness places are seen as dangerous and risky place—they aren't negative or evil places. Biblical wilderness experiences are told in many ways and wilderness places are described in many ways. In the earliest books of the bible, from Abraham and Sarah to Moses the wilderness is a place of maturation, a place of growth and development. Wilderness places where plants and animals live dependent solely upon the abundant interaction of God's creation—and are at the mercy of those systems of interaction, systems that stem from God's genius of community interdependence.

And that's where I hear the voices from Joel and from the psalmist interacting. Joel, as a prophet, gives voices to a people and a world in great distress—the distress of a widespread infestation of locusts and long lasting drought. Human civilization represented by priests, ministers, fields, vineyards and oil production mourn and wail in pain. Living things beyond humanity—seeds or grains and herd animals bellow in hunger and wander in famine. And the devastation of fire and drought cause the wilderness pastures to be destroyed—the waters to dry up—and all food, water and shelter is ruined. While this isn't a pretty picture—the wilderness is not the source of sorrow—the wilderness also cries out to God for protection, for sustenance and for mercy in the face of devastation.

As we contemplate places of wilderness—whether they are distant and untouched or simply unpopulated, yet nearby—we can imagine the voices of those places lifted in pain and loss as the actions of myriads of human beings threaten to overwhelm their lives. Of course, we aren't the only forces acting upon other living things, but our influence can be shockingly destructive to delicate systems of life. We can imagine the voices of the stones and rocks crying out—as Jesus once said they would shout in joy—in this case in sorrow and anger and pain.

Can you imagine the painful witness they could make as they have watched human beings unthinkingly drown the goodness and wealth that God has placed in wild places? When we read of the frontier wilderness of this continent—the dangerous and wild lands that once deterred small groups or single families from living even in this local area—we hear about panthers and other wildcats that saw humans as prey or competitors for food and territory. And so we removed the top predators—which is safer and understandable—and yet has had the long-term effect of an overwhelming population of deer, for one example.

It's not that we can't kill for food or find ways to protect ourselves from more dangerous parts of the wilderness—it's that we cannot do either one without thinking about it. We need to be more rather than less aware of our reliance upon wild things for our own lives—and be aware of the interdependence of all living things. In other words, nothing lives without the death of another living thing. One piece of dialogue from The Lion King reminds me of this.

Mufasa: Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope. Young Simba: But, Dad, don't we eat the antelope? Mufasa: Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.

While the lion is not actually aware of his or her place in the wildness of God's creation—we can be aware. We can be aware of how God created the wilderness and how God is reflected in the wildness. And we can be aware of the respect that we owe to the wilderness because of this.

This day of considering wilderness is valuable because opens our awareness to systems that stem from God's genius of community interdependence. Despite our desire to control this great, wild world, in our relationship to God's creation, we are called upon to realize that God's image rests in those wild and untamed places of nature—that God's image is beyond our realization and beyond our full understanding and certainly beyond our control.

And in our awareness that God's image and essence exists in the wilderness as well as in the orderliness of God's created world, we can read Paul's letter to the Roman's with our ears tuned in a particular way.

¹⁸I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that 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.¹

If the wild and untamed creation expresses suffering—or is incomplete in some way—then that suffering is a desire for completion or a more biblical word, redemption. Creation wants redemption, which in the bible means that creation need to be freed from some bondage. And non-human creation is bound as much by sin as humanity because in human sin, creation suffers, just like innocents often suffer because of the sins of others. When we can recognize that wilderness is not bound by its wildness, but by our attempts to badly control it—redemption takes on a different focus.

The suffering of creation—or the labor as it is named in Paul's letter—also lets us see that difficulty and work and especially labor is done to produce good things. In the case of a pregnant woman and labor, a baby human and in the case of created wilderness and God's own Holy Spirit—the groans of prayer, our identities and lives as God's children and the faithful living of God's will in our lives.

Our identities as God's own children and God's subsequent movement and presence in our lives can be made very real, concrete, and absolutely essential when we look at them in the wilderness setting. In the gospel text from Mark that I read this morning, when Jesus had been baptized and received God's naming and claiming as God's own beloved son—The text say, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

While Satan came to him in the wilderness, in temptation, Jesus' communion and presence was with the wild beasts and with the angels who cared for him. The Spirit took Jesus into the isolation of the wilderness—just as the Hebrew people were taken in the wilderness—as a place to find out what it meant to be God's beloved son. Jesus life became more focused on his identity and call in those 40 days with no distraction other than the wild and living things of God's creation.

Though Satan came there, it was not the place of evil and desolation it was a place of care and comfort where the abundance of God could be enjoyed. As it is told in other gospels, we may understand this time as a time of fasting—here in Mark, it is told as a time when Jesus was cared for and surrounded by God's messengers or angels.

Our focus of God's presence in wilderness can make us see the value of the wild places and times in our lives—they are not without God's blessing, instead out of those times, God's blessing may grow. And they are not without pain and suffering—labor and travail, according to Paul—but out of them come the fruits of the Spirit, the hope of faith, which we have yet to see in its fulfillment.

For a time, in this time when we are watching the seasons change, we can focus and realize the value of the wild places. We can for a time, really see the wilderness places of the world and how much they reveal to us about God's being, about our own lives as images of God and about our need to know our own sin and abuse of those wild places. We can see the value of the wilderness times in our lives—that in the pain and the labor, we are stripped down to the essentials and yet at the same time we know the incredible abundance that God has given.

Let us never forget that our God is wild and untamed—that God is God and God's image is in all that God has made.

To God be the glory—in the wilderness and wherever we are. Amen.

1Romans 8:19-21