Advent wants us to wake up so that we are ready to take in the promise that, as Isaiah puts it: “the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” The very Earth will know God.
Faced with a land that holds “the knowledge of the Lord,” that knows God, that exudes who God is, what else would we want to do than treat with compassion all people, all plants and creatures, the air and soil and water that God has given us?!!!
This is such an enormous idea, it would take eons for us to understand what it means, but at least the church calendar gives us the four weeks of Advent to ponder a world in which “the wolf shall live with the lamb,” led by a little child, the most unlikely of shepherds. Preparing entails listening to John the Baptist: “Repent, for the Dominion of God has come near. . . Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”
This bearing fruit begins with looking around us at an Earth that is full of a knowledge we don’t have. John calls the oblivious of his time a “brood of vipers.” Today he castigates us, as well, because we have also –– as nations, communities, families, and as individuals –– failed to prepare the way of the Lord by repenting of our neglect and our assumption of privilege regarding the gifts of our lands. We have ignored the knowledge Earth has of God.
Earth groans because humanity looks at Earth –– the creatures and landscapes –– as “resources” we are invited to use up instead of holding them in awe. (We should abolish the word “resources” when used to refer to the gifts of Earth. This is especially true in Intercessions so that we don’t ask God to care for the “resources” but for God to help us care for cormorants and waterways, songbirds and elk, the forests that stand in danger from wildfire, the microbes and the soil and so much more.) Earth is groaning when Earth’s waters scream at us to pay attention, showing us who is boss as the seas submerge islands. Nations and tribes watch the inevitable relocation of their people to higher ground come closer. Venice is sinking. Several-story buildings along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida crumble as the structure of the ground beneath them is undermined by water. Drought, famine, mudslides, and violence are on the increase.
The Baptist comes out of the wilderness knowing where he is standing and where he is going. He directs us to take stock so that we can begin to imagine, as he does, that our context is a marvelous place that includes not only ourselves and all of nature but also the Dominion of God.
If we come to see Earth as a place where God resides, we might begin to imagine turning toward the care of creation with gratitude rather than resentment at having to change our ways. Lutherans know that hearing about the knowledge of God that resides in Earth is the kind of announcement and promise that changes our vision and frees us to bear worthy fruit. The law, the truth about ourselves, neither points to the way we should go nor helps us see how to renew the face of Earth. The law shows us the situation, but the gospel gives us the imagination and energy to want to change our ways and honor God’s creation.
John says two things: 1) Look around you, O People, and see what is true so that you know what it is you need to repent, and then 2) make yourselves worthy of this Earth that is “full of the knowledge of God.” All Earth and beyond Earth is God’s creation and the place of God’s reigning. Considering the origins of things will help us attain enough awe for what is in front of our eyes to live with gratitude.
Some time ago a little article in the New York Times described what existed in the universe before the Big Bang. Astrophysicists know something about what happened in the “first trillionths-of-a-second after the Big Bang,” but they long thought there was nothing before the Bang. Physical evidence has changed that view. Astrophysicists now see a “backdrop of cosmic microwave radiation generated by the Big Bang.” And on top of that backdrop, they see “a pattern of concentric circles” that might be “gravitational waves” from “collisions of superbig black holes before the Big Bang.” This means that our own universe may “be but one aeon in a (perhaps unending) succession of such aeons.” Our universe might just be one universe in a chain of universes each of which had a Big Bang and sent a gravitational wave into the next universe.
And on one tiny dot in that expanse, on our Earth, a voice cried out, urging us to pay attention to what it means to be alive and to care for others. We need the help of figures like John the Baptist to call us to what matters because even though we continue to need to repent and bear fruit worthy, we are still prone to taking even extreme measures to avoid addressing the underlying problems of our time.
Some humans have even spent fortunes building escape housing. “60 Minutes” recently showed escape apartments built in vacated nuclear missile silos. Underground spaces for living and recreating (including a swimming pool) are walled off behind a steel door that weighs many tons. You can’t get in if you are not one of the wealthy owners. The message of those siloed living spaces is that you can’t save yourself from climate change unless you are fabulously wealthy. Even then, what would you find when you opened the very heavy steel door to venture back out into a ruined landscape? Is escape even possible?
With God nothing is impossible.
The God who created universes and set them in motion, who created light and darkness, the heavens and the earth, the creatures and all that breathe, the plants and insects, the leviathan and single cells –– that God knows our need. And it is that God who sent to us something very small in the huge scale of all that is –– a little child… a stump… a branch… a Word… a voice in the wilderness –– to welcome the needy into God’s justice and peace, to call us all to care for what we have been given.
Hymns to consider:
In ELW:
#434 Jesus Shall Reign
#881 Let all Things Now Living
#771 God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens
In the new hymnal supplement to ELW, All Creation Sings:
#1064 Earth is Full of Wit and Wisdom
#1065 Can You Feel the Seasons Turning
#1069 God Bestows on Every Sense
#1070 The Heavens Tell of Your Creative Glory
#1071 In Sacred Manner
Melinda Quivik
Twin Cities, Minnesota
Melinda Quivik, an ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.com. Her most recent book, Worship at a Crossroads: Racism and Segregated Sundays, is a response to Lenny Duncan's Dear Church. She calls all churches to learn why worship ways differ in our various traditions as we seek to be more welcoming.