Cosmic Hope for Creation

The Creation Care Preaching Challenge submissions are in! Watch Do Justice this week and next to read more submissions. Thank you to everyone who participated for helping us to reflect on the Bible's teachings about creation care. This is a portion of a submission from Kory Plockmeyer. You can read the full sermon here. 

Texts: Romans 8:18-27

I’m always captivated in the Center Mall by the Vortex Coin drops. I think it’s fascinating to watch the coin go round and round and round. But of course, sometimes when you’re watching the coin go around, something knocks it off course and its whole path is altered. What was a seemingly perfect circle is now misshapen. It’s knocked off its axis and its whole path has been changed.

This morning’s text tells us that this is the story of our world.

This morning’s text tells us that this is the story of our world. It’s the broad story of Scripture that we as Reformed believers affirm, that story of creation-fall-redemption-new creation. What was created good and right has been knocked off its axis, has been knocked off-kilter by the entrance of sin into the world. Humanity’s rejection of God means that the relationship between God and humanity is not as it should be, the relationships within humanity are not as they should be, and the relationship between humanity and God’s good creation is not as it should be....

My last job was as a campus minister at Michigan State University (MSU) working with graduate students. MSU continues to be dominated by the sciences. Yet I can’t tell you how many students I met who came through our campus ministry with similar stories:

“I can’t tell my grandpa what I’m getting my PhD in because he doesn’t think that Christians should study evolutionary biology.”

“I don’t talk about what I’m studying at church because Christians don’t study astronomy.”

“I don’t talk about what I’m studying at church because Christians don’t study astronomy.”

“I don’t feel like I belong here because my countless hours of research in this field matter less than someone’s quick Google search.”

The story of Creation-Fall-Redemption-New Creation, the story of the Gospel, moves us to a posture of diligence where we want to love God’s creation, where we want to know more about it, we want to study it, we want to understand it. We want to take advantage of the knowledge that our world has come to know about God’s created world, for in so doing we come to a better understanding of who God is and how we related to God’s world. It’s why the CRC says that peer-reviewed science journals actually do tell us something about God’s world. So when the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that the climate is changing and that it’s driven by human beings and that it in turn has an outsized impact on the global poor, we have a responsibility to respond and to join in God’s redemptive work. It’s one of the reasons we celebrate God’s faithfulness to our educational institutions that have borne faithful witness for generations to this posture of diligence.

It’s why the CRC says that peer-reviewed science journals actually do tell us something about God’s world.

The cosmic scope of God’s redemption moves us into a posture of diligence where we love God’s world and want to know more about it. It means that we are careful and persistent in our care for the world. It’s part of responding to a creation longing to be made right. It’s why we serve coffee out of reusable mugs and why we serve communion out of glass communion cups. It means that in our daily work, we seek to repair the broken relationship with God’s creation. And so we ask important questions: how do we grow food in such a way that brings forth the flourishing of God’s creation? How do we design our buildings not just to withstand natural disasters but to be in harmony with creation? How do we design roadways that respect the migration patterns of wandering herds of animals? The list goes on and on down to every facet of our lives. That’s why we need Christians at work in every sphere of human activity, bringing the redemptive work of Jesus Christ in all of creation to bear in our daily lives.

The cosmic scope of God’s redemption moves us into a posture of diligence where we love God’s creation, where we care for it, and where we wait with creation. Paul links the groaning of creation with our own experience of waiting for God’s new creation (verses 22-23).

We don’t make ourselves right with God by being eco-friendly.

We and God’s creation are in the same place. This isn’t a triumphalist message that we can go out and fix all the world’s problems on our own. Rather this is the story of grace. Brothers and sisters, all of us need the grace of Jesus. All of us need to be set right with God. All of us are equal at the foot of the cross. None of us can make ourselves right with God. And we don’t make ourselves right with God by fixing the other relationships that have been knocked off-kilter. We don’t make ourselves right with God by being eco-friendly. We don’t make ourselves right with God by putting recycling bins all over, even if that is a good thing to do. We don’t make ourselves right with God by beating the drum about creation care. That’s not what saves us. We are saved only by the grace and love of Jesus Christ. All of creation longs to be set right. And so, with a posture of diligence, with love for God’s creation, with care and concern, we await the day that all will be made right. Amen.