In episode one of our 2024 Advent Audio Retreat series, "Longing and Hope", Biblical Studies Tutor Simon Stocks leads us in a thoughtful reflection on Advent's themes of longing and hope.

Together, we’ll explore the tension between present struggles and the promise of renewal. We'll also take a fresh look at the Earth Bible Project, hearing creation's voice amid ecological challenges and considering our role in its story.

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Longing and hope.

As we enter Advent, we look forward and long for the day when Christ returns,

and God renews the whole creation, puts right all that has gone wrong.

And that is our hope.

We look forward to that because of what we see around us now.

The brokenness, the pain, the deathliness of the present age that

has not yet reached God's perfection.

I was thinking about hope in the summer when I went away walking

for a week, and the first day was very wet and rainy all day.

Not very pleasant circumstances.

And I could well imagine myself having been quite morose at that, quite

downbeat, based on the apprehension that it was going to be a wet week.

That it would be miserable putting on socks each morning that were

still damp from the day before, and never really getting any nice views.

But I wasn't morose.

I was actually quite content and almost to the point of enjoying walking in the rain.

The reason being that I'd seen the weather forecast, and the forecast was

for a dry week after that first day.

So it felt worth putting up with.

Confident that it was the only wet day in the week, and that I was getting it

out of the way right at the beginning.

So my experience of the day of rain was suffused with hope for the dry days ahead.

My attitude towards the now was based on my hope for the future.

And I think that's what characterises our Advent hope, that whilst we cannot avoid

the reality of what we live through now, we live through it in the light of what

we believe will come; the better day.

Nevertheless, it is wearisome at times and we long for that better day.

Sometimes it seems it is very far off indeed.

One of the biblical texts which speaks about this most clearly is

Paul's writing in Romans, chapter 8.

Where he rejoices over the new life that we have in Christ through God's Spirit.

We are brought alive by the Spirit.

And yet he acknowledges immediately that we still experience the

deathliness of this present age in the sufferings that we may undergo.

And he tries to reconcile those two things.

From verse 18 of Romans eight:

"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with

the glory about to be revealed to us.

For the creation

waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by

the will of the one who subjected it.

In hope that 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."

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now.

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 is seen?"

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Well, I can see what Paul's getting at there, but I have to be frank

that patience wears thin at times.

And we long, and we groan along with all creation.

The mention of the groaning of creation and waiting for creation to be set free,

that powerful image of labour pains, the intense agony of an indeterminate

length that creation experiences,

turns my mind to the environmental and ecological

crisis that we are conscious of.

The seeming reality of global warming, no matter what the causes of that may be,

and the devastating effects, not only on humans, but on the creation itself, as

previously fertile land becomes infertile,

coastlands are lost to the sea,

animals and species can no longer inhabit areas that they could before.

Serious change is undergoing.

Now I want, with that in mind, to turn us to the Earth Bible Project, which is one

particular response to the environmental crisis, and thinking about how we read the

Bible from an ecological point of view.

The Earth Bible Project is undergirded by principles of what are called eco

justice, and the first three of them, which I will focus on here, are intrinsic

worth, interconnectedness, and voice.

Intrinsic worth, that is of the whole of the created order, the eco bible project

asserts at the outset that every aspect of creation is of intrinsic worth, and

no part of it should be instrumentalised for the benefit of any other part.

So in other words, the earth itself is of as much value to God as are human beings.

Well, maybe not as much, but has an intrinsic worth.

Every aspect of creation is interconnected to every other, and every aspect, part

of creation, potentially, might have a voice, might have something to say.

Now, the biblical texts, obviously, derived from humans,

tend to give voice to humans, and prioritise the human perspective.

So one of the tasks of the Earth Bible Project has been to read Scripture

afresh from the point of view of trying to discern the voice of other

aspects of the created order, the voice of the earth in particular, and

to allow the earth to have a voice.

And we get a hint of that idea in what Paul writes about in Romans

when he mentions the whole of creation groaning in labour pains.

So I want to try a little thought experiment, this, today - I was going

to say this morning, but you might not be listening to this in the morning.

A thought experiment,

because when I think about longing and groaning and looking for something

better in the future, those of you who know me will not be surprised that my

mind turns to the Psalms of Lament, which is my particular area of interest.

And the laments give voice to people who are longing for something better.

But how about, based on the principle of recovering the voice of the earth,

we allowed a psalm to be the expression of the earth, in light of the current

environmental and ecological crisis.

What if we gave voice to the earth, and allowed it to express it's groaning,

and it's longing, and it's pain.

So, I'm going to read Psalm 13,

which has a haunting, repeated question, How long?

Which, of course, chimes in exactly with the idea of longing

and hope for the renewal.

So, let's listen to Psalm 13, as spoken, as it were, by the earth.

"How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my being and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, And my

enemy will say, I have prevailed.

My foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I, trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord, Because he has dealt bountifully with me".

I wonder what stands out for you in that psalm, as you hear it, as

it were, as the voice of the earth.

For me, it brings home to me that the whole of creation longs for renewal.

That there is a waiting and a groaning for something better.

And a questioning as to how that will come about and when.

There's also one very particular question which haunts me in that

psalm, when read that way, which is the identity of the enemy.

We've heard the earth say, as it were, How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

So who might the enemy be?

In thinking about that, I was reminded of an extract from a book by Denise

Hopkins called Journey Through the Psalms, who, as a church minister, has

often used the Psalms in teaching and Sunday school, Bible study and the like.

And in discussing the identity of the enemies, she recounts

having posed that question.

When I posed this question about who the enemies are in the Psalm to a group

at a church Bible study, parents were shocked to hear their teenagers say

that the parents were the enemies.

Our parents, the youth felt, don't really understand us.

They're always waiting for us to mess up so they can ground us

or say, you see, I told you so.

There were some elderly people who saw in the language of enemies a

description of their adult children who were watching them closely

for the first signs of senility.

They said, they're just waiting for me to leave the stove on when I go out,

or forget my keys, and then, quick as that, I'll be put in a nursing home.

Hospital patients saw doctors as the enemy.

Huh, just when I'm feeling a bit better, they order more

tests and jab me for more blood.

They hurry into my room, talk medical jargon and leave, never

asking how I really feel or if I understand what's happening to me.

And many people thought that their bosses were the enemy, waiting in ambush

to deny them a promotion or a raise.

And when I raised this question at a pastor's retreat, the pastors

chuckled with relief to hear that some of their colleagues thought of

the church council in this role, just waiting for the pastor to do something

that they could complain about.

So in other words, we need to be ready for the enemy to be someone who we would

never naturally think in that role.

And ultimately, in this case, to even recognise that

maybe the enemy of the earth,

as it faces its environmental and ecological crisis, is humanity.

We need to be ready, like King David, to hear the voice of the prophet

Nathan saying to us: 'it's you.'

And to question,

what is our response to that?

How do we value the earth as God's creation, as something of worth

in its own right, and not merely an instrument for human enjoyment?

So let's pray.

God of all creation, with this psalmist we cry out to you, How long, O Lord,

how long must I bear pain in my soul as I see the trouble around me, and I am

embedded in the suffering of the world?

But even as I hope in you,

help me to hear the voice of the earth in its own groanings for renewal and relief,

and to be ready and willing to recognise my part in that.

Give me wisdom

to live as a partner of all the created order, valuing and tending

it, even as I seek your relief and hope in a better future.

In the name of Christ our Lord.

Amen.