The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez
Romans 8:12-25
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God…
I have to wonder if Paul had summer camp in mind when he wrote those words. I’m only partly joking when I say that. I’ve just come back from a week at the Bishop Claggett Center, our diocesan camp and conference center, where I was the chaplain for the final session of camp. I’ve got the sunburn and the friendship bracelets to prove it. The Bishop Clagget Center, for those of you who haven’t been there, is a special, beautiful place any time of the year, but it really shines during the summer, when it is overrun by campers. Loud, rambunctious campers who are probably more interested, at least at the beginning of the week, in tie dying and canoeing and the swimming pool than they are in chapel. But in spite of that, or maybe because of that, God shows up at camp in profound ways. I know that Paul wasn’t talking about summer camp when he wrote the words we heard this morning, words about how salvation is not just about a personal relationship with Jesus, something that, in other words, concerns only individual human beings. But Paul’s vision of nature groaning for salvation does describe summer camp, and I can’t read it any other way this morning.
The theme for Camp Claggett this year was “Re-Creation: Making Things Happen with God.” All week, we focused on stories about how our God has helped God’s people begin anew, time and time again. We heard stories about how Jesus healed paralytics and the blind. We heard stories about God’s love for the children of Israel. We heard stories that invited us to become partners with God as God makes all things new, releasing creation from its bondage to decay.
That, of course, is the grand story of Scripture, a story that begins and ends in a garden. When Paul speaks of creation being subjected to futility, he is talking about Adam. When Adam sinned in Eden, God cursed the ground, subjecting it to futility, so that humanity would toil to bring forth food from the earth. Since then, Paul tells us, the very earth beneath our feet has been groaning for salvation, for a promise that the curse would be lifted. Creation has been waiting for the children of God to be revealed. Creation has been waiting for God to adopt humanity as daughters and sons. Creation has been waiting for Jesus Christ. That is why, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Pharisees that if he silences the crowd cheering on his entrance to Jerusalem, the rocks will cry out. And still, creation waits, groaning in labor pains, for the consummation of our hope. In Christ, God has promised us that all will be made new, and yet, we wait. We wait for the end of God’s great story, which, again, will take place in a garden. In his Revelation, St. John records that the final vision he received was of a new heaven and a new earth. He saw the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. He saw God making a home with humanity in this city, in the midst of which was a garden. Through this garden runs the river of the water of life, and on the banks of this river grow twelve trees, the leaves of which are for the healing of nations. In this garden, John saw humanity once again dwelling in perfect relationship with God, just as our first parents did in Eden. And we wait, with inward groans, for the promised redemption of all creation, which will take place in this garden.
Until then, we have summer camp. At a staff meeting this past week, the camp director remarked that she was convinced that heaven is going to be like summer camp. I have to agree with her. There is something about summer camp that is special. In the midst of sunburns and homesickness, something profoundly spiritual happens. Campers begin to talk about God in beautiful and surprising ways. They request songs to be sung in chapel. They pray—oh! they pray. During a chapel service this past week, I invited the campers to write or draw their prayers on index cards, and we pasted the prayers all over the chapel walls. They were amazing prayers, the kind that only children can pray, prayers that God keep their families safe, prayers for pets, prayers for watermelon, prayers that they might be a support for parents with terminal illnesses, prayers that they might tell people about the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, prayers that God might, through them, make all things new.
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.
Beloved, we do not know when that garden that John saw shall come down from heaven. We do know that we are called to work with God to make all things new. We do know that, from time to time, at places like summer camp, we catch glimpses of what heaven will be like. We do know that we are saved in hope, through Jesus Christ. The hard thing can be to remember this, to live in hope. And yet, after summer camp, everything seems a little bit more possible. During camp, one of the campers came up to me and said, “When I grow up, I am going to be a priest.” Now, I don’t know if she is going to be a priest when she grows up, but I do know that God was at work within her that moment, making all things new, beginning with her. And I know that the God who makes all things new is with us now, helping us to wait in hope, helping us to see things anew through the eyes of a child, just back from summer camp.
Amen.
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