Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

This Christmas I am drawn to two verses in Psalm 96, the eleventh (designated as the antiphon) and the twelfth. In this psalm we are called to praise God, and (here’s what catches me) all creation is to get in the act. “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy  . . . ” Once again, biblical insight anticipates the process ecological corrective necessitated by human anthropocentrism. Yet the long first sentence is directed, presumably, to us human creatures (cf. v. 7: “O families of the peoples”.). The imperative’s direction is appropriate, for the “creation groaning in labor pains” (Ro. 8:22) gets to play the victim in the planet’s drama to the wide ranging forms of human sin Paul recounts in his epistle. This is a long-standing crime, more fully empowered by humankind’s technological instrumentation for greed’s song. This Advent season we know that it is late, but it may not be too late. Holmes Rolston, III, proposes that evolution has now reached a stage where a kenotic imperative is newly empowered. He writes (The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis, ed. John Polkinghorne, 64) of the possibility that “self-interested humans impose limits on human welfare on behalf of the other species.” That could get us to verse 12’s wonderful indicative, fields exulting, trees singing for joy. Christmas sings of “peace on earth” and calls us to live to bring “peace to the earth.” That will be praise indeed for the Creator who fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24). ~ Paul Sponheim