Point A and Point B

Point A and Point B--December 14, 2018

"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 labor 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. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with signs too deep for words." [Romans 8:19-26]

Try and draw a diagram of this whole scene, and you'll run into a problem--you can't pin God down to just on spot on your piece of paper.

At first, it sounds like the apostle here is sketching out a timeline between the present (where we are right now) the future (where, we might assume, God is) in which God will finally "set free" all of creation and all things will be put right, like a mother in labor pains waiting for the birth of the long-expected child.  And if that were the end of Paul's description, we could make our drawing look like that: a line with "us" at one end here in the miserable present, living in the world as we know it full of sorrow and sadness, of brokenness and violence, and then at the far end of the line would be the future where "God" would be labeled, off in some glorious distant utopia where all of the pains of life-as-we-know it are set aside and done.  And if that were our picture, then we would just sort of assume the Christian life is simply a matter of waiting out the clock--of sitting our hands, twiddling our spiritual thumbs, and getting time to pass until we get from Point A's sadness to Point B's serenity.

Except... Paul doesn't just picture God as off in the future--Paul says that the Spirit of God is already here, right here with us right now, like "first fruits" of a harvest that are a sign there is more to come.  Paul insists that God isn't stuck at Point B off in the future, but dwells with us now, in this moment, and in fact, groans alongside of us at all the brokenness of the world.  In fact, you could say, in those moments when we AREN'T heartbroken over violence and hatred, hunger and despair, the Spirit of God is the One who groans loudly enough to wake us up out of our pleasantly complacent naps.  God isn't just waiting to arrive in some future moment once all the mess of history has been cleaned up--God is present by the Spirit right now, aching and waiting and sighing and groaning and moving and acting to bear the brokenness and to put things right.  God isn't just in ONE spot OR the other, one time or the other, but is waiting with us in the present and is also waiting to greet us in that promised future.  Both/and, not either/or.  The God whose coming we are waiting for this Advent is also the God who groans at our side, and sighs from within us, right now.

That also means one more correction is called for in our mental picture of this whole relationship between us and God.  Even in the present, God isn't simply "up there" above us, like we usually picture.  Here, in this passage, Paul talks about our praying, and we tend to assume that prayer is the technical term for "me getting my words from down here on Earth to somehow get 'UP' to where God is in heaven."  And my goodness, there are all sorts of authors, TV preachers, and self-appointed religious leaders who are sure they have got it all figured out how to get your prayers to be heard by God, and what things will just bounce off the sky. 

That sort of thing will sell--it's a way of thinking that says that prayer is a matter of "getting what you want," and that getting your prayers answered is simply a matter of technique, as if all you need is to know the right words, the right timing, the right accompanying religious devotion, the right sized check mailed to the right church, and then your prayers will sail on through the clouds without so much as a speed bump.  That sounds appealing because it basically makes prayer a matter of control--how we "down here" can exercise control over a God "up there." And it offers a simple explanation for why "bad" things happen--God would be able to stop them, if only our prayers could get through to where God is "up there" and then God would answer.

And again, that kind of picture would be easy to label: we would be "down here," back at Point A, and God would be "up there" at a heavenly Point B.  It's the same picture as before, just turned from the horizontal to the vertical.  It's easy to picture a set-up like that, where God is locatable in one place or the other.  Our brains can grasp something like that.

But alas, once again, Paul takes our oversimplified mental pictures and breaks them open.  The God to whom we pray is also, Paul says, the God who... prays alongside of us!  When we don't know what we ought to pray--in those times when no words come, when we don't know what to ask anymore, or when somehow we sense our need is bigger than a simple, "Dear God, please do X"--in those moments, Paul tells us that we are not left to our own devices.  Paul tells us that God isn't just "up there" on the receiving end of our prayers (if only we have worded them properly), but that God is also with us, in us, and among us, groaning beyond our capacity for language.

Try drawing that picture and labeling the parts, and you'll be left scratching your head trying to figuring out whether God is at Point A or Point B, and for that matter, whether Point B is off in the future at the end of a horizontal time-line, or up in the sky at the top of a vertical one.  Paul has been saying all along that the Spirit is present here and now, as well as "up" and "out" and "then" and "there."  By the Spirit, God groans, God waits, God aches, God endures, and God sighs.

I don't think you can draw a picture like that with neat and tidy individual labels.  And I think it is good news, in the end, that you can't.

O Spirit of God, groan with us today and move us to live in light of your promised future.