When I was young, we lived in Minnesota and my dad worked with Native American Indian churches. I remember him coming home and telling us about an elder in a church who told him about talking with a tree and consulting with a certain rock. I remember that he did not tell us about it with condescension or disdain, but more with wide-eyed wonder and amazement and perplexity. For my dad, born and raised in New York City, this was new, foreign, and unfamiliar territory in many ways!
In Psalm 19 we hear:
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.. . .
their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
[italics added]
These verses, as the italics indicate, definitely imply speaking or at least communication. We hear the heavens, the firmament, the day, and the night. There is the implication of speech and communication: the natural world doing a lot of talking!
Let’s turn to the New Testament and the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that we read on Palm Sunday. In the story, the crowds are shouting, “‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of God. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.’ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’” [Luke 19:38-40] In this story, again we hear of the natural world speaking, communicating. The rocks have voice.
In the letter to the Romans, also in the New Testament, there is the declaration, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.” [8:22] This reference again implies verbal communication from the natural world.
These scriptural verses should have prepared my father for his encounter with the Native American elder. In them we are reminded that creation is the self expression of God, so the natural world communicates God. It proclaims, declares, tells, shouts, voices, groans the will and intentions of God.
I am wondering what the natural world, creation, is saying to us today? What are the rocks, the trees, the air, the waters, trying to communicate to the human species? What divine disclosure is coming to us from the earth and all the life forms that make their home here? Consider taking some time, ideally outside, to listen and to imagine what is being said to you by creation.
Prayer
Creation is an amazing interconnected whole. Its mysteries continue to defy our full understanding just as God in some measure always remains a mystery. While the natural world is sacred, we have not cared for and revered it as we should. We have not given the Earth the respect and value it deserves. Too often, we take creation for granted and ignore our need of it. Yet nature shows us God. May we pay attention to the messages, the disclosures, the revelations that are being communicated to us by the natural world. So may we hear God speaking. Amen.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 