The Praising Human – Dennis Ormseth reflects on God’s love of life and delight in creation serving as a model for humanity’s role in the world..
Care for Creation Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary
Readings for the Day of Pentecost, Year C (2013, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025)
Acts 2:1–21 or Genesis 11:1–9
Psalm 104:24–34, 35b (30)
Romans 8:14–17 or Acts 2:1–21
John 14:8–17 [25–27]
Acts 2:1-21 and Psalm 104:24-34, 35b are coupled for reading on the Day of Pentecost in all three years of the lectionary cycle. In addition, as in year B, the second lesson is from Romans 8. Our comments in this series on the readings for Day of Pentecost in Year A, and especially in Year B are accordingly helpful background for appropriating the care of creation dimension of the readings for this festival Sunday. As we noted there, Arthur Walker-Jones characterizes the psalm, “one of the longest creation passages” in the Bible, as a portrayal of the “direct, unmediated, and intimate relationship of God with all creatures.” In as much as “God is the spirit of life in all creation,” there is no need for mediation by either King or temple, because God’s presence “is as close to every creature as the air they breathe” (See our comment on Day of Pentecost, Year A; the quotation from Walker Jones is from his The Green Psalter, p. 120). “First in Jesus,” we suggested, “then in the Spirit of Jesus, access to God is open everywhere” (See our comment on Day of Pentecost, Year B). Once again, the significance of this universal availability of God’s presence will not be lost on those who have followed our argument concerning the displacement of the Jerusalem temple as the locus where heaven meets earth onto Jesus, as key to understanding how the narrative concerning Jesus comes to provide fundamental orientation to creation.
The second reading from Romans 8:14-17 provides the bridge from that universal presence of the Spirit to God’s care for all creation. As we also noted in our comment on the Day of Pentecost for Year B, Romans 8 is embedded in a major Pauline narrative according to which the hope for creation is focused on the “moment of the revelation of the sons/children of God.” As David Horrell, Cherryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate argue in their Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis, Romans 8 is “a particularly developed and powerful depiction” of the Pauline narrative of “a process, decisively begun yet still to be worked out through suffering and struggle (e.g., Phil 3:10-14; cf. also Col 1:24)” with “its insistence that it is only in conformity to the sufferings of Christ that a sharing in his glory and inheritance is attained (8:17).” The children of God are leading characters of the narrative, they argue, since it is their liberation on which that of creation depends and onto which the hopes of creation are focused. Thus are the children of God “led by the spirit of God,” “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him (Romans 8:14, 17)” are crucial agents for the progression of the story of creation from groaning to freedom (Horrell, Hunt and Southgate, Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2010; p. 83).
Read in the context of this narrative of liberation, a key insight to be drawn from the readings for the Day of Pentecost in Year C is that while the Spirit who is the source of the church’s life is clearly the Spirit of Christ, that Spirit is also the Spirit of the Creator of all things. The reading from John asserts the identity of Jesus with the Father, an identity that is revealed more in his works than in his being (John 14:11) (Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel of John XIII-XXI. New York: Doubleday, 1970; p. 632). But the works of the Father, Psalm 140 reminds us, are “manifold” (v. 24)—all that the psalmist has listed out in his first twenty-three verses. And as v. 30 expresses so smartly, if poetically these works are to the benefit of all creation: ‘When you send forth your spirit, they”—i.e. “your creations,” “living things both small and great (vv. 24, 25)—are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (v. 30.) The psalm, in other words, praises God for both creation and the restoration of creation, sounding a great theme for the day, to be sure, but also for the ongoing life of the church, living, as it must, by the creative power of the Spirit.
Following an argument of Walter Brueggemann in his Theology of the Old Testament, we saw earlier in this series of comments on Year C that the worship of God in biblical perspective provides right orientation to creation. For Israel, Brueggemann suggests, the context within which the generosity of creation can be received and enhanced” is public worship. Creation should not be “understood as a theory or an intellectual, speculative notion, but as a concrete life-or-death discipline and practice, whereby the peculiar claims of Yahweh were mediated in and to Israel.” While “creation” may thus be an experience of the world, ‘in a context where the world is experienced as not good, orderly, or generative, Israel has recourse to the counter-experience of creation in worship.” Worship in the temple, Brueggeman urges, “permitted Israelites who gave themselves fully over to the drama and claims of the creation liturgy to live responsible, caring, secure, generative, and (above all) sane lives, in circumstances that severely discouraged such resolved living” (Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 1997; pp. 533-34).
The repeated use of Psalm 104 as the psalm for the Day of Pentecost affirms that this understanding holds true also for the new community of Christ. Indeed, the act of reciting the psalm serves to transmit the capacity for restoration of the relationship between the children of God and God’s creation from the worship of Israel to the worship of the church. The psalm is itself an act of worship that models this reorientation. As William P. Brown shows in his excellent book, Psalm 104 presents the creation “not from the creator’s perspective but from the creature’s, specifically from the standpoint of Homo laudans, ‘the praising human.’” With poetic energy, the psalm “bursts at the seams with joy as it celebrates creation’s manifold nature,” moving from a delineation of “the broad structures or domains of creation” to “detail various life forms and their habitations.” Descending from “the divine realm (vv. 1-4 to the earthly domain, including the watery depths (vv. 6-9, 25-26) and the land (vv. 10-18), the psalmist emphasizes God’s provision for all life (vv.27-30; cf. Gen 1:29-30)” (William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; p. 144).
Psalm 104, Brown shows, can be particularly effective in the church’s response to the global ecological crisis. The psalm stands alongside Genesis 1:1-2:3 and five other major texts (Genesis 2:4b-3:24, Job 38-41, Proverbs 8:22-31, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11; 12:1-7, and Isaiah 40-55) as pillars on which biblical teaching on creation can be aligned with contemporary biological science and an ecological ethic. The “most extensive creation psalm in the Bible,” Brown suggests, significantly shades its praise of God by recognition of the existence of suffering and evil in the creation. “The psalm acknowledges the ever-present possibility of famine (v. 29), as well as earthquake and volcanic activity. It’s “wide-eyed wonder over nature’s goodness and God’s grace” is balanced by recognition that “a dark cloud looms on the horizon.” “After celebrating the sheer diversity of life, the psalmist exhorts God to vanquish the wicked.” Often considered a blemish on a perfect poem, this aspect of the psalm made sense for the ancient listener “in a less than perfect world;” “By cursing the wicked, the psalmist transfers the evil chaos traditionally assigned to mythically monstrous figures such as Leviathan and places it squarely on human shoulders. Conflict in creation, the psalmist acknowledges, is most savage among the distinctly human beasts.” This “grim petition” thus. . . rescues the psalm from seeing the world through rose-colored spectacles. The psalmist acknowledges, moreover, both predator and prey. Here is an authentic assessment of creation as it stands, not as it once was in some pristine state or as it will be in future fulfillment. It is a world in which the purveyors of chaos are not mythically theriomorphic—monsters made in the image of animals—but monstrously human.
Consistent with Brueggemann’s description of the function of worship in relationship to a “world experienced as not good,” the psalmist “aims not to provide information about how the world works but to motivate the reader to praise God and . . . to sustain God’s joy in creation (v. 31b)” (Brown, Seven Pillars, p. 145).
In the verses that precede our reading, the psalm presents a complex sketch of the “character of creation.” Light is viewed not as the first act of creation but rather as an attribute of God: “every dawn could be construed as an act of self-clothing.” The unfurling of the fabric of the heaven “is tantamount to ‘clothing’ that God cannot afford simply to shed without donning something new. No naked God is the creator. According to the psalmist, creation is not God’s body, but neither is it disposable rags.” This intimacy of God’s participation in creation is reflected also with respect to the waters: divine action to restrain them (vv. 7-9) “makes possible the provision of flowing streams for quenching thirst, providing habitation, and ensuring the earth’s fertility. The combination of stream and soil results in the provision of life and enjoyment.” Amidst the fulsome reference to animal creatures, trees are prized here not for the lumber required for human empire but rather for the hospitality they provide for birds. So also God “provides drink to the wild animals” (v. 11), “waters the mountains” and “the trees” (vv. 13, 16), causes “grass to grow for the cattle” (v. 14), provides bread, wine, and oil for human beings (v. 15, and supplies “prey for the lions” (v. 21) as well as food for all creatures “in due time” (v. 27). God’s “open hand” and “renewing breath” are evocative images of such provision (v. 28) (Seven Pillars, pp. 145, 146).
Thus, Brown concludes, “the earth is not just ‘habitat for humanity’ but habitat for diversity.” The psalm “views creation in thoroughly eco-centric terms; the earth is created to accommodate myriad creatures great and small, people included. The earth is host and home to all living kind, and as such it is a source of joy.” The joy creation gives to its Creator is perhaps the most striking aspect of this reading. “Novel to this biblical psalm,” Brown urges, “is the claim that creation is sustained not by God’s covenantal commitment but by God’s unabashed joy.” “The solemn formulation of self-restraining order” of covenantal fidelity is replaced here by “joy-filled poetry of praise.” Consequently, the “psalmist’s commendation of divine joy in v. 31b smacks of urgency. By ceasing to rejoice, God could at any moment turn creation back into a quivering mass of chaos.” Enter a new role for Leviathan, the monster of the deep: “more than any other creation” Leviathan elicits “God’s rapturous joy.” With no hint of animosity in the relationship, “Leviathan is God’s playmate!” Indeed, the monster. . . brings out God’s playful side. But godly play is no isolated moment in God’s engagement with the world. To the contrary, it supports all creation. Play makes for creativity. Were this monster of the deep to resume its traditional role as primordial adversary, then God’s delight would cease and the ancient script of chaos battle (Chaoskampf) would be replayed. The joy of play would be replaced with violent struggle, like children turning an innocent game of cops and robbers into something far too serious (Seven Pillars, pp. 149-150).
Humanity, take note: “From the psalmist’s perspective, it is the ‘wicked’ who refuse to play and choose instead to struggle against God and the created order. They are the purveyors of chaos, not Leviathan.” “ As the choirmaster of praise, the psalmist calls readers to take on humanity’s true nature not simply as Homo sapiens but as Homo laudans, the praising human, in the hope that God remains the Deus ludens, the God who plays to sustain creation” (Seven Pillars, p. 151). At home in an earth “uncannily fit for life” but threatening the very diversity that God so enjoys, humanity risks . . . destroying precisely that which the psalmist celebrates and commends to God’s enjoyment: habitats and their diverse inhabitants. By eliminating habitat and inhabitant, we are diminishing creation’s rich diversity, reducing creation to one big godforsaken bore and in so doing, turning God’s “Joy to the World” in God’s grief for the world (Seven Pillars, pp. 158-159).
With the sixth great extinction of earth’s biological species looming on the horizon of earth’s future, we might suggest, the tongues of fire of the Pentecost experience take on new meaning. Marks of divine love, they signal that God’s biophilia [love of life] should serve as a model for humanity’s role and presence in the world:
[T]o feed the flame of biophilia, both God’s and ours, we must preserve and sustain creation’s biodiversity. If Leviathan falls, then so do we all. If creation’s wondrous variety is diminished, then the psalmist’s worst fear is realized: creation left to wither away. It is incumbent upon God’s most powerful creatures to ensure that divine delight is sustained so that the world be sustained. As long as the psalmist rejoices in God and God rejoices in creation, the delight shared between creator and creature continues to sustain the world (Seven Pillars, p. 159).
With the worship of the church on the Day of Pentecost and after, it does continue!
Originally written by Dennis Ormseth in 2013.
dennisormseth@gmail.com