To hope and act with creation

The Season of Creation is an annual global ecumenical event in which Christians of different denominations around the world come together to pray and respond jointly to the cry of Creation. This year, the theme of the global Season of Creation is “To Hope and Act with Creation.”

For some of us, “hope” is a difficult word. It may seem naïve, even delusional, to speak of hope and creation in the same sentence at this time in history. The last 10 years, and particularly the last 13 months, have seen the hottest global temperature averages ever recorded. Extreme weather events – from heat waves and droughts to hurricanes, extreme rainfall and flooding – are becoming more common. Catastrophic wildfires have become more frequent and more severe, with more and more people experiencing the impacts of smoke inhalation, forced evacuation and loss of homes and livelihoods. Changing weather patterns have expanded the territory and extended the active seasons of insect pests from mountain pine beetles to spongy moths and ticks, to name only three. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years. We are also seeing an unprecedented increase in ecosystem degradation and loss of biodiversity, driven by land-use changes, exploitation and pollution, as well as climate change. Some of Canada’s most iconic species, from Atlantic cod to polar bears to orca to monarch butterflies, are now in decline. And yet, we continue to burn fossil fuels, drain wetlands, clear forests, pave over farmland. How can we speak of “hope” in such a context?

Firstly, it is important to distinguish hope from optimism. Optimism is the belief that things will turn out well, but it doesn’t expect much effort or sacrifice on our part. It is a confidence that the odds are in one’s favour.

By contrast, as environmental scientist David W. Orr has written, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up. Hopeful people are actively engaged in defying or changing the odds.” The late poet Seamus Heaney put it similarly: “Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.” There is an active quality to hope that is lacking in both optimism and despair.

Indeed, despair can be as paralyzing a force as optimism. It tells us that nothing we can do will make any difference, since we are doomed in any case. Hope refuses to give in to despair. It doesn’t shy away from hard truths or bad news but keeps working for what is ultimately of value: life, the health and flourishing of all creatures, a state of shalom that encompasses all God’s creation. This is far too important for us to indulge in the luxury of either groundless optimism or precipitous despair. Indeed, climate scientists and psychologists alike have found that hopeful action helps keep climate grief from lapsing into despair.

As Christians, our hope is rooted not only in what is of value, but also in the nature of who God is – a God who delights in what God has made, who has not abandoned creation but who is continually working (John 5:17) to sustain, redeem and renew it all – including us. Created in the image of God, we are invited to participate in God’s work. Redeemed by the saving work of Christ’s death and resurrection, we are set free from our sins, including our greed, selfishness and all the structural and ecological sins that harm the Earth and ourselves. We are set free to be the children of God we were created to be.

Romans 8:19-25 tells us that creation groans but also waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. As the Season of Creation materials put it, the children of God are “those who stretch up their hands towards the Creator, recognizing themselves as humble creatures, to praise and respect God, and at the same time to love, respect, care and learn from God’s gift of Creation.”

One has only to observe the flora and fauna in our own backyards to see how relentlessly Creation strives toward renewal: how plants seize a toehold to take root in the earth, how birds and beasts continue to make nests and raise their young, how bees, butterflies and other insects continually move from flower to flower to gather food. As much as Creation is groaning, it is also actively striving to survive and flourish, as God created it to do.

Together with Creation, we hope in our Creator and, trusting in Christ’s redemption of the whole cosmos (Colossians 1:20), we add our efforts to the sustaining and renewing of all Creation. Rather than ignoring the bad news, we intentionally listen to the voices that are crying our and groaning – those who are losing land and livelihoods, species and ecosystems being lost, victims of extraction, exploitation and pollution. We know that, as urgently as it is needed, transformation takes time, and we might not see the full realization of our hope in our lifetimes. We know that our own efforts are small in comparison to the magnitude of the crises facing us. But we also know that our hopeful actions are part of God’s greater work. And we trust that God’s power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.