As you all know, I had some shoulder surgery in late May. As I contemplated whether to have surgery or not, the physical therapist told me I should go ahead and have it done.  “In a year, you’ll be really glad you did it.” “What? A year?!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “That’s a long time to wait and hope for pain-free full range of motion!” “Yes,” he explained. “The surgery is tough. You’ll be in a sling for a month, unable to drive. Then you’ll have therapy 2-3 times a week for months. Between surgery and a full recovery there will be some discomfort and a lot of hard work.”  And I groaned. And I continued to do some groaning in those days right after surgery and after some of my PT sessions.

But that groaning experience has made me feel right in step with the rest of the world. It seems as if the earth and all of us “have been groaning in Labor pains” to use Paul’s words.  Groaning is a deep, inarticulate sound or moan in response to pain or despair or grief.  And we have had more than enough to groan about in the past few months. We have more than enough grief and despair to last a long, long time.  We have groaned and still groan as the number of deaths from COVID19 continues to rise. We have felt the pain of being separated from loved ones, from our usual activities, from church. We have groaned over missed graduations, postponed or reconfigured weddings and funerals, canceled vacations. We have groaned at the inequities in our economic and health care system that have forced “essential” workers to continue to work even in unhealthy situations and that have resulted in higher death rates among minority groups. And more recently we have groaned at the egregious and unnecessary deaths of Black and Brown brothers and sisters at the hands of police officers and the injustice our minority brothers and sisters experience regularly. We have groaned as we took a close look at our own participation in the systemic racism that exists.

And not only have we humans been groaning, creation has been groaning. Many restrictions regarding water pollution have been lifted so our rivers, lakes, and oceans are even more at risk. Changes in weather patterns mean earlier and more severe hurricanes, inadequate crop production in some countries, disappearing glaciers. Those factors challenge food sources in some of the poorest communities in our world resulting in hunger and famine. Air quality is poor resulting in an increasing number of folks with asthma and allergies. Creation has groaned. We have groaned. Whether it was surgery or the state of our world and nation, we have been groaning.

The apostle Paul wrote the words in today’s scripture to people who also lived in a time in history when groaning was heard frequently. The early Christians in Rome were suffering under the hands of ruthless rulers.  Claudius was the Emperor and he was a narcissistic ruler who resorted to horrendous tactics to preserve his power and conquer foreign nations. He silenced the prophets and expelled most of the Jews from Rome. The only Jews who were allowed to remain were ones who were used as slaves.  A caste system allowed some to get rich on the backs of the poor and the slaves.  Roman society was marked by conflict, violence, injustice and oppression.  There was a lot of groaning in Rome when Paul penned this letter to the followers of Jesus there.

In an article titled “The Pandemic is a Portal” published in the Financial Times in early April, author Arundhati Roy says that pandemics, and I would add any major upheaval or time of intense groaning in society, force people to break from the past and create something new.  The Pandemic has created a crisis in health care and revealed the groaning that has been going on in our health care system.  We have experienced an economic crisis that has revealed the growing chasm between the rich and the poor. Did you know that as many groaned with fear they wouldn’t be able to pay rent and that their small business wouldn’t survive, many of the rich were getting richer? Amazon and Google saw record incomes in the past several months.  We have experienced yet another crisis where truth is really hard to find and the well-being of political parties has seemed more important than the well-being of all of us. At a time when everyone needs to be working together, the divide between political perspectives has grown even wider, manifested in the sometimes nasty and violent debate over wearing masks.  But Roy sees all these crises as a portal, a gateway, a bridge to something new. Not a return to the normal we used to know. But a portal to something altogether new.  She wrote, “Coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of our groaning, my words, we are offered a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.”

In the Message translation of this passage in Romans, Paul says, “There’s no comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.”

Paul assures us in Romans that we have a future. Creation has a future.  A glorious future with little groaning. Paul’s joyful anticipation of the times ahead is based on experience. Years before he wrote to the Romans there was another portal. On one side was death, the death of Jesus. The apparent defeat of God’s kingdom on earth. But that was just a portal. A passageway to new life. New possibilities. A portal to God’s ability to overcome any of the groaning of our earth and our bodies with life.  Paul reminds us that we are children of God, adopted, chosen and held close to the heart of God. And as God’s adopted offspring, we have been ushered through that portal into the full inheritance of life.

Paul encourages us to look to those glorious times ahead. To immerse ourselves in joyful anticipation of what’s on the other side of the portal.  Paul tells us to view our groaning as labor pains that give birth to a new possibilities. Roy says we can choose to walk through this portal “dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

In the words of Paul as found in the Message, “So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!”

We have things to do and places to go, brothers and sisters. We have a portal to pass through. And on the other side of that portal a new world is emerging. A world where the air is cleaner, the water pure. A world where our justice system cares for every person with equity regardless of the color of their skin. A world in which people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds get a good education, equal opportunities and equal compensation. A world in which hunger and homelessness are only seen in history books. A world where we are not racing around with over-filled schedules, but take the time for rest, for time with family, for time spent in the presence of God.  A world in which character matters more than achievement, compassion matters more than power and wealth, forgiveness matters more than pride and revenge, and love matters more than anything.

Graduates we honor you today and acknowledge that you have passed through your own portals. The portal that leads from one phase of life and education to a new one. And you have things to do and places to go. You have new opportunities and experiences awaiting you on this side of your portals. Some of you will be emerging into a new phase of education and discovery.  And others of you are entering a new phase of your careers where you can make greater contributions and offer more expertise. We hope you will use your educations and join us in fighting to insure the groaning all around us gives birth to the glorious times that God intends for us.

I am confident that my personal groaning will lead to a new strength in my arm. A strength that will enable me to engage in life more fully. And I am hopeful that our corporate groaning will yield glorious times ahead. Times that provide fullness of life for each one of us and for our world.  Please, please, please, don’t let our groaning end in despair and pain. Please respond to God’s spirit beckoning us through the portal. Please respond to God’s Spirit calling us to get up and work together for the glorious new creation God intends. I am hopeful that our groaning will propel us through this pandemic portal and give birth to something new. To a new way of living in the world, a new way of living with each other, a more glorious way of loving each other.

Works Cited

Roy, Arundhati. “The pandemic is a portal.” Financial Times, April 3, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

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