Waiting for the Children of Godot

Romans 8:12-25

Lately I have been thinking about the absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. Anyone who has seen or read it knows that the plot, along with the scenery on stage, is annoyingly spare. Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, wait beneath a single, sickly-looking tree for the arrival of Godot, a man (we presume he is male) about whom we know very little. As they pass the time, they become embroiled in a conversation, which soon becomes an argument, about the meaninglessness of human existence, and before long we realize that the lives of these men are marked by little more than sheer boredom and despair. The monotony is eventually broken by the introduction of a master and a slave, Pozzo and Lucky, the latter carrying a cumbersome suitcase that he never sets down, primarily because, apart from his master's command, he cannot begin to think for himself. These two clowns, however, offer little in the way of philosophical direction, and the audience is again left wanting.

The first act of the play concludes with a young boy arriving on the scene to inform Vladimir and Estragon that Godot will not be coming, whereupon the two decide it's time for them to leave. However, as the curtain falls, they are left in their same despairing position on their little hill under a barren tree. It appears they have no intention of departing. As the second act begins, the audience quickly realizes that a similar scene is about to unfold, with Godot's arrival as distant a reality as it had been when the play began.

Though Beckett never gave any clear indication as to what exactly he was trying to say in this work, many have concluded that it represents the plight of modern men and women, waiting in hope – a hope that keeps them afloat in a sea of absurdity – for someone, most likely God, who will never come. Godot never had any intention of coming. Indeed, we have no clear evidence that this off-stage character even exists.

So why has this depressing play been on my mind? I can assure you that it is not because I have fallen victim to all the chic atheistic writing that we have lately endured in our culture, books by Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, for example. My interest is more subtle than this: I think the play provides a compelling metaphor, not for our human experience, but for the ecological condition of our planet and the fleeting hope that Christians might one day come to their senses and realize their moral responsibility to do something about it. In a way, the non-human others who inhabit our life-worlds are in a situation very much like that of Vladimir and Estragon, languishing beneath their barren tree, waiting for "the revelation of the children of God," as Paul puts it. But from the current perspective of creation, the present reality play might more fittingly be called Waiting for the Children of Godot.

The apostle Paul laid the foundation for a new way of understanding Christian repentance and redemption, but it is apparent – given our current ecological embarrassments – that we have not taken him entirely at his word. In his Epistle to the Romans he makes a curious allusion. Throughout the first seven chapters of the letter he admonishes the faithful of Rome to attend to what appear to be rather individualistic concerns: do not fall victim, he exhorts, to the temptations of idolatry (Rom. 1:18-32); recognize that all persons are guilty before God and deserving of judgment (2:1—3:20); affirm that the sinner’s justification, as the story of Abraham demonstrates, is not in works but through faith (3:21—5:11); believe in the efficacy of the atoning death of Christ (5:12); and be assured that no good resides in “the flesh” but only in “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (7:1—8:17). It is easy to assume from all of this that Paul’s primary focus is on personal piety pursued at the expense of the things of this world.

But then we are introduced to an image that seems at first to be an anomaly. The concern turns quickly away from the wretched condition of women and men to the certain hope, not of the individual exclusively, but of creation as a whole. “[T]he creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God …[when] creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God ” (Romans 8: 19, 22). Paul's subsequent allusion is even more explicit: the earth is like a woman "groaning in travail," in labor pains, waiting to give birth to this new redemptive reality. The only thing lacking, it would seem, is a faithful midwife.

Paul’s logic in this is easy to comprehend: if we agree that the entire created order fell as a result of one man’s disobedience, then we must necessarily assume that the redemption effected in the work of Christ, the Second Adam, is not merely a human affair but extends also to the natural world. Consequently, the works of sanctification that are performed in gratitude by each and every Christian must reach into the very earth of which we are a part. Indeed, creation is waiting with “eager longing” for this auspicious event – it is, in a manner of speaking, its birthright. If only we, who have been baptized into the life and death of the Second Adam, would once again claim our proper place in God's created order as a redemptive presence, then the world might once again praise God from the depths of its very being.

But a redemptive presence we are not – far from it. One wonders if part of the problem has been an implicit dualism that can also be found in Paul's writings. What are we to do with such statements, considered in the lectionary passages of the past few weeks, in which the flesh and the body – and, by extension, all of material existence – are disparaged as a stumbling block to the true life of the spirit? In light of this, is it any wonder that we prefer not to affirm our creation from the rich, vital earth itself and instead, when thinking of the natural world at all, focus on the lifeless dust to which we will inevitably return? If we persist in our implied assumption that "the earth equals death" – that "this world is not my home," as the old Appalachian hymn suggests – then it is only a matter of time before the curtain falls on a creation still waiting for the revelation of the "children of Godot."

This world, however, is our home, and despite some of Paul's apparent arguments to the contrary, our natural context is in fact good – very good. We are a part of this vital, green earth, not apart from it; therefore, our salvation must necessarily play a role in its redemption. When Paul assures the Corinthians that in Christ they have become a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), he chooses his words carefully. Having been redeemed in Christ, they – and we – are not merely renewed persons – as many are prone to think in our highly individualistic society – but a transformed people living in place. The allegedly incidental face of creation that has lingered so long in the darkness, peering out with eager longing, must now be affirmed as a legitimate member of the Christian community and welcomed again into the fold. More to the point, our acts of sanctification, the gratitude we are called to show for God's grace in our lives, must extend to the very depths of the biotic communities in which we live. For this the creation waits with eager longing, not for the arrival of Godot, but for the final revelation of the children of God.