WB Animals
Every evening my cat Gromit gets the zoomies. He runs willy nilly about the house, often crashing into walls and furniture. It cracks me up every time. John and Charles Wesley seemed to have an affinity towards animals. Charles wrote a hymn about his cat, John wrote a sermon speculating the presence of animals in heaven. In Sermon 60, The General Deliverance, John wonders over the nature of animals before and after the Fall of humanity, admitting that human sin has unleashed great suffering upon the animal kingdom. He takes his cue from Romans 8:
The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. 20 Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice—it was the choice of the one who subjected it—but in the hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. – Romans 8:19-22 CEB
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Wesley reminds us of our charge in Genesis as humans to subdue creation, to be stewards of all God has made. We are made in the image of God, we are made capable to love God and to love one another. The animals do not have the same faculties to love God, and so Wesley asserts that they may show love, or at least submission, to humans. A result of the Fall is that animals flee from humans or strike out against us, a reflection of our own separation and response to God. Violence is now the way of animals as predators feed on prey, and as man hunts animals. But this suffering will be lifted at the resurrection, and animals will coexist in right relationship with each other and with humanity.
The wolf will live with the lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
the calf and the young lion will feed together,
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow and the bear will graze.
Their young will lie down together,
and a lion will eat straw like an ox.
8 A nursing child will play over the snake’s hole;
toddlers will reach right over the serpent’s den.
9 They won’t harm or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain.
The earth will surely be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,
just as the water covers the sea. -Isaiah 11:6-9
This vision is often referred to as the peaceable kingdom, an eschatological peek into God’s vision for creation as a whole. John Wesley argues that in the coming kingdom, animals will be so elevated they may be capable of loving God the way humans do. All of this theological speculation matters because God cares for the animals, and so must we. Because God loves the animals, we must recognize how much more God loves and cares for us. “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it already. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31.
What is your relationship to the animal kingdom? How do you see your role in alleviating animal suffering? How does the coming peaceable kingdom inform the type of person you want to be here and now?