Where I'm finding hope

Back when the pandemic began, in March of 2020, we had no idea how long it would continue. I saw it as a challenge and was confident I could handle it. I mustered up all my creativity, I learned to adapt, and I dug down deep to draw upon my faith and inner strength to push through it. I came to realize that I could only do this for so long, and I had to concede that I wasn’t able to continue carrying the crushing weight of the pandemic for as long as it persisted.

In my hopeful moments, I thought—After we get through this rough patch, we’ll turn the corner. Next year at this time, our lives will be back to normal. Once we get the vaccine, things will change. By Easter, we’ll all be back in church again. There was always a thread of hope that I clung to. Each time one of those threads disintegrated, I searched desperately for a new one.

Lately, I’ve stopped looking for the next thread. I’m tired of being disappointed. I’m beyond tired, actually. All my resources have been spent. I just want to hibernate like a bear and wait for the spring to come. Instead, I’m clawing my way through each day, hoping to reach the other side of this endless winter. And I don’t know if I have it within me to do it.  

I can’t stop wondering about the impact the pandemic is having on our psyches and its long-term effects. I grieve over the fact that the lives of our children and youth are being shaped by this. So much of what I cherished about my pre-adult years is being taken from them: dances, sleep-overs, class trips, band, plays, cramming into a booth at Frisch's with all my friends after a basketball game. I know the pandemic will shape the rest of their lives. I think what grieves me the most is that, for our kids, this has become the way the world is. Maybe that makes it easier for them. But for me, I can’t get past the fact that this isn’t the way the world is supposed to be.

I have been thinking a lot about people who lived through similar life-altering times in history. My mother was a child of The Depression. It changed everything about her. How could it not? It went on for 10 years. Ten years! She also lived through the WW2 years. That time the US was living on rations in a state of stark despair and uncertainty went on for four years. How did they do it? Were they also living from day to day, clinging to any thread of hope they could find? Did they also reach a point of exhaustion where they didn’t think they had it in them to continue clawing through one more day of endless winter?

All I know is that they did it. And their survival formed them into “The Greatest Generation.” I can’t tell you how inspired I am by this. Although I never thought my generation would be challenged by anything as dramatic as The Depression or WW2, I don’t know why I always assumed we would be insulated from such a time. The story of civilization is one struggle after another. In some parts of the world, it had been one endless struggle long before the COVID-19 pandemic began. And when I look ahead, I fear that our greatest struggle is yet to come as the wide-reaching effects of climate change continue to escalate.

Knowing that people before us have survived enormous life-altering struggles inspires me. Instead of clinging to threads of hope that disintegrate, one after another, I’d rather hold onto the lives of those who have gone before me. That’s a source of strength and faith that will never fail me.  

In church-speak, we call this the communion of saints. They remind me that the world didn’t begin the day I was born, and it will not end the day I die. I come from a long line of people who have made their way through life, each with their own struggles to overcome along the way. Many have come before me, and many will come after me. I’m just a part of the great procession of the communion of saints.

I’m keenly aware of their presence right now. Sometimes I could swear I hear them talking to me. It’s a quiet murmur like a breeze passing by my ear. When I listen carefully, I hear them saying, “It’s your turn, Nancy. We did this; you can do it, too.”

 

  

Plans Shot to Pieces

 Preached at Ascension Lutheran Church in Towson, Maryland, January 16, 2022,

There are people who have no problem going with the flow. Whenever life throws them for a loop, they take it in stride and calmly make their way through the chaos. I suspect those are the ones who are navigating these pandemic years with ease.

I wouldn’t know anything about that because I’m not one of them. I am a planner to the Nth degree, always over preparing for what’s next. I research everything: the weather, the market, health stats, reviews of products before I make a purchase. I like to know what to expect, and I absolutely hate surprises.

Living through the pandemic leaves me feeling like someone is using my inner core as a punching bag. I continue to plan, plan, plan. I just can’t stop. It’s who I am.

But I’m constantly being forced to revise my plans, going to plan B, and then plan C, and D, and sometimes all the way to Z. Are there any other planners out there? Are you as exhausted as I am these days?

Jesus is a planner. He has planned how he will one day present himself to the world when he begins his ministry. He has no intention of stumbling awkwardly into public life.

For the past 30 years, he’s lived a low-profile existence. And here he is, doing what ordinary people do. He goes to a wedding, where he’s just another guest.

Well, as poor planning would have it, the celebration goes on and on and the wedding hosts run out of wine. This is sure to cause them no end of embarrassment.

When his mother Mary learns of it, she knows that Jesus can fix it. So, she goes to him and explains the situation. And how does her son respond? With the attitude of “poor planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part”, he says, “What do I care? It’s not my problem.”

And then, after telling his mother to get off his back, like many mothers are prone to do—she completely ignores him. The next thing we know, she’s telling the servants to do whatever Jesus says to do.

Now, Jesus could raise a hissy fit. He could chide his mother for ignoring his wishes. He could insist that this has nothing to do with him and storm off. But he doesn’t. He acquiesces, perhaps not so much to help the host save face but to help his mother save face. Although he may be a man with a plan, he recognizes when it’s time to go with the flow.

There are some huge jars standing there and Jesus instructs the servants to fill them all the way up to the tippy-top with water. And then, after they do that, he tells them to dip a cup into a jar and take it to the guy who’s in charge of the reception.

Well, the guy in charge is a little miffed because the host hasn’t done this the way he’s supposed to. You see, first you’re supposed to serve the best wine and then, after everyone is a little drunk and their taste buds become numb, then you bring out the cheap stuff because nobody will know the difference. But this host doesn’t follow the plan; he does just the opposite. Instead of serving the best stuff first, the best stuff comes at the very end of the party.

John tells us in his gospel that this is the first of Jesus’ signs. This is where it all begins. John doesn’t call it a miracle. He never uses that word. Instead, he calls it a sign. It’s the first of seven signs that we read about in John’s gospel. Each reveals something to us about who God is.

From this sign, what do we learn about God? That God is about abundance. God gives us more than we can ever expect, more than we can ever imagine, certainly more than we can ever deserve. And God is full of surprises.

There’s an important detail in this story that we miss if we remain solely focused on Jesus, and that’s the presence of his mother. In John’s gospel, he never calls her by name. She is only referred to as the mother of Jesus. And she only appears twice. She is here at the wedding at Cana, and then we don’t see her again until much later, when she reappears at the foot of the cross. She brackets her son’s life. She is present at the beginning of his ministry and then she reappears at the end.

Don’t you wonder what she might know about Jesus that would lead her to believe he can do something to help a host save face when the wine gives out at a wedding? Has she seen him do things like this before? When Jesus insists that it isn’t his time yet, has she heard this too many times before? Is she like most parents are when they have a 30 year old son still living at home? Is she just ready for him to get on with it?

If Jesus has big plans for how he will begin his public life, his mother shoots those plans to pieces. No matter that he objects. No matter that he insists the timing is all wrong. His mother outs him. So, what can he do? It’s really quite surprising how easily he gives in. He surrenders his preplanned strategy and embraces a new possibility. He prefers plan A, but when unexpected circumstances push him there, he moves on to plan B.

It’s been my experience that most often, God reveals Godself to us when our carefully laid plans are shot to pieces. When the things we thought were under our control start to unravel and in the midst of it all, God is revealed. Have you noticed that, too?

The destruction of our carefully constructed plans can leave us in despair, or they can bring us to transformative God moments.

As exhausted as those of us who are planners may be right now, and as frustrating as it is to have our carefully laid plans shot to pieces again and again, God is speaking to us in the uncertainty of our lives. This is the time to confess that we are not in control and open ourselves to what God is doing in our lives. If we don’t do that now, when will we?

 

 

The Third Year of the Monster

These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way monster movies end. There’s always that penultimate scene where the monster that has wreaked havoc on the world is finally destroyed and all is well. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The monster is no more, and they can get back to the way their lives were before it was unleashed upon them. But then, all of a sudden, the monster springs to life again for one last moment of terror before it’s finally destroyed, once and for all.

The pandemic we’ve been living through since 2020 feels a lot like that to me. We keep thinking, once we get past this, it will all be over, and we can get our lives back. It feels like it’s finally on its way out. And then, it keeps returning for more.

We have now entered our third year dominated by the pandemic. It was a threat to us in 2020, all through 2021, and now, here we are… It’s 2022, and Covid is still very much with us. I think we’re all coming to realize that we won’t be able to finally kill it like a monster in the movies. It will be with us for a long time to come, maybe forever, and we need to adapt our lives to it.

That reality has made it difficult for me to say, “Happy New Year” this year. Instead, I want to say something else. Like “Healthy New Year.” Or “Resilient New Year.” But even those miss the meaning of the moment. Maybe we should just acknowledge it’s a New Year and wait to see what it brings us. So, New Year, everyone! 

As we begin this new year, we gather together and hear the prologue to John’s gospel. A Christmas story nothing like the one we heard on Christmas Eve. Jesus isn’t born in Bethlehem. He always was, from the very beginning. The Word, creating all that is. Saying “Let there be light. Let there be land and sea. Let there be plants and animals. Let there be human beings.” And then, the Word does something radical. The Word becomes a part of their own creation. Entrusting their very life to their creatures.

God chose to reveal Godself in humility. He began  as a vulnerable baby, dependent upon the love of his human family. And his life on this earth ended when he submitted himself to an unjust execution at the hands of those who hated him. That’s what happened when God took on human form. Certainly, not what anyone would expect. But then, that was the point. The word made flesh is not what anyone would expect.

And yet, this first chapter of John doesn’t only tell us about what it’s like for God to become truly human. It also tells us what it’s like for us to become truly human. What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people….He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his people didn’t accept him. And then, here come the verses that stand out like a giant oak tree in the middle of a garden. But to all who received him, who believed on his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Right smack dab in the middle of all this beautiful prose about the word becoming flesh, we read that this wasn’t just an event where God was somehow transformed. It transformed us, as well.

Jesus is our brother. His father is our father, too. We are God’s children. Jesus was born into a culture where connecting with God was all about religion: doing the right stuff, following rituals, obeying laws. Jesus changes all that by showing us that our connection with God isn’t through religion. It’s through relationship. We are children of God.

When the word became flesh and lived among us, it changed who we are. God became like us in Jesus so that we can become like him. We too can turn to God as our loving parent. With our brother Jesus, we too are God’s beloved children. Through Jesus, we don’t just see what it looks like for God to become human. We also see what happens when a human being, someone like us, lives in a complete relationship with God.

That’s the unique challenge for us in John’s Christmas story. We’ve heard all about the angels and the shepherds and the baby born in Bethlehem from Luke’s gospel. But John doesn’t include any of those details in his version of the story. He cuts to the chase. To him, the details aren’t important. What’s important is the significance of it all. What does it mean? What difference does it make?

The essence of John’s message is this. That it doesn’t matter if we’re good religious people. It doesn’t matter if we have our theology right. And it doesn’t matter if we’re good little Christians and follow all the rules. What matters is the relationship we have with God. That Jesus is our brother, and just as surely as Jesus was in a relationship with his Father, God wants that for us, too.  

As we begin a new year together, it’s a hard one. I’m tired of thinking about Covid-19. I’m tired of talking about it. I’m tired of worrying about it. I just want it to go away like a monster finally goes away at the end of a movie. There are days when I’m confident that all will be well and other days when I’m not so sure.

I heard Dr. Jane Goodall on NPR in December, and she was speaking about hope. She used the image of a long, dark tunnel to describe it. That got my attention because that’s the way I feel right now. It’s like we’re all trapped in this long, dark tunnel together. And we can see, way off at the end of the tunnel, there’s a light shining. That light is hope. And here’s what Dr. Goodall said that really grabbed me. She said, "We don't sit at our end of the tunnel and hope light will come to us . . . We've got to climb over all the obstacles between us and that light to get there." We don't sit at our end of the tunnel and hope light will come to us . . . We've got to climb over all the obstacles between us and that light to get there.

Although we may be feeling like we’re trapped in a long, dark tunnel right now, we can trust that there is a light at the end of that tunnel. That’s our hope. But we’re not there yet. We’ve got some serious climbing to do. And living in a closer relationship with God will get us there. It will provide us with the guidance we need, the wisdom we need, the patience we need, the resolve we need as we make our way toward hope.

As we gather today, the first Sunday of 2022, the third year of coexisting with the monster that just won’t die, we hear the beginning of John’s gospel once again. It’s calling us to move toward a closer relationship with God. And hope.

And, that’s it. That’s the greeting I’ve been searching for. A Hopeful New Year to you all!