“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody keeps pulling it and pulling it.” -Ann Patchett, State of Wonder

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Easter, year B
Text: John 20:19-31

 

In the novel State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, a character believes that her husband is dead. But then she gets word that she might not have been told the whole story about his mysterious disappearance. Against all odds, the man she loves just might be alive. The reader might expect this revelation to fill her with joy, but it does just the opposite. It fills her with pain and rage. She had finally come to terms with the loss of her husband, but now she has to go through the whole painful journey again, waiting and wondering if she will ever see him again. As she tells another character, she doesn’t want to hope for his return, she just wants to let go, to find closure and move on. She says:

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody keeps pulling it and pulling it.”

Ann Patchett hits on a difficult truth in this passage. Hope isn’t all sweetness and joy. Sometimes, hope hurts. It drags us forward when we’d rather give up and stay put. It cracks open our complacency and exposes us to loss. Despair defends us from disappointment, but hope leaves us vulnerable. The woman in the novel doesn’t want to think that her husband is alive, because then she might have to lose him all over again. Better not to hope at all, she thinks, than to subject herself to that kind of heartbreak.

Perhaps this is some of what Thomas is going through when he hears his friends say that they have seen the risen Christ. His fellow apostles tell him that, while he was gone, Jesus appeared, and showed them his wounds, and gave them the gift of the Holy Spirit. They ask him to join them in the good news of the resurrection, but he refuses to believe their story. With that refusal, he is saying: no, I’m not going to open myself up to that kind of pain again, only to be let down. If Jesus wants me to believe, let him show himself to me like he did to the rest of you. Until I see him with my own eyes, I’m not going to let myself hope that he’s really alive. It’s not worth the heartache. It’s not worth the loss.

This unwillingness to hope protects Thomas from hurt, but it comes at a high price. For that long week between Jesus’ two visits, Thomas is alone. He might be hiding in the upper room with his friends, but he’s excluded from their fellowship. The apostles are living together in a joyful new reality, and they want Thomas to join them, but his despair cuts him off from this new thing called the church. He’s being invited to discover new life, but his pain and fear convince him that it’s better to accept death. It’s a safe decision, one that defends his heart, but it traps him in a protective cage away from the people he loves, and away from the possibility of anything better.

History has not been kind to Thomas and his despair, but in our own ways, we have all done the same thing and allowed our pain to turn us away from the resurrection. We all know what it means to doubt God’s power to heal the world when the forces of sin and death seem too terrible to overcome. We make our compromises, and resign ourselves to the way things are, instead of fighting to see God’s will be done. The story of Thomas asks us: What are the things that you are too afraid to hope for? What dreams of life and healing are you suppressing to defend yourself against heartbreak? How are you accommodating yourself to the forces that draw the world away from God? How are you surrendering to despair?

In the face of the brokenness of this world, despair makes a lot of sense. Sin is powerful, and common sense might dictate that we submit to its reign. We could just accept that we will never be free of the ugliest parts of ourselves, and stop struggling to learn and grow. We could just accept that the broken relationships in our lives will never be healed, and stop praying for reconciliation. We could just accept that mass killings are now a part of life, and stop working for change so we can stop being disappointed when that change doesn’t come. We could just accept that our planet is doomed, and choose to make the most of its abundance while we can with no more hope for the future. We could make our peace with death. It would make our lives a lot more comfortable, if we could let go of hope. It would be so much easier if we just didn’t care.

But we are called to never accept death’s triumph. We are called to stay open to the Holy Spirit’s power to breathe new life into all things, not to close ourselves off for fear of being let down. This is a hard thing to do. But hope is not a virtue because it is easy. It takes courage, and commitment, and deep wells of faith. It forces us to believe in things that we can’t yet see, and may never see in our lifetimes. Hope means that we have to let go of our desire for closure, because God’s plan is always unfolding. It means accepting that that fishhook that hope plants in our hearts is going to keep dragging us onward to ventures of which we cannot see the ending. Sometimes that path will lead us to joy; other times it will pass through defeat and loss. But in faith, we can keep journeying forward, because we know that our hope is leading us toward the reign of God. The end of all things is God’s good will for the world, in Christ’s victory over death. The hope that makes all other hope possible is the hope of the resurrection. Because we proclaim Christ raised, we can say in confidence that death doesn’t win. We can find hope in our hurt because we know that pain and loss will not, and cannot have the final say.

To all of us who must believe without seeing, it is only in hope that we meet Christ raised. This can be a challenge, but it is also a joy, because in that hope, we not only encounter the resurrection, but we share it with others. When we live in hope, God heals those around us, using us to bring comfort to the despairing and light to those who walk in darkness. Hope breaks us opens to be the wounded healers this world needs. Yes, it does put hooks in us, and sometimes the pull hurts. But that pull is what draws us into God’s embrace. It’s the pull that lifts us up out of the grave, and raises us with Christ into new life.

Amen.

Even as they are killing him, Jesus’ accusers are half-hoping to witness a miracle – some kind of marvel that will help them “see and believe.” In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings or miracles, but the cross shows us a God worthy of our faith.

Vicar Jessica Christy
Sunday of the Passion, year B
Text: Mark 14:1-15:47

Even as they were torturing and killing him, they were hoping to see a miracle.

Throughout his ministry, people were drawn to Jesus because of his power. Massive crowds in search of healing and hope chased him across the Galilee. The press of people was so eager that they forced him to preach from boats and to retreat to remote places. They were desperately hungry for a demonstration of God’s might.

Even though the crowds have turned against him by the time he is arrested, things haven’t really changed. “Prophesy!” his tormentors shout as they beat him. “Prophesy!” – show us your power, if you are so powerful. And then as he is being executed, they jeer, “Save yourself, and come down from the cross! Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Yes, they’re mocking him with these words. They’re taunting the helplessness of this man who said he would forever change the world. But in his final moments, they show their hand, and reveal that there is a core of truth in their taunts. As Christ is dying, he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the people who have gathered to gloat over his death mishear those words. “Elahi, Elahi” – “My God, my God.” They think he’s calling out for Elijah. And this excites them. Suddenly, they rush to try to prolong his life, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to bring him down.” They despise him, and yet they can’t look away because they still think that Jesus might show them God in a marvel. They’re still looking and longing for something to see and believe in.

Jesus, of course, doesn’t give them the show that they’re half-hoping to see. Not only does he deny them signs and wonders, he barely even speaks. Pilate is amazed by his refusal to say a single word to defend or explain himself. In Mark’s Passion, Jesus has no more teachings, no more wonders, no more prophecies. If the people at the Crucifixion are hoping to witness something that will help them believe, they will only see an ordinary criminal dying a shameful death.

As we enter this Holy Week, what are we hoping to see? What are we hoping to believe in? Because if we are hoping to encounter Christ in great marvels and miracles over these next days, we are going to be disappointed. Jesus will be revealed to us in the ordinary – in struggle and in suffering. We will see Jesus anointed for death by an unnamed woman. We will see him breaking bread with his disciples, then going to pray in sorrow in the garden. We will see Jesus abandoned by his friends to die alone and in agony. And even on Easter, we will hear the good news, “He is risen!” but Mark will deny us a glimpse of the risen Christ. There is little glory to see in this story. If we call on God’s power, we will find a God who chooses to be powerless. If we call on God’s eloquence, we will find a God who chooses to be silent before his accusers. If we call on God’s salvation, we will find a God who refuses to save himself. The only Son of God that we can proclaim will be the one who subjects himself to suffering and death on the cross.

This might sound like a bleak picture, but it is far better news than any God of power and majesty, because in this week, we see a God who knows us. We meet God in weakness and despair because that is where God comes to meet us. We are reminded once again that there is nowhere we can go in this life where Christ cannot journey with us. There is no fear that is foreign to him, no hurt that he cannot bear for our sake, and for the sake of the whole world. Christ intimately knows our worst pains and sorrows, and takes them on himself so that he might raise us to new life. A God of perfect, shining glory couldn’t do that. Only a king who wore a crown of thorns and a savior who emptied himself on a Cross could know and love us like that. But that’s not all that we see; we see a God who knows what it means to suffer betrayal and humiliation and death at our hands, and who forgives and saves us anyway. We see a God who would rather be broken than break us. We see a God who has promised to never abandon us, even in the moments when we turn from God. We see a God who would do anything – suffer any indignity, endure any pain, harrow Hell itself – anything to bind up our wounded world.

This is the Son of God we can expect to meet. It isn’t going to look like much, at least not to the eyes of the world. There is no wondrous spectacle, no heavenly proofs to win us over. There is just incomprehensible love, and the promise that Christ can make even the worst instrument of death blossom into the tree of life. This is what we can see. This is what we can believe. And this is how we can live.

Amen.

Moses’ bronze snake was a good gift from God…until it became an idol. That’s what we do with so many of God’s gifts: we worship them as false gods. What are some of the idols ruling over us today? And how can we find our way out of idolatry?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Fourth Sunday of Lent, year B
Texts: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21

It began as such a good thing.

When poisonous snakes attacked the people of Israel in the wilderness, they prayed to God for forgiveness and help. God answered their prayers by telling Moses to craft the image of a serpent, and to lift it up high, so that people could look at it and be healed. It sounds strange, but it worked. Everyone who saw it was made well. The aggressive snakes didn’t disappear, but they no longer held the same terror for God’s people. There was now a way forward, leading them out of death and despair.

We know that this bronze snake was dear to the people because the book of Kings tells us that, hundreds of years later, it was still in Jerusalem. Faithful people preserved this vehicle of God’s grace not only through the wilderness, but through the conquest, through the time of the Judges, through years of wars and civil wars until it finally found its home in the holy city. This object, this bronze snake, told the story of those hard years wandering in the desert. It symbolized salvation in the midst of danger and pain. It was a reminder that God’s mercy is always greater than God’s anger. And it was made by Moses’ own hands. Of course it was honored. Of course it was well-loved.

But something went wrong. By the time of King Hezekiah, around the year 700 BCE, the symbol had become twisted into something ugly. People forgot what the bronze snake really meant and started worshipping it as an idol. Devotees burned incense to it, as if this old piece of metal could accept their sacrifices or answer their prayers. They took this good gift from God, and turned it into a false god. So Hezekiah took this sacred object, this symbol of salvation forged by history’s greatest prophet, and he smashed it. It started as a bridge between God and the people, but now it was a barrier, so he broke it into pieces.

It’s a bit heartbreaking that that’s how the story of the bronze snake ends, with idolatry and loss. But isn’t that what we always do? God has given us so many good things in this life for our enjoyment, for our flourishing. Our world is overflowing with abundance and beauty and delight. We are surrounded by good gifts that please our bodies, lift our spirits, and engage our minds. And we so easily turn these things that God has given us into our idols.

Take food, for instance. It is a truly marvelous thing that we can take such joy in nourishing our bodies. Meals don’t just keep us alive – they excite our tongues, stretch our imaginations, and strengthen our relationships. This is pure gift. And yet, we so often treat food as if it is the center of our lives instead of something that serves our lives. How much does our culture teach us to fixate on what we put in our bodies? How powerfully are feelings of virtue and shame tied up in what we put in our shopping carts, as if our worth could be measured by our menus? What if we, as a society, put half as much energy into serving God as we put into thinking about our diets? Because this idolatry comes at a great cost. When we let food become our god, it is not a kind master. It inspires obsession, anxiety, self-doubt. When we turn this gift into a god, it takes and it takes – sometimes until there is nothing left.

Or consider knowledge. God gave us these brains, the wonder of which we are just now beginning to understand, and filled us with endless curiosity. Our lives sparkle with the joy of discovery as we learn to understand the world around us. But then we can turn simply knowing things into an ultimate good. We use it to posture over each other, to glorify ourselves instead of learning to better love our neighbors. Or we treat athletic or artistic talents as though they were the sole purpose of our lives. Or we obsess over our possessions, enjoying good things but then demanding more and more until they own us instead of the other way around. Whatever they are, we all have our idols. Things that God has given us to enjoy on this earth become our ultimate concerns. The bronze snakes that were meant to lead us to healing and wholeness sometimes just leave us more broken.

This is particularly true for the church. How often, in the history of our faith, have we loved our ideas about God more than we have loved God? It seems absurd to think that anything as wonderful and sacred as our theology, or our worship, or our Bible could become an idol – but that’s probably what people thought about Moses’ bronze snake. It is so very easy for us to mistake our tradition for God, and to act as though our specific understanding of faith is the thing that needs to be loved and served. Or we get so attached to our institutions that we can’t recognize when they’re no longer serving our relationship with God. Instead of striving to do the work of the Gospel, we work to defend the things that we have created. Or we become so set in our interpretation of scripture that the words on the page make it hard for us to hear what the living Word is saying to us today.   Over and again, we can say we’re worshipping God when we’re really paying all glory, laud, and honor to ourselves and our own work. Again, the earthly things of faith that we love are good, and God-given, and filled with grace – but they are not God. Sometimes we need to put them back in their proper place. Sometimes we might even need to break them apart so we can encounter God anew.

But there is good news here. For all that we turn God’s gifts into idols, God gave us one more gift that we know can lead us safely through the wilderness. It’s a gift that we might misinterpret or misuse, but that can never be corrupted or destroyed. For God so loved the world that God gave the only-begotten Son to show us the way to eternal life. Christ is the greatest gift this world has ever known, and he shows us the way out of all our idolatry. When our longing for certainty and stability turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us that we only find ourselves when we give ourselves away. When our desire for knowledge turns good things into false gods, Christ tells us that God’s wisdom is found in folly. When our love of power turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us the way of the Cross, and empties himself of all the power of the cosmos for our sake. And when our sense of inadequacy turns good things into false gods, Christ shows us that we are loved – absolutely and unconditionally, no matter who we are.

For as long as we are on this earth, we are going to misuse the things that God gives us. We’re going to make sacrifices to false gods. But we know where we can look to see our true God, and we know that when we look to Christ, we will find life. No matter what dangers surround us, no matter how far we have gone astray, we will find life.

Amen.