6th Sunday after Pentecost
July 20, 2014
Psalm 139; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43; Romans 8:12-25
Open Wide and Say “Aah”
When I asked a couple weeks ago about what season the
church is in (and you’re still welcome to share with me your thoughts), one of
the answers I received was that we are in a season of anticipation. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that
response, but I was encouraged by it, because it means that we’re looking
forward to the future, rather than thinking that the “glory days” of this church
are behind us. Anticipation is a complex
emotion, because of the anxiety associated with it. Consider this scenario, and I know we’ve all
been there before. You’re at the
doctor’s office. After sitting in the
waiting room for 45 minutes, you finally got admitted back to one of the
examination rooms, where you got poked and prodded, had your blood pressure
taken, and just maybe been told to “open wide and say ‘aah,’” before having a
giant popsicle stuck down your throat.
Now, you’re waiting for the doctor to come in and give you her
diagnosis. You’ve been anxiously waiting
for the news for almost an hour, to say nothing of the time you spent before
coming to the doctor’s office. Will it
be good news, that it’s nothing to worry about, or will it be bad news,
something that will change your life in a rather unpleasant way? This is anticipation. Part hoping for the best, part fearing the
worst. Five little words, triggering
such a flood of emotions. “Open wide and
say ‘aah.’”
Whenever
someone tells you, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” we almost always
want to hear the bad news first.” So,
let’s start by examining the negative side.
Part of anticipation is fear,
and that’s why Paul points out that “the Spirit that God has
given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid” [“you did
not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear”].[1] Fear was part of the old life, part of being
a slave to sin and death, from which Christ has set us free. Unfortunately, it’s a habit that’s easy to
fall back into. Fear is fueled by the
news, this week the Malaysian plane shot down in the Ukraine, the week before
there was the guy in Texas who shot the family of seven in their own home,
killing six of them. If you did nothing
but watch the news, on any channel, you’d be inclined to never leave your house
again, except that you’d probably also not feel safe even in your house! This is why one of the most common refrains
in the bible is “Do not be afraid.” It
begins in Genesis with God telling Abram not to be afraid, for he is Abram’s
shield,[2]
and is found all the way through to Revelation, in the letter to the seven
churches, “do not fear what you are about to suffer.”[3]
Fear
is a very common emotion, and it’s part of anticipation because anticipation deals
with the unknown. When things are new
they are also unknown, they can be a little scary. What’s the new preacher going to be
like? Are we going to like her? Is she going to like us? What’s the new baby going to be like? Is he going to be colicky? Will he be a good sleeper? (Please, God, yes. [Fold hands and look up.]) There is anticipation about the new thing,
and yet not knowing all about it causes a little fear in each of us. The good news is that Jesus says, “Do not be
afraid. It is I. I am in charge of the storms. I am in charge of the new thing. I am in charge of your redemption and
renewal.” And this is why we have hope.
When we anticipate a new thing, we
always have hope for it. “For in hope we were saved.”[4] In the North Carolina Conference, each
quadrennium, or set of four years that the bishop is appointed to the
conference, the bishop sets a theme based in Scripture. For the quadrennium running from 2008 to 2012
the theme was “A Future with Hope,” from Jeremiah 29:11, “For surely I know the
plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for
your welfare and not for harm, to give you a
future with hope.” It was then perfectly fitting when the new
bishop announced to lead 2012 to 2016 was Bishop Hope Morgan Ward. North
Carolina did indeed have a future with Hope!
What hope does is to create a “contrast between what is hoped for and
the present state of affairs.”[5] This causes some restlessness with the way
things are, because they are not as they could be. Instead, “hope fuels the imagination for the
way things [could] be” and inspires us to work towards that potential.[6] This is hope.
And
we wait and live in hope of God’s promises.
Going back to Genesis again, Abraham was promised offspring as numerous
as the stars, and Sarah was barren. He
had no idea how God was going to work that out, but trusted and had faith in
God’s promise. My senior year in high
school, I really wanted to go with a date to prom and felt I had God’s promise
that I would, without any inkling how it was going to work out since I didn’t
have a boyfriend. You know who my date
was? My husband. We met in high school, were friends, went to
prom together, and then lost touch in college before reconnecting years later
on, of all things, Facebook. God is
faithful and keeps his promises. That’s
why we can have hope in him.
“In
hope we were saved;” we were saved in hope.
In hope of what? Our redemption, which is something all
creation anticipates together with us. “Creation
waits with eager longing for the revealing of God’s children” and “not only the
creation, but we ourselves… groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”[7] We are waiting to be made new. We are waiting for our redemption, and all
creation waits with us. The analogy here
is pregnancy, we are “groaning in labor pains” as we wait. And
yet we’re not just groaning. The waiting
in pregnancy is an active waiting. You
prepare for the coming baby. You change
your diet, baby-proof your house, buy the furniture and other things you’ll
need to care for an infant. You can’t
just sit around doing nothing or go about business as usual. You actively prepare for the end of the waiting. And at the same time, we “wait for it with
patience.”[8]
Redemption
is not about instant gratification. Technology
has put so many things at our fingertips that there are very few things we have
to wait for any more. Overnight delivery
on packages. 24 hour news coverage. Instant information online. Microwaves.
Fast-food restaurants. Credit
cards. In the church, however, we are
not about the business of instant gratification. We work out our salvation with fear and
trembling. We wait for our redemption. Things rarely instantly happen. And sometimes we may not even see the results
of our work. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
about how some plant seeds, some water the seeds, God gives the growth, and
others harvest the fruit.[9] When we’re the ones planting the seeds, we
don’t always see what happens to them.
This
anticipating of our redemption is also not a case of “what you see is what you
get.” We only get glimpses now. Like Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians, now we
see in a mirror dimly, then we shall see face to face.[10] We don’t see fully and clearly now, our redemption
is not yet finished. We live in between
the already and the not yet. We are
already redeemed and not yet redeemed.
We are still anticipating our redemption. And yet we occasionally catch glimpses in the
mirror, we occasionally can distinguish a detail or make out a shape. And from those glimpses we discern God’s plan
for us.
I
will tell you that right now I don’t know what God’s vision is for this church;
I’m too new. But I do know he’s got a
plan; otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. I
was asked this past week if I had an agenda, and the answer is no. Again, I’m too new and it would be artificial
and premature for me to place any agenda on you of any kind. Down the road, as together we discern God’s
vision, we will formulate a plan together to bring about God’s kingdom
here. But for now, no, I don’t have an
agenda other than to love on you.
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