“Are we there yet?” Those simple words have been running through my mind this morning — sometimes mocking, sometimes serious, crop up on any long road-trip. This morning they propelled me back to the long drives across country that were a part of every summer during my childhood. Growing up in Chicagoland with grandparents in the Boston and Denver areas meant that there were lots of journeys across long, seemingly endless states. At some point, I remember a cassette tape deck being added to the journey. For as long as its batteries held out, it sat at the ready on the front seat between my parents. What I remember was that one of the favorite responses to our antsyness was Frank Sinatra crooning “High Hopes” – “…everyone knows an ant can’t move a rubber tree plant! But he had high hopes… he had high hopes… he had high apple pie in the sky hopes…” A family singing in a hot car plying across the endless plains of Nebraska was somehow re-oriented to the possibility instead of just the present frustration. Somehow, I think that all of that travelling as a kid, and maybe the introduction of perspective re-orienting distractions, helped me to fall in love with the idea of the journey having value and not just the destination.
This year has been a journey, and it has exhausted most of us as we’ve waited for the destination of normalcy – “are we there yet?!?” These are good moments to remember that God journeys with us. Faith and grace are not destinations, but an orientation to a persistent, patient God who seems to love journeys. For God, those journeys are how God has always shaped God's people into a different way of seeing their lives and our world. And of course, it doesn’t take much pondering of the stories of scripture to remember that God's people have struggled and whined repeatedly and sometimes it has seemed like the cassette-deck-of-reorienting-inspiration has run out of battery power. But God keeps moving forward with us, hoping that we’ll come to cherish the blessings of the journey.
We are in the midst of the Easter Season – another time when God's people are invited to contemplate how the triumph of the good news has touched the world, past, present, and future. The season challenges us to be engaged with being kindlers of God's light in the world, and bearers of God's high hopes for all of creation. That’s incredibly good news, but it’s also hard work. We continue to live in a world that feels deeply divided. Politics, race, and even how we navigate a pandemic have each become painful reminders of how easy it is to let frustration and impatience overwhelm the perspective of the journey. I recently heard someone speak what used to be a more familiar phrase: “in my family growing up, we didn’t see race…” and I was struck with a new sadness. There was a time that we put on a band-aid and thought that the best thing would be if we just didn’t see difference. What we know is that this is only comfortable if you happen to be one of the people who has always felt seen. Our faith proclaims that each of us is created in the image of God. Our faith proclaims repeatedly that God's love and salvation is intended for all the earth. Yet sadly, instead of looking at a diverse landscape of humanity as an invitation to more fully understand the height and depth and breadth and diversity of God's love, we sell out to a more comfortable vision of homogenized unity.
We just heard the verdict in the George Floyd trial. Many have spoken of this as a pivotal moment for many in our world. Others have been rightly frustrated with that assessment as they note that had this been a white man, we would have expected nothing else. Even that deep division of perspective speaks to the continued challenge for us to work to understand and honor one another through trying to recognize the very different life experiences that people have. Jesus’ prayer for unity doesn’t come about by everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya as an affirmation that we’re all the same, but rather by joining hands and celebrating that we are united in being equally valued, equally seen, equally cherished icons through which to see the face of God.
The journey we are on is one that will be long and arduous. Two of the pandemics that we face, Covid-19 and racism, aren’t going to disappear quickly. We can whine and get frustrated and keep asking “aren’t we there yet?!” or we can open our hearts’ minds and see what we might learn along the way. How might both of these struggles invite us to see and love our neighbor more deeply? How can the diversity of people and ideas become a chance to celebrate how great and vast is the love of our God? One of the things that I’ve cherished about our congregation is one of the same things that I now feel as a division, and that is the diversity of politics and theology within our church family. We have a chance to do the work to grow. We have the chance to expand our vision of God through all of the differences among us and around us… or we have the chance to limit God to our own perspectives and our own self certainties. When we learn to embrace the journey — maybe even trying to love the change of rhythm — a long journey may even become a pilgrimage of the soul. There is much for us to see and to learn together.
Just a year ago I turned to these words from First Peter: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that you may be exalted in due time. Cast all your anxieties on God, because God cares for you. […] Steadfast in your faith, know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who calls you to eternal glory, will restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To God be the power forever and ever. Amen." (1 Peter 5:6-7 & 9-11) As we continue to lean into this Easter Season may we find the light of God beckoning us to have high hopes and to keep growing.
May God bless us,
Pastor Eric