Romans 8: 22-27
I want us to admit something
to ourselves and to one another,
right off the bat today:
That the our relationship to God,
is on a very basic level,
a relationship of not having.
Not knowing.
Not possessing.
Not seeing.
And that we delude ourselves if we insist otherwise.
We are,
as Paul says, simply waiting and groaning for things unseen.
Separate. And unable to possess the true God.
Though we will certainly all feel
that sense of possession from time to time.
But that which we possess,
is likely not the real God.
As Paul Tillich once said:
“Our religious life is characterized more than any other thing,
by replacing the true God with a self-created image of God.”
The theologian in me, for instance,
frequently feels I can grasp God,
in the form of thoughtful inquiry and doctrine.
There are certainly bible readers out there,
who think they possess God in a book.
Or perhaps church-goers who think they have God
in institutions.
Or outdoor enthusiasts who think they know God
in mountain-top moments.
Or maybe even voters,
who feel God is embodied
in a candidate.
But really we all
as Paul says,
wait,
unknowing, un-grasping, uncertain.
occasionally groaning with the rest of creation.
Sometimes needing the spirit to groan for us.
And what’s more, I think we all know it.
From the theologian, to the bible reader,
to the mountaineer, to the church-goer.
The voter and politician.
We all know that we don’t have it.
That we don’t possess God.
That these possessions are but mere idols in the face of the true God.
And I think that’s one of the things
that makes us so defensive and so fragile when it comes to faith.
Because, in some sense,
we have faith only in lack.
in separation.
And so, even in our better moments,
all we do is wait.
and sometimes groan.
BUT.
We do wait.
In faith. and in hope. in things unseen.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing
This past summer,
I was in Chicago for a number of days.
I stayed overnight one night
in one of these terribly affluent Northern suburbs,
I tried to spend as little time there as possible,
and thus took the train back into the city early the next morning
to visit a friend.
I got off the train knowing I was over a mile from where I needed to go.
A straight shot up a main street.
I was told I should stop and wait for the bus.
Which I did for a few brief moments.
And then decided I could walk,
and when I saw it coming,
catch the bus at the next stop.
Of course right as I started to walk,
the bus flew by me.
So I stopped at the next stop,
and waited again for the next bus for a few moments.
got restless,
and began to walk again.
This time bypassing two stops,
before the next bus flew by.
At which point I had made it about half way there,
so I walked the rest of the way.
I did not have waiting for that bus figured out
And this is not a good way for us to be.
We can do a better job of waiting,
when it comes to God…to the eternal.
Again quoting from Tillich:
“The fact that we wait for something shows that in some way we already possess it. Waiting anticipates that which is not yet real.”
In our act of waiting,
in our state of being,
which is non-possession.
We wait for something which is,
paradoxically,
already at work within us.
And I believe,
especially when we are willing to admit,
that we don’t truly know or possess God,
in any way.
But are willing still to wait.
That then God can grasp us.
Then we are,
as Tillich says,
“believers in our unbelief.”
We are accepted in our separation.
We have God through not having God.
And there, I think, is a strange kind of hope.
For this is our call: to wait.
And in that spirit,
I think it is time for us,
as we examine this question of hope,
to seriously take on the question of life after this life.
Of something beyond.
of eternity.
A subject steeped in paradox, and difficulty.
A subject which can take us right back to the place of possession.
Or can take us out of this world completely.
and, to be honest,
the biblical witness does not offer us much clarity.
It seems to me we have three distinct visions,
which seem at best confusing,
and occasionally competing within the biblical text.
First, and probably best known in many Christian circles
we have heaven.
The place where your eternal soul goes right after you die.
Full of clouds and angel wings.
It’s not terribly biblical.
but does make an appearance,
when Jesus speaks from the cross in Luke,
to his thieving but faithful neighbor:
“truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”
Second, we have “the end of the age”
evidenced particularly by the book of Revelation
(which Bill Maher insists upon calling RevelationS)
but also present throughout Paul in the form of the resurrection,
and in the Gospels,
when Jesus brings up false prophets and persecution
and the coming of the Son of Man.
An end time so mysterious not even the Son, knows when it might be.
And finally we have the Kingdom of God.
And, if we can say nothing else about Jesus of Nazareth,
we know that he was a preacher of the coming Kingdom of God.
what that Kingdom entails, exactly,
is somewhat less clear.
We are told at one point to repent for the Kingdom is “near”
and in another that the kingdom is not far off but “among” or “within” us.
And later we see an image of a far off gathering of people
from North and South, East and West.
To eat together in this same Kingdom.
Heaven. End-times. Kingdom,
We are left, perhaps,
a bit perplexed.
Knowing again, that we must simply wait…and sometimes groan.
But in the meantime,
there are a couple of things I think we ought to note:
First, that while the question of life immediately after death,
the question of the end of the age,
and the question of the “Kingdom”
are all clearly related.
They are not exactly the same thing.
Second,
I think we can quite clearly mistrust anyone
who oversimplifies these events.
Who makes them into an easy and coherent narrative;
A simple path from life, to death, to endtimes.
Rather these are complex subjects,
with which Paul and the Gospel writers,
and perhaps even Jesus himself wrestled.
And to simplify I think leads us only away.
And finally,
again, as Paul says,
we are simply waiting.
And this world in which we wait matters.
And how we wait matters.
And I believe that if we can honestly admit to ourselves,
that we in no way possess eternity.
That we are not assured of it.
That maybe we don’t even know what it is.
Then I think it can grasp us in brief moments of transcendence.
Then eternity can break in,
and hold us in moments big and small.
Through people close to us.
and through events of historical significance.
Eternity can work in us,
and in this finite world.
We can have moments of clarity in our waiting…and our groaning.
In waiting for something so far removed,
so confused and confusing,
it is already at work in us.
Like God,
we do not know eternity or possess it.
But it can possess us in waiting.
And there …
there is hope.
Not that we have it all figured out.
But hope, nonetheless.
Hope again that sustains us in difficulty.
Hope that we learn through suffering and groaning.
Hope that calls us to action.
Hope that stays with us in uncertainty.
Hope that’s ready for us,
when we’re finally ready
to let go of those idols we each possess,
which we often call God or eternity,
and turn again to wait, and groan.
To allow that which is un-possessable,
unknowable, un-graspable,
but which is already at work in us,
To possess us, know us, and grasp us,
in our waiting and in hope.
Amen.
