What to do if the world is ending

(answer: plant a tree)

When I was a girl, my mother wisely would warn me, “don’t get your hopes up.  You don’t want to be disappointed”. 

She’s right of course.  She didn’t want me to build something up in my mind to the point that the reality of the thing could only disappoint.  Getting your hopes up, she would tell me, is a sure way of being let down. I see where she’s coming from now that I have raised children of my own.  I hate to see them disappointed and would love to help them manage to not have that experience.  But I think that what she was trying to rid me of wasn’t hopefulness at all.  It was harmful expectations. 

Our newly planted tree.

Hope is different than expectations.  Our expectations are what often keep us from being present to the gift of what IS. Not to mention, expectations are sometimes just the other side of entitlement, and there really is very little joy in getting what we believe we have coming to us anyhow.

That’s why I think maybe it’s important to see how expectations differ from expectancy. Expectancy is what the imprisoned prophet Jeremiah had when he said The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  This prophet sits in prison as Jerusalem is being taken over by Nebuchadnezzar and everything is collapsing around him and he defiantly holds fast to the outrageous promises of God.  There is violence and fear and foreboding all around him and what did this prophet do right before this part of the text?  Bought land.  In an outlandish act of hope he purchased land in the lower 9^th ward knowing Katrina was coming because he would not give in to the idea that this is all there is. 

Despite the chaos and despair around him Jeremiah wrapped himself around God’s promises and on behalf of his people would not, could not, did not let go.  When this prophet was persecuted for preaching God’s truth he did not run away to some monastery for a life of quiet contemplation.  He did not try and get a cozy job in the new regime. He bought land. In a defiant act of hope he bought land.  He refused to let the threatening clouds rolling over the present darken his view of what was possible in the future.

It reminds me of Martin Luther’s famous response when he was asked what would he do if he knew the world would end tomorrow.  He said “I’d plant a tree”

The promise that God is not done and we will not be left alone still holds. This hope to which we cling is not a naive hope.  Nor is it an escapist hope.  But quite the opposite.  It’s the hope of people who have heard the dangerous rumor that there is life beyond death and hope beyond suffering and that love eventually conquers the soul-crushing bullshit we humans keep perpetuating.

It is dangerous to say that our hopes are not something in our grasp, that there is a future created not by ourselves but by God.  It goes against every Western individualistic message of self-propulsion we have ever received. And we don’t just say it, we celebrate it.  It’s a completely bonkers thing we do as Christians - particularly in this culture.  We say that our hope is not in the Dow Jones but in the God of Abraham and Sarah, our hope is not in the nonprofit industrial complex, but in the God of Jeremiah and Mary Magdalen, and perhaps most importantly, our hope is not in our own ability to be hopeful but in the God of and Teresa of Avila and Teresa of Calcutta.  This is what it means to stand in the midst of a troubled world and raise our heads in expectancy pointing to from where our help comes. 

As I’ve said before, as a people of a story we can have one hand reaching back to touch the hope of the prophets and one hand reaching out to the promised redemption of the world…and when we do this, we can be open and vulnerable to the present, without the present crushing us.

Then we buy land and plant trees. Or whatever the metaphorical equivalent is. 

In it with you,

Nadia

Where to find me this Summer and Fall:

June 26 - Grand Rapids, MI - RED STATE REVIVAL

June 29 - Denver, Co St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral - preaching

July 11 - Cheyenne, WY - RED STATE REVIVAL

Aug 3 - Denver, CO - Montview Presbyterian - preaching

Aug 10 - Denver, Co St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral - preaching

Aug 15 - Sioux Falls, SD - RED STATE REVIVAL

Aug 22 - Columbus, OH - RED STATE REVIVAL

Aug 23 - Charleston, WV - RED STATE REVIVAL

Oct 3-5 - Rhinebeck, NY - Omega Institute Women’s Gathering (limited spots available)

Coming Soon:

Oct 6 - Philadelphia, PA - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Oct 16 - Missoula, MT - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Nov 7 - Milwaukee, WI - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)