Dealing With Despair - sermon March 15

“Why Is My Pain Unceasing?” - Dealing With Despair

Rev. Alison Longstaff, March 15, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Jeremiah 15:15–21, Matthew 16:21–28, DP 214

Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?

One nice thing about pain is that it feels so good when it stops.

In our Scripture readings, we heard a lot about suffering.  We heard a pain-filled cry to God to end the suffering in Jeremiah.  In the gospel reading, Jesus is warning the disciples about the terrible suffering he will endure.  Peter objects, and Jesus shouts at Peter, “Get behind me, you Satan!” in a shocking, very un-Jesus like moment.  He says, “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter was the voice of the tempter when he declared that such suffering and death should never happen to Jesus.  Jesus knew it was imperative to focus on the spiritual work about to be accomplished and not on the suffering.  He had to focus on His Divine mission and not be distracted.  Perhaps Peter was the voice of the demon attacking Jesus, trying to convince Jesus to opt out of the suffering.  This would explain the intensity of the rebuke.

Jesus had to keep his eyes set on the Divine, to accomplish his mission.

Life on this earth includes suffering.  Even here in North America, with our insurance policies, relative wealth, and myriad safety measures, we can’t seem to escape suffering.  We often think we shouldn't have to suffer.  We keep creating more ways to protect ourselves, as if constant comfort and total security were the answer to all our problems.

So why are we still so restless and unhappy?  Some of the countries that rank highest for overall national happiness are places like Nigeria and Bhutan.  What’s that about?  Nigeria suffers from extreme poverty, and many people live in mud huts.  How can they possibly be happier than us?  Well, it seems they have a deep reliance on God.  They are a very Christian country, and they live their faith in every way they can.  They are desperately poor, yet they sing and pray and share the little they have with each other, and they are happy.

Toronto journalist Jonathan Power interviewed Olusegun Obasanjo, a Nigerian who became a Christian and a preacher after being unjustly imprisoned.  In his three years of captivity, Obusanjo became a sort of chaplain to his fellow prisoners. He says, “The time I had real joy in my life was when I was in prison.  I felt then that there was just God and me, and my fellow prisoners whom I must try and help." (Power, 2003)  Extreme hardship robs us of everything … but God.  Perhaps this is why some of the most loving and deeply spiritual people are also people who have suffered great hardship.

In the midst of the deepest suffering God becomes all we have left, and this breaks ground for a deep and rich faith to grow.  I’m not saying we should all discard our current lives and go live in a third-world country so as to really suffer so we can experience God. Suffering will find us, no matter where we live, nor how much money we have.  I am saying that it is good to remember that suffering can be our greatest teacher.  God wouldn't allow anything to happen if it didn't serve some purpose for good.  So even the painful times in life—perhaps especially the painful times—are carefully overseen by God to deepen us and eventually bring us joy.

My one objection to books and philosophies like The Secret is the way they can promote the idea that we are solely responsible for what happens to us in our lives.  The idea is that if we cultivate a good attitude, we invite good things into our lives, and conversely that we invite misfortune by having a bad attitude.  The logical conclusion to this is that if we just work hard enough to have a great attitude, nothing bad will happen to us.  But if that were true, those Indonesians and Japanese must have had terrible attitudes to invite such massive tsunamis onto themselves.  The Hebrew nation must have somehow invited the Holocaust. Every victim of every tragedy could be blamed for their misfortune.  Such a belief might give the rest of us some sort of security, but I can’t believe in a God or universe that works so simplistically (and harshly).  We mortals are simply not that powerful.

 

“It must be their fault.  If only they were positive like me, they’d be okay,” is the underlying thinking  when we judge victims of hardship and illness.  This thinking is problematic, in that it promotes a strong reliance on our own efforts for “salvation”, and there's no mention of reliance on God (or Spirit or Higher Power or anything outside of oneself).  I understand the appeal of this idea.  But it falls flat whenever we come up against anything more powerful than our own positive thinking.

My mother lived in chronic physical pain for many years of her life.  She had fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and depression, which meant that everything hurt, inside and out.  She was on all sorts of pain medicines, which only helped a little, had their own strange side-effects, and caused other problems.  I don’t know how she managed.  I can’t handle chronic pain for even a day.  I get grumpy and whiny and can be very impatient when waiting for my next dose of pain reliever.  She had chronic pain for over twenty years!  Did I mention that she also got regular migraines?  She tried every treatment in the world, from steroids to vitamins to acupuncture to moose meat, and nothing helped.  She was told again and again that it was all in her head and that she “should” be happy.

She died in 2008, in terrible pain to the bitter end.

I loved her.  It was terrible to watch her suffer.  I admit that sometimes I got impatient with her.  I thought, “Surely she can do something differently!”  I judged her for not trying hard enough, and for not trying the right things long enough.  My judging came from how hard it was to see her in such pain. 

But my judging never helped her. My impatience never helped her.  No one’s judgment or “should”s helped her.

Again and again, the best and only thing I could do for her was to love her to bits, and spend time with her, and believe with my whole heart that God had a plan.  Period.

Have you ever heard someone say, in the midst of some awful situation, “I suppose God has a lesson for me,” as if he or she could stop the suffering if they could simply figure out what the lesson was and learn it?  I don’t think God works that way.  I don’t think God ever sends suffering to teach us a lesson.  I think God allows it sometimes, only when He can also bring some long term good out of it for everyone involved.

Did my mom suffer for over twenty years because there was some lesson she was refusing to learn or because she didn't have the right attitude?  I can't believe that.  I know she did the best she could.  She got dealt a rotten hand.  She didn't invite her pain onto herself any more than she invited the childhood abuse she suffered at the hands of her father—any more than my classmate’s two-year-old son invited death from liver cancer onto himself either. 

Sometimes terrible stuff just happens.

Yes, a positive attitude can greatly improve certain aspects of our lives; it can improve our coping, and can spin off some terrific side effects.  Optimism and hope are our wings, and when we have them, they lift us up and over a multitude of life’s hurdles.  But sometimes, through no fault of our own, our wings get plucked or broken.  Sometimes a hoard of locusts swoops down on our rich and thick harvest of positive thinking and in a heart-beat, strips it to dead stalks.  Sometimes we are left walking or crawling down life’s muddy road, not flying, experiencing every bump and ditch and thorn and mud puddle.  “The rain falls on the just and on the unjust,” says God in the Gospels.  Or, to quote contemporary wisdom, “Shit happens.”

So we must set our minds on divine things, and not on human things.

There is so much in this life over which we have no control.  There are all sorts of forces at work around us, and we are far less powerful than we think. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts.

We want a happy, comfy life now.  God wants us to have a happy, comfy life for eternity. 

From The Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg, passage number 214:
The Lord’s Divine Providence pays attention to things that matter forever, and pays attention to short-term things only so far as they work in unison with the things that matter forever.  Short term or temporal matters usually have to do with earthly wealth and status, which is fame and fortune in the world. But what matters forever is our spiritual well-being and our spiritual character, which have to do with our becoming ever more loving and spiritually wise—these impact our eternal happiness.  We mortals see the worldly values of wealth and social standing as disconnected from our eternal happiness, but the Lord sees that they are connected.  And so the Lord’s Providence must give our eternal well-being priority over our earthly fame and fortune, until they work in unison.

We are part of a great tapestry.  Stuff that looks bad to our eyes now is allowed to happen because God sees a bigger picture.  But don’t forget, God isn't some cold, distant artist.  When we suffer, God suffers along with us.  S/He knows what it is like to be a mortal.  He was one, in Jesus.  Jesus suffered to bring a much better outcome for every one of us down the road.   And in the very same way the disciples couldn't see why Jesus allowed Himself to suffer, we often can’t see why we or our loved ones are allowed to suffer.  We can’t see God’s plan, but it is there.

Bad things happen, and not all the positive thinking in the world can save us from it.  No one is that powerful, no matter what we'd like to think.  All twelve steppers can tell you that powerlessness is the first and most important thing to learn.  We have to embrace and face life on life's terms, not ours.  Facing our powerlessness throws us finally and completely into God’s arms.

“Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?”  Set your mind on divine things, and not on human things.  Spiritual growth or personal growth involves finding our relationship with suffering, not avoiding it.  Why else would God invite us to take up the cross to follow Him?  Jesus fought through temptation after temptation on his journey to the cross.  He showed us the way.  AND He showed us that it will come out all right, no matter how hopeless it looks along the way. 

God loves us desperately.  S/He doesn't want us to suffer.  But sometimes the most loving thing He can do for us is to let us have our experiences, good and bad.  Eliminating the struggle for us eliminates the joy and triumph we will feel when we finally arrive at the finish line.  Suffering calls forth qualities in us like endurance, stamina, and patience. It frequently teaches us compassion and opens us up to the Holy Spirit.  It is like spiritual roto-tilling, breaking up old and set things inside us, turning us upside down, and making room for new and wonderful things to grow.

Suffering helps us to appreciate more fully the truly good things in life.  It also teaches us how precious are the times of peace and good fortune.  We no longer take them so much for granted.  Suffering deepens us, whether we like it or not.  And it reminds us who’s really in charge of the universe, and that it is not us.  It teaches us to trust in God; and to set our sights on divine goals and not on human ones.

For those of you who are in the midst of suffering, take heart.  Every single thing in life is in God’s hands.  Not one hair of your head falls without notice.  No matter how long the night may seem, the spiritual morning always brings comfort and joy.  You are intimately loved and cared for, and every single detail of your life is being woven for your eternal blessedness.  Even if you cannot see it; even if you rail against God for your suffering, it is all covered.  Your spiritual insurance policy is in God’s Divine Providence, which is wise beyond all human wisdom and compassionate beyond all human understanding.

All manner of things WILL be well.

           

 Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?

“…They shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, says the LORD.

 I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.” (Jeremiah 15:20-21)

“Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who trust in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)

Then surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life;
And you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23)

Amen

Revised from a sermon preached August 2008

Reference: Nigeria: Happiest Nation on Earth?

by Jonathan Power, Published on Monday, December 29, 2003 by the Toronto Star

The Readings

Jeremiah 15:15-21

O LORD, you know; remember me and visit me, and take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
In your forbearance take me not away; know that for your sake I bear reproach.
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.
I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice;
I sat alone, because your hand was upon me, for you had filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?

Therefore thus says the LORD: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me.
If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth.
They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.
And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you,

for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the LORD.
I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

Matthew 16:21-28

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

The Divine Providence 214

The Lord’s Divine Providence pays attention to things that matter forever, and pays attention to short-term things only so far as they work in unison with the things that matter forever.  Short term or temporal matters usually have to do with earthly wealth and status, which is fame and fortune in the world. But what matters forever is our spiritual well-being and our spiritual character, which have to do with our becoming ever more loving and spiritually wise—these impact our eternal happiness.  We mortals see the worldly values of wealth and social standing as disconnected from our eternal happiness, but the Lord sees that they are connected.  And so the Lord’s Providence must give our eternal well-being priority over our earthly fame and fortune, until they work in unison.

When Things Fall Apart - sermon Feb. 1

 “When Things Fall Apart”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, February 1^st, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Ezekiel 37: 1-14; John 11:portions of 1-45; Apocalypse Explained 555:14

           

"Mortal, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."  Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!  And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, mortal, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

 

Bones and flesh and breath. We are more than our bones. Our bones are our ideas, and they are the truths we need in order to live an “upright” life. They are the things we all know . . . but can fail to live. A “truth” is a dry bone when we know it, but we don’t live by it yet.

The thing is, it is hard for us to make dry bones live without the help of God—some might say, impossible. Look at the alcoholic who knows he or she shouldn't drink, but can’t seem to stop.

"Mortal, can these bones live?" says God to Ezekiel.  And Ezekiel says, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."

Put yourself in Ezekiel’s shoes. Staring at a valley full of dry bones, how would you answer God? Perhaps Ezekiel was hedging his bets with his response. “God alone knows,” he said. Was he being sarcastic? Or reverential? Despairing? Or perhaps, skeptical? Was this his way of saying, “I’m not going to touch that one….”? 

But God can look at a valley of dead dreams and wasted efforts, and make them live again. And when God asks us if we think the bones can live, “He” makes space for all of our responses, whether we are in the optimistic and shiny faith of the newly spiritual-born, or the jaded and weary faith of the long-lived spiritual traveler. Depending on who we are and what we have been through, we may be jaded, or hopeful, bitter, or deeply trusting, or a mix.

Bones need flesh to live—flesh that softens and rounds and pulls things together—flesh that can pull these dry bones into a human form, capable of hugging, lifting, carrying, serving, holding, and bandaging the wounded. Flesh corresponds to love. Flesh symbolizes putting things to use. “Fleshing out” a belief is when we try to live it. 

I like to think of myself as environmentally conscious, but how much do I actually do on a daily basis to help the environment? Do I recycle diligently? Do I walk when possible, rather than drive? Do I compost? Do I support businesses that have proactive environmental practices?  This is a fairly civic and world-bound illustration, but you can extrapolate over to any value that you desire to embody—be it devoting more time to your relationships, to being trustworthy in your workplace, to working out more often and eating better, to being kinder to that one person that absolutely drives us up the wall.

Getting such “bones” fleshed out isn't as easy as we wish it was. Living our beliefs is where the “rubber hits the road,” and sometimes our efforts can feel pretty dead and lifeless.  I know mine seem to need constant “resurrection” or re-commitment, like any New Year’s resolutions that died within a few weeks of their launch.

This piece of Scripture, like every other passage in God’s Word, has layer upon layer of meaning.  We can study it from all sorts of angles and find new, fascinating, and nourishing insights. And like we discussed in the children’s talk, the ideas we find are never meant to be used to whack our brothers and sisters over the head with, though this does tend to be what we do, at least at first, with God’s truths. This passage is for me to use in my life, and you to use in your life, not for me or you to use to find fault with someone else’s life.

So what is this passage primarily about?  Is it a confirmation that living our faith can sometimes be hard work? Oh, this passage goes way beyond that. This passage is about the despair we feel when we have tried and tried to live a better way, and have failed.

           

This story describes the death of living dreams. There is a saying that goes, “A person can survive up to forty days without food, three days without water, but scarcely a minute without hope.” This level of discouragement is absolute.  We are ready to throw in the towel.  No doubt all of us here have experienced this despair to some degree, but this despair is well beyond the loss of hope and deep into bitterness and anguish. This despair is what Jesus was feeling when he cried out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  God is the only hope left, and God doesn't seem to be doing anything to help us.

At the time of this story the people of Israel had been captive in Babylon for over a generation.  They had been torn from their burning homes and possessions, had seen their children dragged off to be slaves, their leaders and warriors had been murdered, and their great and beautiful temple being torched and demolished. They had been marched hundreds of miles from their homeland to be slaves in an alien land. This was not even a fresh reality. By the time Ezekiel was prophesying to them, they were in their second generation of slavery in Babylon, and their children had no sense of identity other than as slaves—no experience of their homeland. They could see no way out, and no way to rebuild. Sorrow upon sorrow. Loss upon loss.

It is important to understand that the Judaic people had then and continue to have a profound sense of “place” as an important part of their identity as a worshiping nation. Christians do not have this as part of our religious narrative, so we can have a hard time understanding it. “Where two or three are gathered” is where we can worship, no matter where that is. But for this people, the “Holy Land,” and particularly the city of Jerusalem is a part of their flesh-and-bones sense of religious place, and without living there and worshiping there, they do not feel that they are being God’s people the way they ought to be. Before you snort at this idea, realize that you and I all have within us attachments to certain ideas of how things need to be for us to be right in God’s eyes, beyond which we cannot see. We too have attachments to ideas that might look silly to someone else. We are not so different.

And if it is in God’s Word, it is in our story too. You and I may never be carried away captive from our physical homelands. But we can and will know the equivalent depth of despair in our spiritual lives. When we are at this level of spiritual despair, it is as in the story of Lazarus—by the time Jesus arrives, all hope of rescue is long gone.  

Was Martha feeling bitter when she says, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died,”?  Did she feel abandoned? She had expected Jesus to save the day, and He hadn't shown up in time. This is the cry of every person of faith when we bang into the hideous unfairnesses in life from which we think we should have been spared. But we are not spared. Lazarus did die and lay dead four days. 

When things go horribly wrong, especially with those who have lived good and honorable lives, we can feel betrayed by God. It is a mark of the deepest despair when we feel so abandoned by God that we question God’s existence. If you hit this level of spiritual struggle you are not “weak” in your faith.  You might even be at an advanced level of spiritual work.  Severe doubt is a very real part of developing a living, breathing, resilient faith.  Mother Teresa struggled with terrible doubt in God’s existence her whole ministry.  C.S. Lewis spent many years as an atheist. The current Archbishop of Canterbury and even Pope Francis struggle with doubt in God’s existence and benevolence. Even Jesus cried out, “Why have you abandoned me?” Doubting God’s presence and loving care is normal, and you are in good company if you go there.  

           

Remember, if it is in God’s Word, it is describing a phase of our spiritual journey. No part is “wrong.” It just is. This story is about a very hard part of the journey, and yet it is full of compassion and hope.

So there we are, staring at the dead and dry bones of our hopes, our dreams, and even our faith.  God leads us around and around the bones. They are very many—piles of them! And they are very dead.  And God says to us as we stare at the ruins of all that was meant to be, "Mortal, can these bones live?"

Well, if it was me, I’d say with deep sarcasm, “Oh sure they can.” Ezekiel says, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know," which could also be heard as, “You know God, if anyone can do it, You can.”

Remember, this isn't just a curious story from an ancient text. Put yourself into the emotional place of Ezekiel. This is you and God, looking at the wreckage of your whole reason for living. And God says to us, “No matter how dry and dead are the bones and ashes of your dreams, I can resurrect them.” God stands beside us in the wreckage of our dearest hopes, and He promises that He can restore it all:   

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!’”  And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone.  I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on [the bones] and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. 

God restores the fragments of our lives until they are whole again. Amazing! Can you feel the hugeness of this vision down in your bones? But still, there is no life in them.

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, mortal, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'"  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Breath. The breath of God. This is inspiration—to breathe in the Holy Spirit—to be in-spired by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from God in order for our hopes and dreams to live again, in order to live, really live again in a life of joy and grace and rich faith. So God provides that too. It is a miracle surpassing all miracles. New life where there was only death.

Our reading from Swedenborg describes bone as truth before it is lived. But that is describing bone that is not attached to or an integral part of a living body. We do have living bones—living bones that ensure we stand upright, have the strength to hold our children and each other, and to withstand outside pressures. God wants our bones to live—and they can, with God’s help, with God’s breath. 

In this story, these are not bones that have never lived, these are bones that were alive once and have died. There is something so much more desperate about that image. We all know these skeletons of things we once loved—they are dreams we had once, relationships that thrived once, ideas and organizations that we trusted in once. How sad it is to stand there with Ezekiel and feel the desperate losses in these bones.

There is so much more to this story.  There is meaning in “the four winds,” and in the skeletons “standing on their feet.” But I need to wrap this up.

This strange story is about despair, but even more it is about hope. It is about hope against hope. It is about God being able to handle things, even when we have lost everything, our faith, our hope, our reason for living, even our belief in God. This story speaks hope into our darkest temptations and breathes new life, and new spirit into us, that we might live again. God revivifies the best of everything that we think we have lost. This story is telling us that we will again see every good thing that we have loved live again one day, because what is made of love never dies, it just hides and goes to sleep for a while. This can be impossible to believe sometimes, and that is okay. It can be impossible to look at three feet of snow on hard frozen ground and believe in soft earth and bare feet in warm grass too. We must await the warm breath of spring the way the bones awaited the breath of life. So, as we head into these last seven weeks of winter, let us live in this metaphor—let us remember this hope against hope, and go gently with each other until new life springs again fresh from the frozen earth.  Amen.

Originally “Them Dry Bones” preached Feb 9^th 2008 St James Lutheran in New Dundee Ontario

The Readings:

Apocalypse Explained 555:14 

“Bone” symbolizes truth before it is made living, that is, incorporated into how we live—this means every single thing we have learned but do not yet use. 

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.  

And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

So I answered, “O Lord God, You alone know.”

Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!  Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.  I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone.  Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.

Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’” So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’  Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.  Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves.  I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’”

John 11: 1, 3-5, 14-15, 20-23, 25-27, 32, 34-35, 39, 41, 43-44

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”

When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  Yet, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. 

Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”

Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Now Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again. … I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

And He said, “Where have you laid him?”

They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.”  Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

Is There Any Hope? -a Sermon for first Advent

Is There Any Hope?

Sermon for the Advent of Hope; 
Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 7, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 11:1-2, 6-9; Luke 1: 5-14; HS 8165:2

It was deeply profound to be writing this week's sermon about “Hope” as the nation raged and despaired in response to the acquittal of Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. My Facebook feed was alive with outrage on the day the news broke. One cousin posted report after report about the injustices experienced by dark-skinned Americans, and the obscenely high number of unarmed black youth shot dead by police every year without any hope of justice for their families.

The despair among my friends and connections was palpable. Outrage and anguish, futility and frustration—more and more stories in the news telling tales of humankind’s regression from integrity, moral courage, or any sense of interconnectedness and accountability. While there are many voices out there speaking truths that need to be heard about justice and compassion, there seem to be just as many proclaiming a rhetoric that harnesses blame and entitlement to reinforce a fortress mentality, barricading the entitled from any sense of compassion or “there but by the grace of God go I.”

I have had to work hard to maintain a sense of optimism since moving to the United States. While I am sure there are many other factors figuring in, I genuinely believe that it is a harsher psychological climate here than I experienced in Canada. There is more fear and mistrust in the air. The news is darker, the rhetoric more polemic, and “belief perseverance” (which is rigorously sticking to one’s original beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary, and is now a known, named, and studied phenomenon in the world of psychology) is everywhere. The truth simply cannot set us free if we put our fingers in our ears and hum so that we cannot hear.

My Facebook feed shows increasing frustration and despair among my cyber friends. It is as if a great madness has overtaken this country we love, and we do not know how it has happened or how to correct our course. And as the group anxiety ramps up, our intelligence and ability to work together deteriorates. For under distress, humans regress. It is just a fact of life. Is there any hope at all?

The loss of hope is called despair. And the loss of hope is perhaps one of the most terrible losses of all. To quote modern day prophet J. Michael Straczinski:

“There is a darkness greater than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities...it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril, we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.”

I found this quote peculiarly resonant with today’s words from Swedenborg. But while Straczynski exhorts us never to surrender, Swedenborg says that the very surrender itself is the turning point in a spiritual temptation. The same way any addict must first admit powerlessness over the addictive substance before recovery can happen, God allows a spiritual temptation to progress beyond our ability to fight back, so that we might re-experience that it is God that does the fighting, not us. Because it is the ways that we separate ourselves from God that create hell to begin with, even so it is the “healing crisis” or turning point in a spiritual temptation that reconnects us to God's strength and God’s love. Though painful, this is the only way to birth us back from hell into heaven (connection with God).

Our spiritual existence is a paradox. We live as if we are independent and yet must remember that God does everything. Our sense of independence from God is a vital part of our ability to receive life and experience spiritual freedom. But it can be a curse too, for that independence is made possible by our ego, and our ego pretty much just creates hell. This is because the minute we think it is all up to us (ego), life starts to get hellish. The minute we think we have all the answers and God should just listen to us (ego), we have manufactured misery. We don’t mean to. We can’t help it. It is what the ego does until we learn to master it.

So we both feel like our life is our own and yet we need to remember it is really God’s power and strength that accomplishes everything. God allows us to experience spiritual temptation when we forget that God’s help stands ready at every second. Despair is the extreme suffering that occurs when we feel as though God is nowhere around and not helping at all. (Jesus Himself experienced this in Gethsemane and on the cross, so the next time you go through this, don’t beat yourself up. Even Jesus couldn't escape this illusion.) Despair is inevitable. But staying stuck in it is optional.

And so, on this Sunday of HOPE, let us look for the hand-grips and toe-holds we might want to use when we next find ourselves stuck in the pit of despair. On the same day that I felt bombarded by the depressing news coming out of Ferguson, such that I wanted to renounce membership in the human race, I caught the edge of an MPBN radio show devoted entirely to good news stories. So I turned it up. After less than half an hour, I had tears of joy in my eyes. In fact, some of the stories of ingenuity, collaboration, and human kindness were so beautiful they would have made Scrooge himself a bit verklempt even before the three spirits visited. I went from disgust and despair, to hope and joy in half an hour, just by changing my internet feed.

There’s a lesson in that. What we pay attention to affects our state of mind. While my morbid curiosity pulls me towards bad news like a fly to, well, things flies like—I can intentionally steer my mind towards the things that uplift and feed my soul as well. Not only did the MPBN show transform my day, its web-page had a link to the Good News Network.org—a site dedicated completely to good news stories, yes, round the clock, seven days a week. And so now, now, whenever the regular news feels too heavy for me to bear, I tune into the good news and get an instant spiritual boost. There will always be bad news. This good news site focuses on the myriad stories of hope and triumph happening in the midst of the tragedies—which stories the big networks can’t be bothered to share.

There is the story of the over $175,000 that has been donated to the tiny Ferguson Library. That library is creating "healing kits" for kids that include books dealing with trauma, and a stuffed animal that they can keep. And there is the story about Natalie DuBose, a Ferguson baker and mother of two who was left trying to clean up and figure out how to fill her Thanksgiving orders after rioters smashed her bakery windows and damaged her equipment. A friend suggested she set up a fund-raising page so DuBose decided on a goal of raising $20,000 to get back on her feet. Two days later DuBose had received $252,000 from more than 7,000 doners. “I’ve never felt such love,” she said. “The outpouring of support … has been amazing. I was in tears.”

And in these stories we see a mirror of both our scriptures: life side-by-side with death. Long after all hope is lost for Elizabeth and Zacharias, their prayer is answered. Her womb quickens with a healthy, viable baby. Where once was a long-dead dream, a complete resurrection is happening.

We see a “poisonous serpent”—the angry voices of blame, the lies, the cover-ups, and the twisted versions of events—creating confusion, and paralyzing the process of justice in Ferguson, and seeking to kill our innocence; yet somehow the innocent and vulnerable people caught in harm’s way—the “infant”—transcends and survives despite the venom and violence. Here is the lion and the lamb; the wolf and baby goat, side by side. It is telling us that life and hope will always transcend death and despair. For in God’s holy mountain, which is the realm of all that is good and true within the human spirit, nothing can be hurt or destroyed. The part of each one of us that is created by God and lives forever can never be hurt or destroyed no matter what happens to us in this physical world.

Despair, and joy; darkness and light, death and life side-by-side. The one is born in the other, like a new baby born in the midst of pain. They are actually two faces of the same thing. We would not despair so intensely if we did not love so deeply, and the depth of our love is a manifestation of God with us. In fact the comfort and consolation that God delivers after we come through a dark night of the soul will be in direct proportion to the depth of the despair. Beautiful new life after every death.

It is our old ideas and attachments that die at the height of temptation, not anything that is doing us good. This hurts. We may cry out in pain like a woman in labor, but we are undergoing the birth of a new self—a new understanding. The relief and joy and transformed life that rises from this small death will be so rewarding that we won’t even remember the pain. God puts before us death and life and says, “Choose life!”

And so, as we celebrate this advent of Hope, let us always look for the new life amidst the ashes of old dreams. It is always there, waiting to burst into vibrant expression like the sun is behind the storm clouds and the spring flowers from beneath the frozen ground.

In closing I offer you this poem by Joyce Rupp. 

It is called, 

“A Closer Look at Thanksgiving.”

If you look at a sunset, you might see only the disappearance of daylight.

If you look beneath, you may see darkness opening the splendor of stars.

If you look at illness and disease, you might see only physical diminishment.

If you look beneath, you may see it as a teacher bringing you vital wisdom.

If you look at a broken relationship, you might see only a harsh ending.

If you look beneath, you may see the courageous seeds of new growth.

If you look at lost dreams, you might see only disappointment and doubt.

If you look beneath, you may see the stuff that new dreams contain.

If you look at the death of a loved one, you might see only pervasive sorrow.

If you look beneath, you may see that love lives on forever in the heart.

If you look at the planet’s pain and creatures’ woe, you might see only despair.

If you look beneath, you may see hope woven in the compassionate care of many.

If you look at yourself, you might see only tarnished unfinishedness.

If you look beneath, you may see your basic goodness shining there.

If you look for the divine being, you might see mostly unresolved questions.

If you look beneath, you may be astounded at the availability of divine love.

Amen

References:

Good news MPBM November 14: http://news.mpbn.net/post/good-news-stories-being-thankful

The Good News Network http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/ https://www.facebook.com/thegoodnewsnetwork

The Readings

Isaiah 11:1-2, 6-9.  A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the baby goat, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the poisonous snake, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. 

Luke 1:5-14. There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.  So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.  But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.

Heavenly Secrets 8165 [2] Paraphrase

The final phase of spiritual temptation is despair. During this phase we feel as if we cannot stop ourselves from sliding into hell. Temptations compel us to experience our powerlessness, for a temptation pushes us beyond our endurance until we cannot hold on any more, at which point we begin to tumble into hell. But the Lord catches us right at that point, stopping our descent. This brings relief and comfort and even joy. The only reason God would allow us to experience such terrible despair is so that our beliefs and our attachments can be reformed, and then by means of new insights and a deeper sense of interconnectedness, we are strengthened, and become even more deeply integrated.