Real hope amid catastrophe

The normal state of the world is catastrophic.

Everything is falling apart: this is the way it is, and the way it so often is. This is how it was in the beginning when the Spirit of God hovered over the roiling chaos and God began speaking creation into existence. This is how it was in the time of Jesus of Nazareth. This is how it is now.

In times gone by, our destructive species shattered temples and flattened cities. Some eras of human history, like the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, seem to be times when everything comes back together. But even then, suffering and injustice persisted. And now, humanity is bitterly divided, and we seem to be at real risk of bringing about the destruction of the entire biosphere.

We need to start here, bleak as it sounds, if we want to find true, authentic hope. And there is true, authentic hope! Even in a world of floods and fires, refugees and warfare, scorched skies and rising seas, even in this seemingly dystopian world, even and perhaps especially here, true and authentic hope endures.

Jesus warns his disciples about the destruction of the temple, but our record of this conversation was probably written down after the temple was destroyed. And so we see that the Jesus Movement flourished not before catastrophe, but right in the middle of it. There was the devastating catastrophe of the crucifixion, and the riveting, world-shaking catastrophe of the resurrection. And there was the political, social, existential catastrophe of the sacking of Jerusalem by Rome in 70 AD. The naïveté of the disciples in today's Good News—“what large stones and what large buildings!” they say, like awestruck tourists—this naïveté is retold in Mark ironically, with world-wise, hard-won wisdom. Nobody in Mark’s community really talked that way. (At least nobody who was paying attention.) It would be like us saying, “What healthy skies and pristine oceans! What safe coastal cities and rivers flush with salmon!” No, we are smarter than that. Maybe we are almost as smart as the young activist Greta Thunberg. In today’s Good News, I hope we can identify with Jesus himself, who doesn’t deny how bad things are, or how much worse they will get, even as he also proclaims true, authentic hope.

It’s bad, but there’s real hope. That’s the message of Jesus.

Here is something specific that you and I are not naïve about: we know that it would count as a success if the world’s humans kept the global temperature average from rising higher than 1.5° Celsius, over the pre-industrial-age average. Now, 1.5° is not good! It guarantees death and suffering to countless living creatures. But in the calculus of climate change, 1.5° is the least bad option. It’s unlikely but possible that humanity could achieve this goal. Jesus teaches us to be realistic about such things.

But Jesus also says, “Do not be alarmed. The end is still to come.”

“Do not be alarmed. The end is still to come.”

I want to open up this message of hope from Jesus, and make sense of it in our own day. I can open it up in four ways.

We can nurture true, authentic hope in four ways.

First, there is practical hope: We can and should, and we will, seek justice in ways that can be counted and measured. We can calculate our carbon footprints, at home and here at church, and seek ways to reduce them. We can google “Interfaith Power and Light,” and join a larger interfaith community that seeks to make practical differences in the problem all humans share. We can take on personal practices by which we consume less, drive less, fly less; and conserve more, restore more, offset more. We can be signs of true, authentic hope in our daily practices, as individuals and households, and as a congregation. Practical hope: God is in the details.

Second, there is prophetic hope: We can and should, and we will, bear witness to the global catastrophe, and draw alongside its victims. We can tell the stories of those who suffer the worst from climate change and extreme weather. We can confront our own complicity in economic and political systems that perpetuate climate injustice. We can talk with friends and strangers alike about how God identifies with those who are oppressed. We can work to restore forests and waterways for all people and other-than-human creatures who live in and near them. We can say with the prophet’s voice that Christian ethics is about lifting up those who are brought low, and that starts and ends with lifting up the earth entire. Prophetic hope: God is in the solidarity.

Third, there is mystical hope: We can and should, and we will, interpret our faith story, and our shared Christian identity, through the lens of climate justice. From Genesis to Revelation; in every story Jesus loves about seeds and trees; in our contemplations of the lives of the saints; in our images and ideas about God; in our liturgies of both lament and celebration; in our theologies of incarnation and paschal redemption—in all of these practices of our faith, throughout our mystical journey as God’s people, we can see and proclaim the creative movement of the Spirit in the restoration and preservation of the climate of this living planet God lovingly made, and lovingly recreates. Mystical hope: God is on the journey.

And finally, there is eschatological hope: We can and should, and we will, proclaim that God’s glorious End is already beginning. We are in the middle of catastrophe, but even now God is writing the final allegro movement in the symphony of creation. Even now the forces of chaos and evil are beginning to be routed. We can see and proclaim that while this is not the End, we are in relationship with that End, and that with God’s presence and power, all creation is groaning toward that good and glorious End. Eschatological hope: God is calling from the future.

Practical, Prophetic, Mystical, Eschatological: these are our four watchwords of hope as we cope with the catastrophe of climate change. God is in the details; God is in the solidarity; God is on the journey; and God is calling from the future. This is our fourfold baptismal identity at work in the world. This is our mission. This is our Good News.

When I was eighteen years old, I would pick up my mail in the college mailroom and go up to my dingy little dorm room to sort through it. I would sit on my chair and tear the little plastic windows off the envelopes, throw the plastic away, and toss the paper into the recycling bin. I was young and idealistic: recycling was new then, and seemed like a good first step to take for those who cared about the environment. It was 1988; there had only been nineteen Earth Days at that point. I know now that recycling is good, but sometimes your city can’t keep up with it, and it’s a great example of a practical behavior that mostly makes the person doing it feel better, without moving the needle on the major problem. Much more is required of us now. 

But that 18-year-old kid who used to be me: I’ll stick up for him. He was on the right track. We can all experiment with personal practices as our first venture into practical hope. And we can listen to leaders like John Kydd, who just got back from COP26, to begin our participation in prophetic hope. Our study and learning of the faith, our prayer and worship, all things church: these can be our way to cultivate mystical hope. And finally, we can all proclaim the Good News about the End, about how the Holy Spirit is already gathering us, along with all creation, to renewed life and health. Day by day, these can be our purposes here.

We sweat the details. We join together in solidarity with all who suffer the most. We understand and practice our faith within this good, created world. And we trust God’s future. 

This is our true, authentic hope in Jesus Christ, who comes even now to save us from our own destruction.

As you reflect on your own identity and call as a follower of Jesus, the One who says it’s bad, but there’s real hope, I wonder:

What might you do next?

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Preached on the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28B), November 14, 2021, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25
Mark 13:1-8