Dear siblings in Christ,
When I was a child, growing up in a charismatic church, I always wondered if I would live through “the end times.” And while it looks differently than I imagined as a child, I have often been taken aback at how apocalyptic our current cultural moment is. It certainly does feel like “the end times.”
I’m writing to you today in the wake of the passage of legislation that will harm the most vulnerable and marginalized among us so that those who already have more money than they know what to do with can accumulate even more. This flies directly in the face of the teachings of Jesus and the political economy of love the Spirit is creating, and so it is right to be angry and sad about this.
In one sense, it’s just “one more thing” in a relentless barrage of bewildering bad news, but in another sense, it seems to have struck a particularly dissonant chord among us. Yesterday’s news is part of an unfolding apocalypse that feels increasingly overwhelming to contemplate and impossible to effectively confront. None of us seem to have our hands on any levers that could make an immediate, tangible difference for our most marginalized neighbors, and this can feel discouraging for those of us who are used to being able to fix things and solve problems.
So I felt compelled to offer a word of hope and encouragement on this Independence Day, if I can. Because we are not the first manifestation of the church that has had to face an apocalypse. We are not the first people who have lived through the “end of the world.” We can learn from our ancestors in faith and our siblings in Christ today who have been living through the end of the world for many years now. We can learn from the Black church and the Palestinian church and the early church how to be faithful in times like these.
One thing they teach us is that part of the work is simply to continue to participate in the revolution of solidarity and love the Spirit has been creating among us since the day of Pentecost. We don’t simply fight the bad, but also seek to embody the good. This is especially important in times like these when the name of Christ is being blasphemed by Christian nationalists who seek to claim Jesus as a mascot for their power consolidation schemes.
So let us continue to live out our faith together in the power of the Spirit, beloved. Let us continue to gather with one another to lament and weep and rage and protest and pray and organize and laugh and worship together. Let us continue to make Eucharist together, celebrating God’s victory over the forces of death, even when we can’t see it. Especially when we can’t see it. Part of why we gather is to “borrow” faith and hope and love from each other when our own wells have gone dry. I’m reminded that faith is mostly about showing up for each other, despite discouragement and despair.
Because what else are we going to do? Give up? Hunker down in isolation and self-preservation while the world burns? I think we all know that’s not an option for us, because it would be a denial of the path Jesus has called us to walk, and a betrayal of the love that has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. So of course we’ll keep going. Of course we’ll keep learning to be the church in an apocalypse.
There is a quote from the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (who wrote while the Nazis were coming to power in Germany) that comes to mind often for me these days:
“You could not have wished to be born at a better time than this, when everything is lost.”
I like how she turns the apocalyptic moment on its head. Instead of seeing “the end of the world” as an occasion of despair, we can see it as fertile ground for a deeper connection to reality and each other and transformation in God’s grace. Which, of course, reminds me of the Apostle Paul’s teaching that “we revel in our hope of sharing the glory of God… but we also revel in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:3-5).
I’ll close with a collect from our Book of Common Prayer, “For the Nation” (p. 258):
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Zeal for justice and strength to endure. That is what I am praying for all of us these days.
Grace and peace,
Fr. Ben
