How Long?

As part of my Lenten observation this year, I'm taking a break from writing new blog posts and updating and re-posting earlier material. Today's post was first shared on March 27, 2011.

Spring break is coming – lots of family vacations, road trips, and that universal refrain: “How long until we get there?”

College graduation is coming too, with the deeper refrain: “How long until I find a job?” “How long until I feel really settled, ready to get on with my life?”

“How long” is a phrase that seems to be part of who we are. We live so much of our lives in that painful in-between time. The journey is started, the destination is in mind, but that time in between seems impossibly long. To quote T.S. Eliot: “ridiculous the waste sad time, stretching before and after.”

This post was prompted by a sermon focused on Abraham in Exodus 12 and Romans 4. Chris Hall, professor, parishioner, author, Bible scholar, wound his way through those two lectionary texts to end with Nicodemus in John 3. It was a challenging, encouraging sermon. 

But I confess, somewhere in the middle of it, I found myself caught in the amazing “how long” of Abraham’s life. I had gone two days earlier to pray for Emily, a girl struck by lightening almost three years before. I went to pray again this week, now almost six years into the continuing story. God has done miraculous things in her life, and healing continues, slowly, almost imperceptibly, but there is a long way yet to go, and her family, and those of us who pray, find ourselves asking “how long?”

So Abraham’s “how long” drew me in. And yes, I still heard every word of the sermon, but I was multitasking as I flipped back and forth between Exodus and Romans.

Abraham was 75 when God promised to make him “a great nation” and showed him the land He would give his offspring. He was 86 when he had a son by Hagar, the servant, rather than by Sarah, his wife. He was 100 when God told him to have his clan circumcised, and said he would have a son by Sarah, not Hagar. And 101 when Isaac was finally born.

That’s a long “how long,” with some serious missteps along the way. What seemed improbable at 75 by 100 was beyond impossible. Yet in Romans 4 Paul says this:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. . .  being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Am I fully persuaded God has power to do what He’s promised? How long am I willing to wait in hope? And how do I demonstrate that hope, while I wait?

It’s a good question for Lent, this in-between time, these days of waiting, and listening, and longing for resurrection.

That refrain, “how long,” is echoed throughout scripture. Sometimes it’s God’s people, crying to him “how long”:

My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long? 

Throughout the psalms the cry goes on:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? 
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

 How long will the enemy mock you, God?

How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever?

How long must your servant wait?

The question continues on through the prophets:

How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered?

 How long,Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

Even in John’s Revelation, the cry continues: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 

We ask “how long,” and yet, God asks the same of us:

How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?”

 How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? 

How long?

As I’ve been thinking about how much of our lives we spend in waiting, I’ve been struck with how, despite the waiting, the time goes flying by. It’s one of those baffling mysteries: we ride along asking “how long?” and then, suddenly, the ride is over, and we realize we missed it.

We are prisoners of time. We can’t make it move faster, no matter how we tinker with technology, trying to save time, speed time, rearrange time. And we can’t make it move slower. There’s a line from Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill that comes back to me now and then:

Time held me green and dying,
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Time holds me green and dying, and as I wait, to see justice on the earth, to see promises fulfilled, the challenge is to fill the moments as they fly by, to live as someone who “against all hope, in hope believes.”  

The service I'm remembering ended with Al Gordon’s amazing anthem, “How Long.” It’s a powerful expression of longing, waiting, and affirmation. Cruising the internet for a faithful rendition of it, I came across a powerful Tearfund video that captures my hope: to live each day as if justice is on its way, to redeem each minute because the promises are true. To wake up each day to the opportunities and challenges of that day, and to work at whatever I’m given as an offering toward the day that’s coming.

Yet, I confess, part of the recording doesn't resonate with me: too triumphant? Too exuberant? The longing is easy to sing, the confidence much harder. 

Chris Hall talks often about the “music” of scripture, the song that sings through it we’re often too tone-deaf to hear. The “how long” song we sing is part of that music, and the song has contrapuntal parts. Repeated, again and again, “how long”: until questions are answered, until healing comes, until justice appears, until we sing the victory song. 

And then, for those who hope and believe, there’s the answering refrain:

Yes I know, you will come.
Yes I know, you’ve already won.
Yes I know, my redeemer lives.
My redeemer lives.

Woven through both the longing and the hope is the prayer:

Come, Lord Jesus, we are desperate for you here.
Come, Lord Jesus, all creation crying out.

Take a few minutes to listen and watch. Can you pray or sing along? As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome; look for the __ comments link below to leave your comments. 

Aching Visionaries, Insistent Hope

There are many ways to handle sorrow, and I learned them all early: place blame fast and dull the grief with anger. Stuff the sadness in an internal cupboard and slam the door hard. Pretend it’s all fine, splitting fake smile from inner wound until the split goes so deep there’s no wholeness left.

untitled, Oswaldo Guayasamín, Ecuador

The ways we manage sorrow can leave us sick inside, staring out at a harsh world with little trust or joy.

But God invites us to something different: a healthy grief that acknowledges pain, laments loss and yet holds firmly to the promises of hope and healing.

I’m taking a break this week from policy and politics. I’ve been praying for the past four years for a young woman named Emily, hit by lighting over four years ago. My prayer companions and I are spending the weekend with Emily and her mother at Christ the King Retreat Center, in the Diocese of Albany, New York, attending a conference on healing, and praying, as we have been for four years now, for Emily’s complete healing.

In preparation for our time away, I found myself wondering, not about Emily, but about other situations surrounding me: when do we get to write people off? When do we get to say “lost cause”?

When do we get to say “hope is too hard. I’m done”?

I’ve been wondering that in lots of directions.

When I first met Emily, she was in a coma, with insurance company and doctors holding no hope of restoration. The story of that is on the page “Pray for Emily,” which I’ll update when I get home from our weekend. I remember the feeling of standing in her room, surrounded by friends I’d invited to pray, looking at her lifeless form. Pray for complete healing? How? Why?

We prayed, faith stirring, lifting, hope invading us. We prayed for complete healing. Get up, little girl! No movement. No change. We stepped away certain we’d been obedient to God’s call, uncertain about what it all meant, what we should do next.

That journey has continued, as over time Emily began to respond, to track people with her eyes, to blink in response to questions, to smile.

At home in a wheelchair, the gradual healing continued: movement of arms and legs. Strength to stand when placed in a support device. Ability to lurch forward when supported by someone stronger.

Wassily Kandinsky, All Saints, Russia, 1911

The human form is fragile, complex, wonderfully made, beyond understanding. Doctors puzzle over Emily’s hands: she can reach for cookies, can grasp things of the right size placed exactly in reach, yet full motion eludes her.

Therapists puzzle over her speech and vocal chords. She understands words, tries to sing along, but there is damage in places science can’t yet reach, and disconnects between nerves, muscle, brain. Her doctors have no experience of restoration for a brain so long without oxygen, a body so shattered by electrical shock.

We give thanks for miracles: removal of her feeding tube. Ability to sip from a cup.

And we pray for more: a return to complete health, full speech, an active, vibrant life.

This journey with Emily involves mystery on mystery. She lives almost two hours from my house, but once a month I pick up others on the way, and we drive to Stroudsburg to spend two hours in conversation, prayer, and a laugher-filled shared meal. Some days I go wondering if we’re wasting our time, wondering what God has in mind, reminded once again how much I dislike the trucks and ramps of Route 22, one of my least favorite highways, how tired I am of the endless construction north and south on 476.

As I drive home again, the Fridays that we go, I find myself certain, every time, that God is at work, that he has more to teach us, that as the story unfolds our hope will be rewarded. My fragile hope is strengthened, every time, not always by change we see in Emily, but by words of encouragement that emerge in our prayer, by whispers of confirmation, by a reminder that we live between: in this painful place where what is hoped for often remains unseen.

Thinking and praying about this matter of hope, I came across an excerpt from Nicolas Wolterstorff’s Lament for a Son, written to mourn the accidental death of the philospher’s twenty-five year old son Eric.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN
"Who then are the mourners? The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God's new day, who ache with all their being for that day's coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is no one blind and who ache whenever they see someone unseeing. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one hungry and who ache whenever they see someone starving. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one falsely accused and who ache whenever they see someone imprisoned unjustly. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who fails to see God and who ache whenever they see someone unbelieving. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one who suffers oppression and who ache whenever they see someone beat down. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm there is no one without dignity and who ache whenever they see someone treated with indignity. They are the ones who realize that in God's realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death. The mourners are aching visionaries."    (Lament for a Son, p.85)

Jesus Healing the Lame, Jean Lambert-Rucki, France, 1940

This idea of aching visionaries reminds me of Walter Brueggemann’s discussion of prophetic voice: as followers of Christ, we’re called to lament the empires of power and destruction, and to insist on hope, even when hope seems impossible.

There are Christians who say God no longer heals, no longer intervenes in human stories in supernatural ways. I disagree. Without confidence in God’s intervention, the Christian faith becomes an empty philosophy, a legalistic dualism insisting on obedience to abstract rules with no real help for our battered hearts and broken bodies.

There are also Christians who look at our political dysfunction and say “don’t bother. It’s not worth the effort. Just take care of yourself. It will never change.” Again, I disagree. We pray each week “Your kingdom come." That kingdom offers health to all, freedom from oppression, provision for the poor, reconciliation between warring factions. We’re called to be agents of that kingdom. Even when change seems impossible. Even when hope is hard work.

Russ Parker, our speaker this weekend, has shared moving stories of physical healing, and also of miraculous intervention in violent, war-torn places. Parker's own work of reconciliation has brought him to Belfast, Rwanda, Burundi, where Pierre Nkurunziza, the current president, a convert to Christianity, has been honored with numerous peace and leadership awards as he prayerfully works to demonstrate the kingdom of God in a nation long oppressed by tribal violence and factionalism. He was re-elected in 2012 by more than 91% of the votes in an election noteworthy for its lack of violence, and Nkurunziza's example of official restraint in the face of an opposition boycott. 

Reconciliation, healing, restoration, new life: hope calls us to the hard work of restoration, forgiveness, prayer, mercy, compassion. Those glimpses God gives call us forward, aching for how far we are from the health and wholeness we're offered, determined to see God's goodness, here, in this day, in this time, in a way that brings him glory.

"Give me a sign of your goodness . . . for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me." (Psalm 86;17)

Join the conversation.  Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.  

This is part of an continuing series about faith and politics: What's Your Platform?