Jay Rowland
“Faith and Despair”
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (ERV) Easy-Read-Version
August 7, 2022 +Pentecost 9C
Faith and Despair
On my drive home from church last Sunday, my car radio tuned to public radio, I happened upon a conversation between two young men. As I waited at the red light I figured I’d give them until the light turned green to find out what they were talking about or change the station for something better.
When the light turned green I still hadn’t figured it out, but something in their voices caught me. So I kept listening. At the next stoplight it became clear to me that both men were talking about despair–not the concept but their own actual, current suffering. It was a strangely upbeat discussion given their state of distress. As I wondered about that one of them mentioned almost casually that when he wakes up, it hits him so hard that some days he cannot summon the energy to get out of bed.
That statement was jolting. I knew this was a serious conversation, but I didn’t sense it was that serious. They had just shared about the comfort they’ve found in literature, writing poetry, other activities. But some days unable to get out of bed? I wondered, what’s this all about? Long Covid? Mass shootings? Ukraine? Racism?
Then I thought “no it can’t be anything like that; unable to get out of bed: that’s clinical depression or grief, my mind declared. Then one of them suddenly named it—the source of their despair:
“the climate change crisis”
Wait … what?
I nearly changed the station—not because I don’t take climate change seriously, but because I just didn’t have it in the same category as clinical depression and grief. To me mental illness and grief can catapult people into despair. But climate change? I just never thought about it in those terms. But this was their point—both men felt totally isolated by not only the source of their despair but by the common reactions like mine. Their closest friends, family members, peers, social circles—none understood or accepted that the (still-developing) crisis of climate change was worthy of such debilitating despair.
So they were all alone, they felt, except for the comfort they somehow found in each other
This has been on my heart all week. The Spirit was whispering about this to me all week. The radio conversation I stumbled upon reminded me that there are people who are so despondent, so weighed down by despair that they are barely coping … perhaps including some of you hearing my voice this morning. I think we all know this on some level, but if we let that really sink into our soul, it ought to provoke some action or response.
And so I want to take this opportunity right now to acknowledge this epidemic of debilitating despair we’ve all been hearing about in the background and bring it into the foreground. Jesus compels my heart to do so, to create some space for this reality and for any and every person who can hear my voice (or read these words) right now who suffers and endures despair, depression, anxiety. …
Please know I “see” you suffering. Please allow yourself to hear/absorb this: You are not alone. Yes of course you feel alone. Yes—depression, anxiety and despair create isolation. Yes. AND yet: there are people who care about you and who want to come alongside you and be helpful somehow.
The Lord knows I’ve been there. Many times. So if you are hurting and suffering today please know that your suffering and your struggle is not invisible, I see you …
… your isolation and your struggle is important--to me and to God and to the people gathered here this morning—and in other places like this all across our city, state, and nation… across all space and time too.
I pray to our Loving God that you may come to feel the care and the love of community -- this community and others like this one all across our city, state, and nation … across all space and time too.
And so if you find today that you are weighed down by depression, by anxiety, if your life and peace is being disrupted by despair, please don’t keep this a secret. Please share this with someone you trust.
Please don’t try to tough it out …
… please don’t minimize it.
And please don’t let anyone (including yourself) talk you out of reaching out.
Make a call.
Stand up. Walk across the room. Change your immediate space somehow. Do something different.
Reach out for help. It’s closer than you think or feel. There are people out there like me who care about you.
And there is a God who IS LOVE, who deeply cares for you and longs to help you through this (temporary but) serious situation.
I won’t throw pithy religious slogans or concepts at you. Religious buzz-words and baggage have no place in this space. But I believe with every fiber of my being that God loves you so much that God wants to help you get through this using whatever will be most helpful to you.
I've learned from my own experiences that in times of uncertainty it’s important to find some source of hope to keep myself centered, otherwise the anxiety builds and that leads to alienation and isolation and everything builds then tumbles and spirals downward … until the simplest activity, like eating or getting out of bed or taking a walk outside becomes seemingly impossible as the mysterious weight weighs heavier and heavier until everything comes to a screeching halt–and life just falls and breaks apart.
Whether or not this registers right now, I feel it’s important to share that in my experience and struggle I have learned over time that multiple resources are necessary to begin to recover life. And in addition to resources such as therapy and medication and support groups and so on, I have been enormously helped in the long term by finding a centering “power” through the Spirit of God through the wisdom and practices of faith. Not religious-speak or buzz-word religion or any of the guilt and shame-thumping which often passes as “faith” and “religion”, but rather, delving into the deep and ancient mystery of God … a faith relationship with God which has endured for millennia and has seen multitudes of people through, generations of people through personal despair … communal despair … national nightmares … world wars … pandemics … unbearable reality.
“All these great people continued living with faith until they died. They did not get the things God promised his people. But they were happy just to see those promises coming far in the future. They accepted the fact that they were like visitors and strangers here on earth. When people accept something like that, they show they are waiting for a country that will be their own. If they were thinking about the country they had left, they could have gone back. But they were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God. And [God] has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:13-16 ERV)
This wisdom and faith to which I refer started with a man named Abraham. His story of faith in God is inspiring, embarrassing, appalling, at times hard to explain. In other words, compellingly human. His journey is recorded in the Bible, in Genesis (chapter 11-25). For now, what’s most important to understand about Abraham is what the New Testament says in bearing witnesses to his faith in the promise of God,
God called Abraham to travel to a[nother] place that [God] promised to give him. Abraham did not know where that other place was. But he obeyed God and started traveling because he had faith. Abraham lived in the country that God promised to give him. He lived there like a visitor who did not belong. He did this because he had faith. He lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who also received the same promise from God. Abraham was waiting for the city[a] that has real foundations. He was waiting for the city that is planned and built by God.
What this passage reminds me is how faith in God does not mean we’ll ever feel comfortable wherever we may find ourselves. It is hard at times, but there’s a purpose. And when it’s all said and done, there is an eternal city built by God where the worst of humanity’s inhumanity is burned away during entry/re-entry into this Eternal City. It’s a place where God’s love animates every molecule of air and every life. It’s a city whose essence is God: the God who created and gave birth to the beauty of earth and sea and sky and star and moon and mountain and prairie and human love; a place where all that God intends for humanity comes to fruition as nature always displays to us each spring. In this Eternal City of God, your every tear and every wound of body, mind, spirit is healed. That’s the promise. That’s our future. Just as nature reveals every spring.
It is a place we will instantly recognize and freely enter—home—because we endured times and seasons of pain and struggle and despair.
It’s the place Jesus pointed to with every word and every act on his way to the cross.
It’s the place of love for which Jesus endured the cross.
No matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’re going through today, God cares about you.
God cares about you so much that God took on a human body in the person of the man named Jesus of Nazareth.
And in this way Jesus lived and died to reveal God, and God raised Jesus from the dead so that God could then take up residence in your body and my body too--so that you might know that every breath you breathe is God breathing in you.
Every breath we breathe today is God breathing in us. So that we would understand and know that when we breathe our final earthly breath, our very next breath will be our first resurrection breath in the Eternal City.
In the meantime, let’s not lose sight of today: here is a community of people who trust in this Faith and Promise of God. Each of us here today. Plenty more people “out there” .. multitudes who trust in God and trust in the promise of God.
And that is a resurrection experience we don’t have to wait for or die to experience.
There are so many caring people who surround you right now, who support you and uphold you that you haven’t even met yet.
So please don’t give in to despair. Yes despair happens to us. And yes, it is real. Yes, it sucks.
But please don’t give in to despair … hang on … reach out. Please. There is hope yet untapped for you.
If you can’t even summon the energy for hope or trust this promise and faith … then let us hold that hope and faith for you until you can feel your feet beneath you again.
Let us hold out trust and faith for you until you can take hold of it yourself.
In the meantime, let us pray for you. Let us know you.
Meanwhile, know this: that this community of faith (and most all communities of faith) strive to create a community and a world where you know that you matter, no matter what. Because you do matter.
You matter to God.
You matter to Jesus.
You matter to me.
And you matter to every person hearing my voice (or reading my words) today.
Because faith isn’t merely something to read about in a book. It is something that we LIVE. It is a relationship we have.
And—praise God for this—it is something shared not something private or hidden—or even prescribed for others.
The Faith I’m talking about helps us understand that God created the whole world out of (God’s) LOVE for you.
The faith I’m talking about promises that the purpose of life in this world is to discover God’s love for you.
The faith I’m talking about promises that the destination of this life is God’s love for you.
That’s why we return to this place of worship again and again—even when the “doors” are “closed” because of a pandemic WE STILL GATHERED. Because we all need this. Because God gave this to us, and it is dear and sacred… we return to worship again and again because we believe in the Love of God that creates life, sustains life and resurrects life--every life that lives and dies.
And so I pray this may be in your heart today as we return to the table of the Lord–this table of Promise.
Here at this table we receive into our body and bloodstream and our into our spirits this sacred love that is God’s Love for you—in the sacrament called “the Lord’s Supper”.
We receive it again and again … for each breath we take to the last breath … we receive God’s Love embodied in Jesus Christ. Christ Bread of Life and the Christ Blood of Life passes our lips and enters into our bodies to remind us where He Lives; and so again and again, every time we “do” this, the receive again and again the most sacred One, the God of Love, who IS our Faith and our Destination.
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Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
(ERV) Easy-to-Read Version
Faith is what makes real the things we hope for. It is proof of what we cannot see. God was pleased with the people who lived a long time ago because they had faith like this.
Faith helps us understand that God created the whole world by [God’s own] command. This means that the things we see were made by something that cannot be seen.
…
God called Abraham to travel to another place that [God] promised to give him. Abraham did not know where that other place was. But he obeyed God and started traveling because he had faith. Abraham lived in the country that God promised to give him. He lived there like a visitor who did not belong. He did this because he had faith. He lived in tents with Isaac and Jacob, who also received the same promise from God. Abraham was waiting for the city[a] that has real foundations. He was waiting for the city that is planned and built by God.
Sarah was not able to have children, and Abraham was too old. But he had faith in God, trusting [God] to do what [God] promised. And so God made them able to have children. Abraham was so old he was almost dead. But from that one man came as many descendants as there are stars in the sky. So many people came from him that they are like grains of sand on the seashore.
All these great people continued living with faith until they died. They did not get the things God promised his people. But they were happy just to see those promises coming far in the future. They accepted the fact that they were like visitors and strangers here on earth. When people accept something like that, they show they are waiting for a country that will be their own. If they were thinking about the country they had left, they could have gone back. But they were waiting for a better country—a heavenly country. So God is not ashamed to be called their God. And [God] has prepared a city for them.
