When hope endures
Praying with the early church as the votes are still being counted
Sometime while I slept last night, the polls closed. The final votes were cast. I went to sleep without knowing the outcome.
I rolled over this morning to open my news browser to see what had happened while I slept. I had thought that that it would take longer perhaps because my overseas ballot still has another five days to be counted.
I had thought that so many things about this election but as I sip my morning coffee and try to pray for this whole hurting world, I keep thinking about how my Christian faith began in those tiny house churches in Corinth, Philippi, Galatia, Ephesus and so many others that never received letters from the Apostle Paul.
They had this story in those early churches about salvation. They were still trying to figure out the details as there were just fragments about Jesus Christ. Nothing was written down but they would share these stories and try to hold onto this hope together that there are forces stronger than death and destruction. There was something else beyond the world that they knew under the thumb of the Roman Emperor.
Theirs was a faith that believed that this world didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything to fight for in this life because the story of their faith was not yet complete. Christ would return and save them from this wretched world. That was their focus and it was why Paul made so many visits and wrote so many letters. What they had hoped would happen didn’t happen.
They kept waiting and waiting and waiting and it didn’t happen. It wasn’t what they thought it would be. They couldn’t understand why it hadn’t happened yet. They couldn’t understand why they were still waiting.
I’ve been wondering about how it felt to pray in those churches as they waited for what never happened. It must have been tense. We know it was tense from all of the letters that Paul wrote where he reminded them again and again to love each other. To the church in Corinth, he described love as patient and kind. It is the kind of power that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
When we don’t know what will happen and it feels like everything at stake, how do we endure?
I don’t know that I have an answer to this question because I know that I don't share the same beliefs with so many. This morning, as the votes are still being counted, I am not clear on what it means to bear all things. I feel the tension within myself and it makes it hard to find hope. I do know that somehow this faith endured. It did not end when Christ didn’t return as they had thought it would happen.
It was not the end when they fought over what would come next. They figured out how to hold each other, not only their individual frustration and grief but their whole lives. They learned to hold all things in common so that this Christian faith that continues to grow and change became more and more defined by love. It didn’t take that long for them to choose love for there are accounts outside of these early church communities that marveled, with wonder, “Look how they love each other.”
In my prayers this morning, I want that to be what is seen in me. I want to look upon you with that same love. I want to marvel at how we care for each other when we do not know what will happen next. We still choose love.
Spend a little time wondering about love as Paul tried to describe it to the church in Corinth. It’s one of those passages you’ve heard at weddings over and over again but today wonder about this love that Paul imagines for people that are struggling to see a future together. What might you add to this vision of love in 1 Corinthians 13 so that you can find the courage to find love right now?
When we do not know what will come next, our fears increase. Our worry overwhelms so that we cannot escape this sense of constant panic. Some of us are able to find the calm we need by taking deep breaths. Some of us might have other grounding practices to settle into the present but I find the best thing to do to bear all things and believe all things is to sing into the abyss. I don't know what will happen but I know that this isn't the end. So I’ll keep singing.
Election Day in the United States emerges from the threshold space of All Saints and All Souls where we remember those that shaped our faith. I really loved this meditation that made this connection for me from the wise and wonderful
. It’s offered in the days before votes are cast but it’s a hope I’m carrying into the days ahead.
Thank you, just thank you.