Groans of Hope

Romans 8:18-25; John 14:25-27

I am typically a lectionary preacher which is why I originally thought about preaching on the Luke text for today.  But then, a month or so ago, I realized that this Sunday would be a post-General Assembly Sunday.  And though I did not know at that time what would happen at the assembly, nor did I dare guess the dynamics of the meeting, I knew what I would be doing two weeks after it concluded. 

 I would be doing what I always do after GA is finished—watching and waiting.  I would be watching for and waiting to read the latest version of the PCUSA’s obituary.  It is always written, time after time.  And so as I thought about watching and waiting once again for the inevitable predictions of our decline and death, I wondered if perhaps the biblical texts from Romans 8 and John 14 might not make better conversation partners for us today—folks worshipping in the General Assembly’s conference center of Montreat.  

 Now, from what I understand, the life of the church has not always been like this.  We have not always waited for news of our decline and death.  Apparently, it has only been in my lifetime when we decided that we had gone “over the hill” in our denominational life cycle and were inevitably headed down the other side.  So, if you would, please indulge me for a few moments as I tell you what I have always heard as our birth story and the story of our growing up years. 

 When we open up our baby book, the first pictures we see, of course, are ones taken at the festival of Pentecost—a day when this Romans 8 text is sometimes preached.  And as we look on the first page, we see wonderful pictures of God birthing the church into being by the power of God’s wild Spirit, just as Jesus promised in John 14.  And we see snapshots of male and female disciples filled with that Spirit, preaching and teaching with passion and energy, proclaiming God’s goodness in a myriad of languages, tongues they did not even understand.

 And further on down that page, we see these brightly colored snapshots of all kinds of people standing outside the house, drawn to that cacophony of Spirit out of curiosity. And there in the middle of that page we find this amazing picture of God’s living body, the Church, getting all cleaned up and wiped off and letting out its first cry—a cry of redemption and of grace, a cry of Gospel.  And like when a stone is thrown into Lake Susan, from the pictures that follow, we can see that the birth cry of the church created concentric circles of God’s redemptive activity in the world that have been getting wider and wider ever since. 

 And then, as we skip forward a couple of thousand pages to our institutional church’s life in America, we see fantastic snapshots of how these circles of God’s work in and through the Church kept getting wider and wider until the zenith, the height, the pinnacle of our denominational church life in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  Why, we see in the pictures of those grand days, people just throwing open the doors of the church and getting out of the way because the people were streaming in and waiting in lines to join.    

 We see these wonderful images of young families taking their kids to Sunday School and Youth Group every Wednesday and Sunday.  We find a couple of old pledge cards stuck in amongst the photographs and notice how everyone tithed what they earned.  We also find a few recipes from all the potluck suppers when people actually cooked and did not just bring a bucket of chicken from the grocery store.  And by looking at these beautiful pictures, you just know that all was well.  The institutional church stood at the center of life. 

 But then, then, we turn the page and we see snapshots from my parent’s generation, the Boomers, as they began to cause some trouble… We see images that document the battle for Civil Rights and Integration; protests against Vietnam and rallies for Women’s Liberation; and two-parent working families; and no more blue laws; and the sexual revolution; and rock n roll; and the insistence of women’s ordination; and the removal of “Onward Christian Soldiers” from the hymnal; and talk of changing the language of ordination standards, and so many other chaotic social forces that the pictures seem to leap off the page and swirl together in hurricane force winds.  And in the images of those winds of chaos, we notice that the beloved Church was swept away from the center of influence and power and nothing has ever been the same since then. 

 And we become hesitant to keep turning the pages because we know how the neighborhoods have changed and we keep hearing that young people prefer churches with an electric bass and drums; and word on the street is that unless you are a large, nondenominational Bible church, then clearly your tradition must have nothing to give for God’s glory.  So we might as well close the baby book, start heading down the hill, turn off the lights and lock up the doors because the numbers show the mainline church is dying, our obituary is being written as we speak, and there is obviously nothing more to do except to listen to the groaning of the death rattles and wait at the graveside…

 Now, I admit that I have used a little dramatic license in that retelling of the Church’s story and used a little imagination about our collective baby book.  Some of you who lived it would probably tell it very differently.  But I think you would want to know that the story I’ve told is the story that many in my generation and the generations that follow me have heard our whole growing up lives.  From the moment we came into consciousness in the church, we have been told that the church that has given us life, is on its last leg.  Heading down the hill.  Dying.  Groaning in hospice care.  Nothing left to give or to offer the world. So we are told to batten down the hatches and duck our heads because it takes a lot of energy to die.  And that means that you don’t have any energy to do much else other than maintain status quo.

 Again, I realize I am being over-the-top but this is the story that is being told again and again, and not just in some ecclesiastical and mainstream media, but by church folks and church pastors.  A clergy friend in my lectionary sermon group told us a story about a meeting he attended a few years ago.  It was a meeting of Presbyterian clergy in a cluster of churches in his area.  The conversation once again worked its way to the “we are dying” litany.  One pastor made the statement, “In the year 2053, the last Presbyterian will turn out the lights as they leave the church.”  My friend just looked around and responded, “Over my dead body.  I’ll be 83 then and I am bound and determined to make sure that the light continues to shine.[i]” 

 I wished I had asked my friend if they had any response to his statement.  I wonder if they said to him, “Umm, have you looked at the statistical numbers that were released before General Assembly?”  Or, “Don’t you realize that some Presbyteries are having to radically restructure due to cuts in funding?” Or, “Don’t you think you are being just a bit naïve?” 

 Those are some of the reactions I have heard whenever someone proclaims a future of hope for our institutional church.  “Well, bless your heart.  You are just not old enough to know better.”  Wrong.  It is not that those of us who feel hope are too naïve or too young or too old or too anything else.  It is that many of us, probably many of you, hear the sounds of the groaning of the church, but we hear the groaning as labor pains rather than as death rattles.  We hear the sounds and assume that our baby book is about to expand.

 Romans 8:22:  We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly… 

 Paul heard the groaning.  He heard the groaning of a brand-new church that was being tested and tried every time it turned around.  He heard the groaning of the Jewish Christians as they tried to figure out how on earth they were going to co-exist and be church with these new Gentile Christian converts.  He heard the groaning of the early church patrons who held the meetings in their homes and supported the ministries with their generous funding.  He heard the groaning of the leaders of the church as they argued over authority and who should have it and who should not.  He heard the groaning of his own soul as he was repeatedly imprisoned for his actions on behalf of Christ’s church. 

 Paul heard all that groaning, but instead of hearing the moans of death, he heard the moans of new life.  Paul heard all of that groaning but he did not close the book shut and traipse out to the graveside; rather, he went straight into the waiting room of Labor and Delivery.  Paul heard all of that groaning and he knew, he knew that God was birthing something brand new into the world in and through the fledgling Church.  Paul heard all of that groaning as groans full of hope and life and new possibility.   Why?  Because Paul was an Easter person.  Paul was an Easter person who was filled to the brim of Spirit and resurrection hope. 

 8: 24-25:For in hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what is seen?  But if we hope for what we do not see, through patience, we eagerly expect. 

 That is a closer rendering of the Greek[ii].  In our English translation, we often lose the eager expectation that accompanies the patient waiting.  But Paul encouraged his churches to not lose sight of that eager expectant hope with which, they, themselves, were also called to be pregnant.  Pregnant with the hope of redemption, of new creation, of Easter resurrection.   Paul heard all of the groans of the Church and creation, but because of his Easter eyes and his Easter soul, he knew that all of those groans were labor pains and not death rattles. 

 And guess what. Paul was not the only one called to be an Easter person.  We are all Easter people.  The Church is an Easter church.  And because we are an Easter people in an Easter church, we are called to not just see what we can see, but we are called to see what cannot be seen just yet – the new birth, the new creation, the resurrection new life that is on the way in, and through, and even beyond the Church. 

 And it is because of our Easter call that I grow weary with all the death talk about the church.  I grow weary hearing over and over again about how we are losing our power and losing our influence and how some feel we are losing our way.  Because last I heard, we are a resurrection people, an Easter people.  At the cross and the empty tomb, Death lost the ultimate power over our lives, over this world.  Death no longer has dominion.  Death, where is thy sting? 

 Even if the institutional church as we know it were to die, we are resurrection people.  Do we not think that the church would also be resurrected as a renewed and changed creation[iii]?  We are an Easter people.  We are a people who hear the groaning, who feel the groaning, who join in the groaning ourselves, but not as the groans of death rattles; rather, as the groans of labor pains. 

 And as an Easter people we are called to resist joining in the funeral procession on its way to the prematurely marked grave of the mainline Presbyterian church.  Rather, we are called to get our good in gear and to fill up the waiting room in Labor and Delivery as we eagerly expect God’s new creation to come at any time. 

 Now, I fully realize that some might say it is easy for me to preach resurrection-filled, hope-pregnant, labor pains of newness.  I serve a church that is fun and full of energy and who has been bound and determined throughout its 100 years of life to be an Easter voice in the world. But I know from my time on Committees on Ministry that many churches are struggling, especially ones in financial stress or in rural areas.  So I fully know how some folks might reply that the proclamation of the church being in labor pains and not in death rattles might be easier for me to say. 

 But I also believe that we are not called to simply preach it because or only when we see it.  We are called to preach it also when the numbers are down, or the budget is tight, or the Session is arguing, or the theological diversity in the church is making communal life tougher.  We are called to preach the resurrection-filled, hope-pregnant Gospel of Jesus Christ precisely in those times, too.  We are called to preach it with one another when jobs cannot be found.  We are called to preach it when the rent is due and the checkbook is empty.  We are called to preach it when the kids are in rehab or the marriage is on the rocks. 

 We are called to preach it with one another, to ourselves, precisely in those moments when the groans are starting to sound more and more like the rattles of death and less and less like the labor pains of new life.  We are called to preach this resurrection-filled, hope-pregnant Gospel of Jesus Christ precisely when everybody is starting to make their way to the graveside. 

 For it is in those moments when the principality of Death is trying one more time to pretend to have power over us.  And in response, we are called to let loose with the Spirit-filled news that God’s goodness is running loose in this world and challenges us to just try and keep up with it. 

For as God’s Easter people we hope for what we do not yet see, but through patience, we eagerly expect all that God has promised.  And what has our God promised?  Nothing less than new creation and full redemption.  Nothing less than the time when death is no more and the shroud that has been cast over all the peoples is destroyed and God has wiped away every last tear forever.  That is what our God has promised.  And that is what we, God’s church, have been called to proclaim from the moment the Spirit blew into that room in Jerusalem until that promised day when all shall be well.   

 But until that day, may we have the faithful, expectant, hope-filled courage to resist joining the premature funeral procession for God’s Church.  But rather, may we grab our cameras, open the baby book again, and call all people to the Labor and Delivery waiting room of God’s promised New Life.  For there is only one Head of the Church.  And his name is NOT death nor fear, but Emmanuel, God-with-us, forever!  Amen.