Defiant Joy and Absurd Hope

Beloved in Christ,

The reading from Genesis 15 appointed for this Sunday comes a few chapters after Abram and Sarai have left everything to follow the outrageous promise of a God they barely know. Things are not going well. The heir at the center of the promise has yet to arrive, Abram’s behavior has been less than exemplary, and it’s easy to imagine the doubt, frustration, and panic setting in.

God comes toward Abram with scripture’s rhythmic refrain: “Do not be afraid. . I am your shield.” His frustration boils quickly to the surface: “Well, you say that, and yet all the evidence seems to suggest your promise is not coming.” In a particularly dramatic moment, God takes Abram outside, bids him consider the stars, and restates that his descendants will be as incalculably vast. 

Scripture paints a picture over and over again of a God whose love bends the world toward goodness that is beyond our capacity to imagine. God is always doing the thing that is too crazy to believe and too good to be true. The life of faith is always about choosing to cling to God’s outrageous goodness despite all the evidence. And often that involves sharing our agonizing grief and frustration with God about how far away the promise feels. 

The root of so much injustice and pain in the world is a narrow vision for what is possible. When our hope is limited by what we can measure or count, life can feel like a zero sum game where someone else’s gain means my loss, The chilling effects of that narrow cynicism can be seen in the nationalism and the downward spiral of polarization now dominant in our political landscape. 

As followers of Jesus and heirs of God’s promise to Abraham, our call in this moment is to stand in the face of that cynicism as people of outrageous, even laughable, hope. Our call is to help lift heads hung heavy by the weight of death, injustice, and suffering, that we might all consider the stars, and make a choice to cling to nothing more, and nothing less, than the promise, most fully revealed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, that love’s power to bring in God’s perfect reign exceeds even their seemingly endless number. Can we live in this moment with Sarah’s defiant joy, Abraham’s absurd hope, and a fierce commitment to God’s better way, anchored in an unimaginably vast horizon of hope?

Grace and Peace,

The Right Rev. Craig Loya