The Substance of Things Hoped For

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

God had appeared to Abraham three times over the years.

The first time: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great...and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

The second time: "Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be."

The third time: "You will be the father of many nations." 

And yet decades had passed since God first appeared to Abraham promising to make him into the father of a great nation, and his wife remained childless. Abraham and his wife were now very old, and well past childbearing years. Their friends had long ago raised their children, who were now married with families of their own.

Sometimes there comes a time to let the dream slip through your fingers, to put your hope in something more certain.

________________

Sarah laughed until her belly ached at the memory of the three foreigners who had showed up out of the blue by their tents not long ago. Strange men, those three. Weavers of tall tales and outrageous fantasies, masters of the too-good-to-be-true. First curiosity had overcome her, then the entertainment of the newcomers' stories had drawn her to remain close to the tent entrance where she could inconspicuously overhear snatches of the men's conversation from a respectful distance.

Such foolishness. "I will return to you at this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son."

Her body was no longer young. That dream had become an impossibility a long time ago. Sarah had come to terms with what was not to be for her, those dreams of rocking her own sweet smelling baby boy in her arms. Sure, there had been a time when she would awaken at night, Abraham snoring beside her, with the tears still wet on her cheeks aching with dreams of the child she had longed for as long as she could remember.

But those years were so very long ago.

_________________

Sometimes our laughter betrays us. 

I laughed last week as I related to a friend one too many things in a series of recent events in which it seemed that nothing was going the way I had hoped.

There was nothing funny about it, really. Inside my heart was aching, longing for things to go differently, doing the grief-work associated with letting go of that which is dear to you. 

As we parted, she asked me, "What can I hold for you in all of this?"

I had no response, until I drove away. Then, deep within me, I felt an answer rise up.

Hope. Hold onto hope. I can't hold it myself right now.

_________________

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, "Faith is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and perception. The promise of the gospel is not a conventional piece of wisdom that is easily accommodated to everything else."

How often does God's promise to God's people come as nonsensical?

Sarah: Even at 90 years old, within a year, you will bear the son that your heart has yearned for your whole life.

Abraham: After waiting for decades, after losing hope, after years of wondering how to understand those visions and whether God would really come through, you are about to become the patriarch through whom countless people have come to have faith.

God appears to Moses as a burning bush in the middle of the wilderness. 

God enters the world as a baby born far from home, in a stable, whose first bed is an empty trough. 

Our greatest display of love and power is a man who lays down his life for his friends, condemned to death alongside common criminals although he himself is innocent.

________________

Faith is no small proposition. If we struggle to hold onto hope that God's promises can come true, we're in good company. People no less than Abraham himself have struggled to have faith in the face of unreasonable odds.

And yet, God shows up in the strangest of places, at the most unexpected of times, among the most unlikely people.

Unlikely people like you. And me. 

If we could see it, it wouldn't be faith. If it were tangible, we wouldn't need hope.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Nothing is Lost on the Breath of God

The first time I ever preached a sermon in church was during a youth-led worship service, at the encouragement of our youth pastor. I was a volunteer youth leader at the time, and after much urging and cajoling I agreed to speak that morning.

By the time I got home early that afternoon, I can remember as clearly as anything that my resounding thought wasn't a regret--something that I wished I had said better, nor was it some comment by a congregation member, but rather, "What if I am never given another chance to do this again?"

I've done some reading on the enneagram, a personality type tool, and have concluded that the root sin of my personality type (I am a "six") is a lack of trust. So, it's maybe no surprise that this question, "What if I am never given another chance to do this again?" is an echoing theme in my life.

It's this question that haunts me these days, as I walk away from the familiar surroundings of the church tradition that has been my home throughout my adult life, and follow an uncertain road that leads to an unknown destination.

It haunts me as I let go of my ministry credentials, and in doing so let go of the affirmation of my giftedness that came along with it. Granted, the words of affirmation never quite took shape in practice, but they were words that meant a lot to me nonetheless. "What if I am never given another chance to do this again?"

It haunts me as I wonder what might happen when, sooner or later, it is time to leave my current pastoral role. "What if I am never given another chance to do this again?"

It's present in the deep gratitude I feel every time I'm invited to preach somewhere. "One more chance to do this thing that I love to do to the very depths of my being."

It's the question that drove me to do my thesis research on what it means to be called to ministry. Traditional voices talk about the call as holding together the inner sense of God's work within you and the affirmation and invitation into ministry from the larger church. In my life, the affirmations of the church, although present, seem to come and go so easily; but always there is the persistent, deep sense that this thing--pastoral ministry--preaching and leading worship and caring for God's people--is what gives me deep, deep joy and what makes me feel fully alive.

And yet, I'm also painfully aware that there are no guarantees. While I can no longer honestly tell myself that the lack of opportunities might be because I'm no good at what I do, I'm still very aware that doesn't mean that there will be a place for me to exercise these gifts. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but that's the reality of the world in which we live. I have watched dear friends struggle to find places where their gifts will be welcomed and embraced. I have sat with other women who hear God's call so clearly, but find it so hard to find places where they are free to explore that call. There are no guarantees.

And so I live with the question. "What if I am never given another chance to do this again?" And I tell myself, over and over, that God has never abandoned me yet, and that whatever lies ahead, he won't leave me there alone. I remind myself that sometimes faith means trusting in what we cannot yet see, and stepping outside of the boat to walk across unknown waters to where our Saviour is calling us.

***

I remember one other thing about that day when I preached my first sermon. It was a brief encounter with an older man in the foyer of the church, just a passing comment really: "You're going to be a pastor someday." I wonder what it might have cost that dear older man, those words of encouragement, words I really didn't embrace until sometime later. I wonder what he had to work through in his lifetime, as a Mennonite Brethren man, to say those words to a young woman in her twenties, at a time when inviting women to pastoral ministry wasn't yet widely accepted or practiced.

He saw something in me that I didn't yet see in myself. Now, I know the truth of his words deep within me. I am a pastor, and even if the day may come when I no longer have a formal setting in which to express that identity, I will still be a pastor. That will still be the thing that brings me deep, abiding joy and that makes me feel most fully alive.

But this is the question that tests my faith the most: Will God still be God, on that day, when I no longer have the chance to do this?

I don't truly have an answer. I have to keep living the question for now, one step at a time. But today, in a moment of questioning, the words of a hymn popped into my head--a deeper truth than even my questions.

Nothing is lost on the breath of God

Nothing is lost forever

God's breath is love, and that love will remain

Holding the world forever.

No feather too light, no hair too fine,

No flower too brief in its glory

No drop in the ocean, no dust in the air,

But is counted and told in God's story.

On Mother's Day

So, it's Mother's Day.

I'm never quite sure what to do with this day, as a single, childless woman.

And maybe I'm just more aware of it this year, for whatever reason, but I am feeling caught between two narratives about this day, neither of which feels like it quite fits for me.

The first is the traditional narrative about Mother's Day, which has tended over the years to idealize motherhood, often at the risk of equating womanhood with motherhood. It's the narrative in which all the mothers are asked to stand up in church to be recognized. It's the narrative that tends to forget that not everyone has had the privilege of having a mother worth celebrating. It's the narrative that tends to forget the deep pain of those women who wanted children but who, for one reason or another, have been unable to fulfill that dream. Or the women who have consciously chosen a different path, recognizing that they are wired for different roles in life than that of mother. It's the narrative that raises motherhood up high, forgetting that this isn't a one-size-fits-all sort of narrative.

Obviously, that narrative doesn't fit my reality as a single woman who has no children, and who is content with the season of life I finds myself in, who doesn't feel like I need marriage or children to make me whole and fully alive.

This year, I'm becoming increasingly aware of another narrative. It wants to say that all women are mothers. I appreciate the impulse to create space, opening doors to include more people within the embrace of this holiday. I appreciate the recognition that there are women who ache to be included, who have in the past been left outside, reminded of the loss of what could have been, what once was, or what was not to be.

But that's not me either.

I have a wonderful mother, who has always been there for me and who is my role model of the kind of strong, intelligent, capable woman that I want to be. Today is a good day to remember that her presence in my life is a gift that I never want to take for granted. Today I am grateful for the fact that she is in my life. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

As for me? I wish we could find a way toward inclusivity, while letting go of the need to make the label 'mother' fit everyone, as much as I appreciate the recognition that the nurturing work that I do as a pastor can be a reflection of God's parent-like qualities, and recognition that the love that I have for my friends' children and my niece is valued and appreciated. I don't feel like it needs to be equated with mothering. I wonder if saying that every woman is a mother is helpful, or if it is unintentionally painful, for the women who longed to be parents but for whom that hasn't come to be.

Maybe the solution is to put Mother's Day back into its appropriate context--a good thing, for those who have something that is worth celebrating on this day--either the gift of their own mother, or the gift of motherhood, in whatever form that takes in their life.

But not something that is universally appropriate, or that all of us have to find our way into. Maybe there are instead ways to honour other stories. To appreciate that while parenting is a crucial vocation, that it's not everyone's vocation, nor does it need to be. To say strongly that women come in many different shapes and sizes, and that it is NOT necessary to be a mother to be a woman. What if we released ourselves from the need to fit ourselves into the idea that 'all women are mothers' and simply recognized that it's just not that simple?

In an age when we're learning that gender cannot be boxed into the simple categories of 'male' and 'female,' perhaps we also need to learn that we can't simply equate women and mothers as being two labels for the same category.

I'm not a mother, and I'm okay with that. At least on some level, it's a choice that I've made. It reflects the person that God has made me to be. One that in no way diminishes me. One that in no way diminishes the hard but immeasurably valuable work done by those whose vocation is motherhood, whether that fits the definition of traditional motherhood or pushes the label into new directions.

Thanks be to God that in the Kingdom of God there is space for all of us.