WBB On-line Worship: Foreboding and Hope

[An on-line WBB service for the 5th Tuesday of Lent, March 30, 2020]

Introduction by Brian Walsh
In the Middle of the Storm, with Jesus

“Really?
Do we always have to deal
with these heavy apocalyptic texts every time?”

That would be Deb Whalen-Blaize
back when we were doing rock eucharists
at the Church of the Redeemer.

It seemed that every Autumn
when we were working on
another liturgy for these special services,
the gospel reading would invariably
be one of those apocalyptic passages about
wars, insurrections, plagues,
the destruction of the temple,
foreboding, fear, anxiety
portents of woe in the heavens.

And Deb would say, “Really?”

Now the fact is that when you are
shaping liturgy around artists like
Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan
Mavis Staples, Joni Mitchell
and the like,
apocalyptic tends to work just fine.

And since the lectionary gave us apocalyptic,
apocalyptic it would be.

Well, this week I looked at our text
and said to myself,
“Really? Is this the text that
we are working with this week?

Now I can’t blame the lectionary
for bad timing.
You see, I am the lectionary.

This journey with the gospel of Luke
is a path that I chose for us.
And, of course, none of us knew
where the path would take us,
or how this gospel would speak into our lives
over the course of this year.

So here we are.
Smack dab in the middle of a pandemic
of plague proportions,
And it sure feels apocalyptic.

So friends, for our at-home WBB worship this week
we find ourselves in the midst of the storm …
with Jesus.

In her curation, Deb Whalen-Blaize moves us musically from Regina Spektor’s haunting song, “Apres Mois” where we meet defiance in the very midst of a crisis, through the confession that “Great (indeed) is Thy Faithfulness,” regardless of what comes at us, and closes with Mumford and Son’s vision of life “After the Storm” where we might dare to imagine grace in our hearts and flowers in our hair.

Prelude: “Apres Mois” (Regina Spektor)

I (uh) must go on standing
You can’t break that which isn’t yours
I (uh) must go on standing
I’m not my own, it’s not my choice

Be afraid of the lame, they’ll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old, they’ll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold, they’ll inherit your blood
Apres moi le deluge, after me comes the flood

I (uh) must go on standing …

Be afraid of the lame, they’ll inherit your legs …

Fevrale dostat chernil I plakat
Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit

Be afraid of the lame, they’ll inherit your legs …

I (uh) must go on standing …

I (uh) must go on stan-stan-ding-dong
You can’t, can’t break that, that
Which isn’t, isn’t yours, yours
Which isn’t, isn’t yours, yours

I’m not, not my own, own
It’s not, not my choice, choice

Gospel: Luke 21.1-28

Trigger Warning: This week, we are not printing the gospel text,
but simply giving you the link.
The text is graphic and painful,
and we give you the opportunity to read it,
or to simply consider the homily below.

Foreboding and Hope
A homily by Brian Walsh

Foreboding.

I don’t like foreboding.

Straight up in-your-face, in-the-moment crisis,
I can do.

The adrenaline kicks in
and I can (usually) make the necessary decisions.

And I can do grief.
I’ve had to.
As a community we’ve had to.

We know lament.
We know tears.

And … we know death.
It has marked us and wounded us.
It has been a constant companion for so many of us.
It has taken its toll and we keep trying to find ways
to hold each other, even as we hold so many deaths
so close to our hearts.

But foreboding is something else.

Foreboding is anticipatory grief.
Foreboding is the crisis that isn’t quite here yet,
but you know that it is coming.

I don’t like foreboding.

That’s probably why I never (and I mean never)
go to horror films,
especially films in the apocalyptic pandemic genre.

Fact is that movies like …

12 Monkeys
Outbreak
Dawn of the Dead
Quarantine
Contagion … and the rest

have never been my cup of tea.

Why would I willingly submit myself to foreboding?

I mean, didn’t Jesus say,
“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof”?

Isn’t there enough to deal with today,
without “borrowing trouble” from tomorrow or next week?

Interestingly, this isn’t advice that my kids have ever found helpful.

“Don’t borrow trouble” just doesn’t cut it in the midst of a panic attack.

Nope, you can’t wish away foreboding.
You’ve got to face it.

Jesus did, and he made sure that
his disciples would face foreboding as well.

In fact, it is almost as if Jesus
makes his disciples go to a horror movie
to awaken foreboding in their hearts.

That’s kind of what those apocalyptic discourses
are all about in the gospels.

Here are the disciples,
all impressed with the skyline of Jerusalem,
and giving voice to their admiration of the
sacred architecture of the Temple,
and Jesus pulls the social, emotional,
and spiritual rug from under their feet
and tells a tale of foreboding.

Yea, it looks good now,
but it is all going to crumble.

Yea, it looks all secure and happy,
but a threat is coming
with nothing but insecurity and despair.

I gave you all a trigger warning at the beginning
of this homily.

Just as I don’t want to be forced to see
a pandemic horror flick,
so I don’t want to impose on you
the brutal imagery of this text.

It might be too much for some of us
to read Luke 21 this week.

But Jesus didn’t give a trigger warning.
Jesus simply popped the balloon,
with graphic and terrorizing images.

Wars, regime collapse, famine,
ecological desolation, persecution
… and plagues.

Betrayal, distress of the earth, wrath,
confusion, chaos, fainting from fear
… and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.

Plagues and foreboding.

Ain’t that just like Jesus.
No cheap security for him.
No cover ups.
No head in the sand.

Not for Jesus.
And I guess, not for those who will follow Jesus either.

Not if we love our neighbour.
Not if we love our world.
Not if we we are frontline workers.
Not if your community includes the most vulnerable.
Not if we long for the kingdom of God.

You see, the pain and sorrow,
the collapse and desolation,
the suffering and death,
are all the more intense
when you live with an aching vision
of God’s reign of peace,
God’s shalom,
God’s healing power,
of life in the face of death.

So Jesus both faces, and even occasions,
a deep sense of foreboding,
while never leaving us there.

Foreboding is anticipatory grief.
It is real.
It mustn’t be numbed out.

But Jesus offers his disciples,
and he offers us,
… even as he himself is days away from his own death,
even as he lives with his own foreboding …
a vision of hope.

You will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud
with power and great glory.
Now when these things begin to take place,
stand up and raise your heads,
because your redemption is drawing near.

Why? Because …