A Future Not Our Own
Dear Friends,
In our assigned Psalm for this Sunday, the psalmist prays for God's blessings not just for the people of Israel, but for "all the peoples" and "all the ends of the earth." Like the people in Ukraine, I imagine. Or even closer, Buffalo, New York. The psalmist’s prayer resonates with me as a good prayer, but it also feels like a future so far off that I can’t even begin to imagine how to attain it.
Similarly, in the reading from Revelation, John tells how God is making all things new. His prophecy imagines a tree of life next to the river of life, both of which are for "the healing of the nations." It's such a beautiful phrase, but it sounds so distant. Like the psalmist, John's vision is global rather than parochial, encompassing "the nations" and all "the kings of the earth." But there's a jarring disconnect between his apocalyptic vision and our contemporary realities.
Over and over again in the gospels, Jesus reminds us that kingdom of God is both a present reality and a future hope. As I pondered this during a week in which we grieve another racially motivated mass shooting, I came across this prayer associated with Archbishop Oscar Romero, the who was martyred in 1980 before he could witness the fruits of his prophetic ministry to the suffering people of El Salvador.
A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.*
The "Romero Prayer" isn't an excuse to be a passive bystander and do nothing. It's a reminder to do what we can do, do it well, and stick with it; even as we watch and wait.
We hope and pray for what we don't see, says Paul. We live by faith, not by sight. We persevere, says the book of Hebrews, even though we haven't received the far-off promises of God.
In Christ,
Amelie+
