SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Prayer of the Day: Eternal God, you draw near to us in Christ, and you make yourself our guest. Amid the cares of our lives, make us attentive to your presence, that we may treasure your word above all else, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
“[Christ] himself is before all things, and in [Christ] all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17.
This claim sounds preposterous these days when it appears so much of our world is falling apart. International treaties and trade agreements that ensured a measure of peace and stability for eight decades are fast unraveling. Wildfires, hurricanes and tornados are becoming increasingly frequent and destructive as the earth’s temperature rises. Fragile ecosystems across the globe and the habitats that support them are at risk. As war ravages South Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine, millions are facing displacement, homelessness and starvation. Even to those of us who have lived our lives in the bubble of privilege cannot help but wonder whether the world order that has been so good to us is about to fall on our heads. In short, it does not appear that anyone is holding things together.
On the other hand, none of this is new to the people of God who have known enslavement, displacement, exile and the dissolution of “civilization as we know it” more than once. Our spiritual ancestors have witnessed the dissolution of the Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman Empires, along with the carnage following in their wake. Each empire, including the one called the United States of America, is, to quote Shakespeare, “but a walking shadow, a poor player,/ that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/and then is heard no more.” Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. Nevertheless, as the Prophet Isaiah reminds us, “[t]he grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8. Christ, the Incarnate and eternal Word, suffers patiently and faithfully with God’s wounded creation, striving to heal its wounds, mend its fractures and bring it to its appointed end where all things are made new, all tears are wiped away, mourning and pain will end and even death will be no more. Revelation 21:1-8.
Saint Paul tells us that we are saved “in hope.” That is to say, we order our lives according to a future we do not see and almost certainly will not come to fruition in our lifetimes. To be clear, this hope is not synonymous with mere optimism, a glib belief that “everything will work out in the end.” It did not happen that way for Jesus and Jesus warns his disciples that they can expect nothing other than the cross he bore. Our hope is grounded in the conviction that God raised Jesus from death and, in so doing, delivered a decisive “yes” to the life he lived. To hope is to live in the way of Jesus, even when it does not seem practical, even when it seems not to make a difference, even when it appears to be counterproductive. To hope is to live in the way that is eternal, the way that life is lived is under God’s just and gentle reign yet to be revealed. The church is not the reign of God, but it witnesses to God’s reign by its communal life, its witness to Jesus’ obedient life, faithful death and glorious resurrection and its solidarity with those regarded as “the least” in the human community. To borrow a phrase from Professor Stanley Hauerwas, the church is the community whose life is incomprehensible apart form the belief that God raised Jesus from death.
This week I attended the annual gathering for the Ekklesia Project, the theme of which was “Hope Does Not Disappoint: Wrestling with God in a Groaning Creation.”? Together, we sought to listen carefully to voices and experiences that have too long been absent from the church’s construction of hope. To that end, we heard speakers from Latin American, Indigenous and African Christian traditions articulating the meaning of faith, hope and discipleship in their contexts. What became painfully clear to us is the fact that the Christianity imposed on these groups in the course of colonial domination has inflicted untold suffering. Miraculously, though, the good news of Jesus nevertheless broke through giving birth to new and vibrant expressions of faith grounded in the cultural wisdom and understanding of these very aggrieved communities. We were forced to consider what it might mean to receive the wisdom of these saints in confronting our difficult days of dissolution.
I was particularly struck with a remark made by Professor Michael Budde:1 “One thing I am not hoping for is a return to normal, because normal is how we got here.” Those who lament the decline in influence by the United Nations would do well to scrutinize its structure which allocates its real power to the Security Council made up of the richest and most powerful nations. The rest of the nations making up the General Assembly, by contrast, lack all power to effectuate whatever resolutions they might pass. At the lowest wrung of hell are refugees, those who have been forced to flee their homes, the people without a country and therefore without any rights other than toothless UN resolutions. The Jews learned the hard way that, when you are not a citizen of a nation state, the world will not lift a finger to prevent your extermination. It is one of history’s cruel ironies that Israel, the nation founded by a people subject to centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, is carrying out what is currently the most sweeping act of war and ethnic cleansing against another nationless people. Normal, the current world order whose dissolution we lament, has not afforded justice, equality or even the ability to survive for millions of this planet’s people. It has instead maintained the systems and power arrangements that keep so much of the world in misery. Preserving and restoring that world order will only perpetuate the gross inequities that have plagued peoples all over the globe for centuries. Only those of us whose privilege has allowed us to benefit from it have reason to regret its demise.
For churches like my own that have evolved from state churches and taken root in the United States where, separation of church and state notwithstanding, the church has played a powerful role in our national politic, the demise of the United States as we know it is a bitter pill to swallow. American Christianity, whether under the guise of progressive social gospel or in the form of rightwing crusades to make America great again, has typically been focused on saving America. Right and left agree on the goal, they only differ with respect to the means and the shape of the end. Though nominally Christian, the dominant religion of America is still America. Our hope is shaped more by the American dream than the reign of God. It is because we are looking to America rather than Christ to hold all things together, we experience despair, inertia and loss of hope.
I believe that one of Jesus’ parables, soon to be our gospel lesson, can help us out. This is the difficult and, I believe, sadly misunderstood parable of the “Dishonest Steward” found in Luke 16:1-9. The title is a little deceptive. Truth be told, we don’t know whether the steward was dishonest. We only know that “charges were brought” to his boss that he was mismanaging the goods for which he was responsible. He might have been merely incompetent or the charges brought against him might have been false. His boss seems to have no interest in investigating the matter or hearing the steward’s side of the story. He summarily dismisses the steward who now finds himself without a job and few prospects of finding comparable employment. The steward learns the hard way that corporate doesn’t care. It is now clear to him that he was little more than a tool for his boss that could be disposed of when no longer useful. His colleagues, who he might have mistaken for friends, were ready to throw him under the bus to advance their own interests. The world of wealth, power and influence that once lifted him up over the people whose debts he was responsible for collecting has ruthlessly cast him away like a used tissue. There never was any loyalty, friendship or fairness in that world. The steward was a fool to think otherwise.
But that is not the end of the story. The steward does not waste time lamenting his fall, wallowing in self pity or trying to beg and plead his way back into favor with his former employer. He recognizes that he is now among those his employer used his services to exploit. His fate is tied up with theirs. His hope lies in solidarity with them. So the steward uses the time he has left in his job to build bridges and form supportive relationships with the debtors he was commissioned to extract payment. He reduces their debt payments-possibly by foregoing the collection fee to which he was entitled, thereby easing their economic burden. This will ensure that they, in turn, will take him in and assist him with his needs. While that might sound a bit calculating, I believe we can recognize here a reorientation of hope. Hope lies in solidarity with the exploited, not the exploiter. Hope lies in aligning oneself with the lowly, the poor and the hungry rather than with the proud who are to be scattered in the imagination of their hearts or the mighty who are destined to be brought down from their thrones. See Luke 1:46-55.
The American church has seen decline and contraction for as long as I have been alive. Our power, influence and prestige in American society have decreased accordingly. It is becoming clear that America no longer needs the church and perhaps never did. What is less clear is whether the American church can free itself from its need for America. Can we recognize a better hope than the salvation of America? Can we imagine a better future than return to normalcy-whatever that might mean to us? Can we see a future beyond the collapse of the world order we have looked to so long for safety, security and prosperity? Do we have the courage to defy our wealthy patrons, let go the vestiges of privilege remaining to us and risk whatever consequences might flow from standing with the victims if ICE violence, racial hate, homophobic persecution and sexist discrimination? Can we posture ourselves in such a way that we can pray Mary’s Magnificat with joy and conviction? Therein lies a better hope than the American dream. Therein lies the life that is eternal and holds all things together until the day when all things are made new.
Here is a poem by Pamala Sneed recognizing hope in the resilience of South African Blacks struggling against apartheid that points us toward the better hope I believe is represented in the promise of God’s gentle reign of justice and peace.
Robben Island
The only antidote I may have to Trump’s election
is in a small ferry to Robben Island
one that shuttles you to the former prison
where those who fought against apartheid were held
The only answers may be in one wool blanket
a basin
toilet
cell
and the tiny windows of Robben Island
in the discarded artillery
the rock and the limestone yard
where many were blinded
driven mad
Now the survivors former prisoners
give tours
their faces carved like tree roots exposed
The only answers may be in the surrounding peaks of Table Mountain
its Twelve Apostles
all now standing as testament to what
through years of struggles
can be defeated
overcome
Source: Poetry (June 2025) Pamela Sneed is a New York City-based poet, performer, visual artist, and educator. She earned her BA from Eugene Lang College and MFA from Long Island University. She has taught solo performance and writing for solo performance at Sarah Lawrence College and was the 2017 visiting critic at Yale and at Columbia University. Sneed currently teaches online for the low-residency MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a visiting artist in the summer MFA program. Sneed is also an adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts. She won a 2023 Creative Capital award in literature as well as a 2024 NYSCA grant in poetry. Her visual work has appeared in group shows at the Ford Foundation, Company Gallery, and more. You can read more about Pamala Sneed and sample more of her poetry at the Poetry Foundation and Cornell AAP websites.
1 Michael Budde is a co-founder and first coordinator of the Ekklesia Project; he is Professor of Catholic Studies and Political Science at DePaul University in Chicago, where he also serves as a Senior Research Professor in the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology (CWCIT).
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 