May 21, 2011 has come and gone—no end of the world. Still, that’s been revised to October 21, 2011, so at least we have another date. Or maybe it’s 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out.
In 1970, I left behind being a hippy and became a Jesus freak. I went to Bible Study every night of the week. It was obvious to the group I met with that Jesus would return any minute now. After all, the Bible clearly showed that now Israel was fully ensconced in Palestine and there were 10 nations in the Common Market….finally, all was ready!
Although I didn’t actually have a bumper sticker on my VW bug saying, “In case of the rapture this car will be un-manned,” I honked agreement at cars that did. (Nor did I have its counterpart—“ In case of the rapture, can I have your car?”)
When I skied at Mt. Baker, I felt compelled to ski alone so I could get on the chair lift with some poor soul and warn them that Jesus was coming soon and they might be left behind to face the Great Tribulation. As beautiful Mt. Shuksan loomed in grandeur, I asked, “Does that worry you?”
“No,” a young man said, looking like he wanted to jump off the chair lift to get away from me.
I remember trying to explain to a college professor that I didn’t really need to read Virginia Woolf since I was going to be raptured at any moment. (Virginia, will you forgive me?!)
How remarkably naïve, I think now. But I was joining a long line of people who for centuries have calculated, yanked passages out of Revelation and other apocalyptic writings, looked at cataclysms in the world around— and known exactly when Christ would return. People have sat on rooftops and hillsides in sheets waiting expectantly.
Why this long line of people wanting to know when the world will end? What do they want? What did I want?
Certainty, control and escape—that’s what people want when they demand a date. That’s what I wanted back in the early ‘70s when my world seemed uncertain and out of control. I wanted to know exactly when, to feel like my faith gave me some control, to escape a complicated future. (Sorry about those who were left behind….)
Although part of me wants to chuckle at the May 21 folks, I have to admit there’s still a part of me (and maybe all of us) that wants certainty, control and escape. News of floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, wars, economic catastrophes seem to fill our homes daily—we don’t know what will happen next! Of course we want certainty, control and escape.
What my faith gives me is exactly the opposite of what I’d hoped for in those early days. Instead of certainty I’m given mystery that I’ll never fully fathom; instead of control I’m called to trust; instead of escape, I’m given an opportunity to be deeply involved in a messy world.
In fact many of the documents of the New Testament depict the parallel process those first believers had to undergo—after Christ’s death and their powerful experience of resurrection, they are certain it will be just a few days before Christ returns and whips them away from this messy earth. But as months and years go by and the end doesn’t happen…we see in the gospels and epistles a movement struggling to live in this “time between times.” How do I live a faithful life, trusting despite lack of clarity, showing love in a confusing world? That is what those first believers had to work out, and it is what we have to work out.
It’s harder to live with mystery than with certainty; more difficult to trust than to be in control; trickier to cooperate on making the world a better place—(trying to live sustainably, working to end hunger, seeing that people get the care they need)—than it is to just fly away. But that’s the call—it’s a call to grow up and live into mystery, trust and involvement—a call away from certainty, control and escape, a call into adventure.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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