(9) What the Future Brings

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for What The Future Brings, originally shared on April 27, 2020. It was the ninth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

    We are at a point now in the COVID-19 pandemic that we are looking at a gradual return to, if not normal, a new normal.

   We are now at a point where we can be a bit anxious about the future. What will that new normal be”

   [Show wallet]  Do you know what this is? It’s my wallet. I finally stopped carrying it about a week ago because I don’t use it. Everything is online these days. We strive for physical distancing, so I don’t use it. Will we be getting Facebook posts with pictures of wallets and the caption, “Do you know what this is?” someday, like the keys used to open coffee cans, or the spouts used to slice into cans of engine oil?

   [Show two face masks]: Green Bay Packers mask and Charity Horse Show bandana. These have become normal.  Do you wear one of these or one like these when you go out? Do you feel like you’re robbing a stagecoach? I saw a post online from some guy who said he had worn one on a visit to his bank for the first time the other day. Will this be the new normal? For how long?

   We don’t know what the immediate future holds, but Christians have a different scale of time and a different standard of normal than the cultures around us.

   We live in the already, but still coming, Kingdom of God. We long for heaven, but we live to serve others in the present moment, until we die. That is life’s purpose. We have passed from life to death in our baptisms. Eternal life has already begun for us, even as we long for the final judgement of the world.

   One of my uncles, Uncle Jimmy, was developmentally delayed. He lived with his parents, then with his sister, then in a home. He barely spoke, except in words of one syllable. I’d call him once a month or so and our conversations were usually always the same, “Hey, Uncle Jimmy” Hello. “This is your nephew David.” Yeah. “How are you doing?” Fine. “Are you getting enough to eat?” Yeah. “Are you getting fat?”  HaHa. No.” Are you keeping busy?” Yeah. “What are you working on?” Coasters. “I think the Packers are going to do pretty well this year.” Yeah. “Well, talk to you later” OK. Then he would call his sister and say, “Guess who just called me!”

   When his sister, my aunt, died, one of her sons, my cousin, told me a story. He said that when he went to tell Uncle Jimmy that his sister had died, he was quiet and looked out a window for a long time. Then he said, “But, who’s going to take care of me?” My cousin answered, “Ann (another cousin) will, and we’ll all look out for you. But, someday you and Barbara and all of us will see each other again in heaven.”

   My uncle said, “Won’t that be a wonderful day, when Jesus comes and opens up all the graves, and we’ll all rise and be with him forever.”

   That was the highest number of words I ever heard my uncle speak, and it was a statement of God’s promise and of our future hope. Of our scale of time. Of our transformation.

   We just passed the third Sunday in the Christian Church’s season of Easter. The season of the year in which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the way to heaven that the death of Jesus on the cross and his rising from the dead on the third day after his death was accomplished. We heard about the appearance of the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus.

   The church that grew from his death and rising faced challenge and change almost immediately.

1 Peter 5:6-11

   Peter gives counsel to a group of Christians in Asia Minor, the northern part of what is today Turkey. He speaks to the elders of the church at the end of this letter.

    Peter does not offer therapeutic advice to help them with their feelings, but counsels vigilance and character in the face of opposition, the normal state for Christians throughout history.

   Elders, in the New Testament, were leaders of the Church. They were chosen for their maturity in the faith to provide vision and direction for the church. Do you consider yourself a mature Christian? I don’t think this necessarily has to do with age.

   This time of isolation is an excellent time to grow as a Christian, to focus not on our to-do list, but on what I heard someone this morning call a to-be list.

   Growing old is required. Growing up is optional.

   Peter wrote to this church in a time when they were being jailed, denied employment, even tortured and killed for their faith, the faith that had turned their world upside down, that had placed them in isolation. Yet, they continued to serve others, and even to vastly expand what was seen as the possibility of love in service to the needs of the world.

   We may or may not experience persecution for our faith where we are today, but we have all seen our world changed dramatically in its attitude toward the Christian faith everywhere on earth.

   However we come out of these times of isolation and fear, things will be different.

   The whole world has substantially come to a stop. We may live in fear of contact with other people for some time. We will likely experience some post-traumatic stress. We may not be able to gather in large groups. There will be anger and scapegoating.

   Life has changed. It will continue to change. It always has. But, some things are constant, and one of them is the love of God.

   Peter’s counsel at a time of persecution of Christians is the old normal for Christians. His words to Christian leaders on dealing with calamity apply to all of us. They, too, longed for “normal” again.

   In times of great challenge and change, his counsel is to humble ourselves in awe before the living God, cast our anxiety on God, maintain the discipline of holy living, resist the devil and all the forces that defy God, and know that we are not alone: God walks with us, and our brothers and sisters in Christ are experiencing the same difficulties all over the world. We are bound with one another by the Holy Spirit. That is still good counsel.

   God sustained those early Christians and every kind of Christian since. God sustains us today. What will the future bring? God. The eternal, omniscient, omnipresent God will continue to sustain us with peace, a kind that passes all human understanding.

   [Show wallet and masks) Lots of things will change, as they always have.  What will the future bring?  Who knows, but God?

   As Peter counselled, “Cast all your anxiety on God, because he cares or you.”