The end of the story is already written

I was talking to myself this week. I mean, sure, the congregation at the Stewart Health Center of the Springmoor Life Care center was present, and I do so love to be with them. But I think these words were words I needed to hear for myself and I can only hope somebody else finds something lovely in them. I did record them so you can listen HERE as well as read below.

The lectionary texts for the week are:
Genesis 15:1-6
Psalm 33:12-22
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

Come Holy Spirit! Show us your joy in being among us and remind us that the story is already written. Amen

Do you know anybody who tends to expect the worst?

Maybe they look into the past and say “oh, things were so much better then! The Good Old Days were so much better than today.”

Or maybe they peer into the future, fearing the worst thing they can imagine and unwilling to see how things could be better than they are today, even if today is a really bad day.

My mother was always a pretty even-tempered person but she had an eagle eye for police officers. To the best of my knowledge neither she, nor my father, nor any of our extended family ever interacted much with police officers. I don’t think they even got traffic tickets!

But if there was a police officer anywhere around she would admonish us in an urgent voice: “Look out! Police!”

I have no idea what she thought would happen. I could be driving 60 mph in a 65 mph zone and she would look over at the speedometer and say the same thing:  “Look out! Police!” It was startling and I always wondered why
1) She assumed we were doing something wrong and
2) She assumed the policer officer wanted and intended to catch and punish us thoroughly.

In another example, I have a friend who has been certain on and off for the last decade or so that he was about to lose his job. Even after 28 years with the same employer, an excellent record, and a boss that begs him not to retire, every new frustration leads to “This is it! I know I’ve said it before, but this time it’s REAL! I don’t see how I will keep my job this time.”

And after a couple of decades I have to squint and say “it has never happened before, so why are you so adamant – even in the face of much evidence to the contrary – that this time you will be let go?” And every time the answer is the same “No no, this time it’s different.”

Despite decades of no interaction with traffic police, and keeping his job, my mother and my friend both clung to the very human tendency to worry that something terrible and punitive was going to come any minute.



I thought of these stories as I read the middle part of today’s reading: “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; BE LIKE THOSE WHO ARE WAITING”

My mother and my friend were waiting, I think. Waiting for a police siren, or a pink slip. Waiting to be “caught”, even though they didn’t ever seem to be doing anything “catch-worthy.”

Why do we do that?

When do we learn to fear what comes next?

We don’t show as much that kind of fear as children. Wee little children look forward to each moment with wonder and excitement. Christmas! My birthday! We’re going to Disney! DADDY’S HOME! MOMMY’S HOME!

It takes a good long time to go from that certain hopefulness to become the equally certain (and maybe equally misplaced) anxiety about what comes next.



How did you hear the text today, the warning to “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; BE LIKE THOSE WHO ARE WAITING”

Did you hear it with trepidation, as in “brace yourselves because judgment is coming!”

or as a promise, as in

“only thirteen more days until my birthday complete with presents and cake and ice cream and a party!”

I will confess I came down on the worried side. Every time I read this passage I am surprised when the story talks about staying alert because the master will serve up a meal for those who are alert!

Really! That’s what it says!!

Not “look out because if you don’t watch out you will get in big trouble,” but

“look out! You don’t want to miss this chance to have dinner together and enjoy what your master has to offer.”

It makes me wonder what that dinner would be like. Maybe choice delicacies that the master brought back from traveling? Stories of the exotic scenes and interesting people on that trip? Did he want to sit down and share that with someone, and the people in his household were there, even if it was night time?

What if the master wants to sit with his household workers because he missed them, and just enjoys their company?

In thinking of those possibilities, it sounds like this passage is inviting us to be excited like children when we think of God showing up in our lives rather than worried and fearful like adults.

Children live in hope, aren’t afraid to believe that a good thing is coming (sometimes even though it means sore disappointment). As God’s children we can behave like children in that regard: we can look into the future with happy anticipation instead of fearing the worst. We can relax into knowing that God is HAPPY TO SEE US!

 As adults we may recognize that the world is broken and disappointments and pain (and even traffic tickets) abound.

But as Christians, followers of Jesus, people whose master is the God of love – the God who IS love – we know that those pains and disappointments are not the whole story.

We know, in fact, that the end of the whole story has already been written. The story that started at Creation and all things were created by the Word of God…

That in Jesus the Word became flesh and showed us what it looks like to live out a life of love and grace, even in a broken world.

That even though Jesus lived the perfect life of love, the dark brokenness seemed to win – but only for the merest moment in time! – because even though Jesus died a real, human death, that death could not hold him and he was Resurrected! He came back and served his disciples food.

Can you imagine the dread those disciples felt? This was JESUS! How could he be killed? It wasn’t supposed to be that way!

AND IT WASN’T! Because in the REAL end of the story the Resurrected Jesus is alive. The dread we think we have to feel in our broken world has been shown to be unnecessary. We can live like the children we are, certain that the story will not end with whatever pain and fear and anxiety may seem to be lying at our feet.

We live in a broken world but it is the same broken world that Jesus came to live in.

The brokenness could not hold Jesus and because of the Resurrection it cannot hold you.

As a result, you do not have to worry anymore.

You only have to know that this traffic ticket, this medical bottle, this job loss, or whatever difficult thing you anticipate (accurately or not) is not the end of the story.

The end of the story is already written and IT IS GOOD.

Jesus wins, and IT IS GOOD.

Amen.