Between Two Worlds (May 2020 Trinitarian letter)

Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians

May 2020

Between Two Worlds

Harlem by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Delayed hope is painful.  Delay makes you wonder if the hope is warranted, and if its fulfilment will ever arrive.  Early Christians after the Day of Pentecost experienced it when their hopes that our glorified Lord would return soon seemed dashed when the longer the return took, the longer the wait ahead seemed.   But we had been through a dashing of hopes before:  the crucifixion and death of Jesus.  But then Easter morning arrived and told us that we never should have lost hope.  So as the Parousia was delayed, our faith hunkered down over centuries, condensed into the dogged affirmation that Jesus would again come to us, no matter how long it took. 

One way we have been able to do this is by understanding that the resurrection of our Lord was the beginning of the end of this world:  God’s Reign broke into our world in the earthly ministry of Jesus, became all the clearer in his death of resurrection, and would remain with us in the here and now, again, as long as it takes, until its final revelation in fulness. 

We are living in the time between two kingdoms:  this impermanent world, passing and fading quickly as the grass and flowers, and the Age to Come, where the impermanent has been replaced with unchanging, deathless glory.  We Christians respond to dreams deferred, not by any of the troubled ways Langston Hughes described, but by looking hard and seeing the glory before our eyes even as our eyes seem obscured by shadows and shades.

And in this, there is hope, and strength for the wait. 

Grace and Peace,  Fr. Tony+