The View From The Vicarage For Sunday July 10, 2022
In his 1859 masterwork about another time of political and religious upheaval in what
was considered the most powerful country in Europe, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles
Dickens wrote:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the
age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the
season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter
of despair.”
To my mind, these powerful opening sentences reflecting the paradox of life express
anew the extremes of our own time, not only in the United States but across the globe.
Rooted as they are in decades, even centuries-old competing and contradictory
theological and ideological understandings of what life should hold for both individuals
and entire societies, the ongoing crisis of worldwide pandemic exacerbated these sharp
divisions into the starkly differing realities outlined with alarming regularity in the news
headlines and social media diatribes.
And the great rhetorical question posed by Pontius Pilate before the powerless Christ of
God thunders among us anew: “What is truth?” Is there, or even can there be an
absolute truth or set of truths to which all nations and people may choose to ascribe in
all times and places? Or is truth itself something which each individual or group of
people can accept and embrace for themselves, whether or not others concur? And, of
course, right on the heels of Pilate’s question for the ages arise the intricacies of defining
right and wrong, good and bad, Godly and evil.
I wonder if today we find ourselves somewhere in the process of sorting out these
overarching questions of life on earth for a new age just aborning, a new epoch not yet
fully emerged out of the ashes of life as we have known it since the time of the Renais-
sance, the Reformation, and the Age of Enlightenment. Terrified of what life will hold
and what we may become on the other side of the death and resurrection before us, we
have retreated into the deepest and darkest corners of our own fear in our futile efforts
to feel safe, strong, and in control.
Without a doubt, these times are troubling indeed as we confront the reality that life as
we have known it disintegrates before our very eyes. And so, my friends, as towers
tumble and systems fall to dust around us, we are left with nothing to hold onto except
our faith that, as Blessed Julian of Norwich proclaimed with the Black Plague raging
around her: “All will be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things will be well.”
“Why, how, when, where can this be so?” we ask, frantic for the answers. And as simple
as it sounds, and yet monumentally difficult to accept, the only answer which will calm
our fears and give us hope is God. “I AM,” was the only answer offered to Moses and the
Israelites when lost in the desert more than three millennia ago. “I AM” is the only
answer offered to us today—nothing more, nothing less than the God of Love is already
there in whatever future lies ahead. And in that boundless, Holy Love which is God, new
life awaits. Yes, the “getting there” is not going to be easy. Dying is always fearful and
painful. But on the other side? God.