Proper 11(A): If the Lord Tarries and the Creek Don’t Rise
By: The Rev. Dr. Hannah Adams Ingram
2020 is not the year that we lost control. 2020 is the year that we lost the illusion that we were in control in the first place. The comforting habits we had formed were disrupted. The plans we had made were gone. While this felt new, like we had just now been tossed into a sea of uncertainty, the truth is that the plans we made were always conditional; the daily norms were always just for today and maybe until something changed again.
I’m reminded of the colloquialisms of my elders in the faith: “If the Lord tarries…” or “God-willing and the creek don’t rise.” I’ve wondered before if this strand of my forbears’ faith was rooted in pessimism or whether it was realism—after all, the old country Baptists that trained me up as a child had seen some things. They had seen sickness, war, and poverty up close and personal. Not only did the Bible tell them God was going to return someday, triumphant over these big worldly sins, but they had seen death enough to know on a deeper level than naive optimistic Hannah that no day, no moment was guaranteed. If the Lord tarries… maybe we’ll have that big party or event or vacation. Or maybe there won’t be any tarrying and our plans will go out the window.
In 2020, a new generation of folks are learning that plans and habits are conditional, and this is disorienting. This disorientation has real effects on our mental and emotional health. Lest you think I’m glorifying the Christian version of non-attachment that puts an asterisk on every single hope for earthly joy, I’m actually very concerned that living life in a constant state of perceived threat takes a toll on a person. My own family lineage has anxiety interwoven with the Baptist faith—both passed on to us through generations of the faithful who were God-fearing and world-fearing simultaneously.
What I see in the texts for this week, then, is assurances to an anxious people about who God is. To Jacob, God said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” God goes on to say to Jacob in his dream, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”[1] When Jacob awoke, he exclaimed, “”Surely the LORD is in this place–and I did not know it!”
God is in this place. God is with us, wherever we go. This theme continues in the 139th Psalm: “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” In a time that seems uncertain because of pandemic and unemployment and persistent racism, God insists on God’s presence, and the psalmist testifies that there are no limits to this presence. I am particularly struck by the line, “If I make my bed in Sheol” as it implies my own agency in the building of the bed in the place of death, and yet, still God is there. Because there are various human contributions to the pains and sufferings that are being felt on a global scale, this assurance that God does not abandon us even when we’ve made our own bed in Sheol is specifically reassuring. I do not know what 2021 brings, but I know that here in this moment, as bad as it is or as anxious as I am, God is here.
Even the other psalm, Psalm 86, praises God as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” which is another message of hope in the face of human-exacerbated crisis. I often imagine God as the parent who cares for all people (Wisdom of Solomon 12:13) but possessing more wisdom and perspective than we have in our youth. And so, this image I have for God as parent is compassionate for the mistakes we make along the way even while pushing and teaching us to do better. Likewise, the Romans text names us as children of God who call out to God as Abba, a term of parental endearment.
Where can the beloved toddler go where their parent will not be with them? What could the child do to cause the holy parent to abandon them? Our plans are on shifting sand, and even our human relationships with parents sometimes fail us, but God does not. Whether the Lord tarries or not, God does it with us, side-by-side. That is good news in 2020.
The Rev. Dr. Hannah Adams Ingram serves as the Director of Religious Life and Chaplain of Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana. She grew up in non-denominational evangelical land and is now an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. She earned a BA from Anderson University, a Master of Theological Studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, and a PhD in Religion and Psychological Studies from the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. Her areas of interest include education, practical theology, and escaping overthinking by baking, crafting, and watching TV.
[1] Right now, my spirit is stirred by these assurances of who God is, but a different part of me wants to preach a sermon called, “The Father Dreams, Too,” since often it’s Joseph who is considered the dreamer and interpreter of dreams. Jacob’s got some big dreams himself though, both this week and in a couple weeks depending on how you interpret his wrestling with an angel.
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