The Un-Last Word

The Un-Last Word--November 10, 2016

"The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.  How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? ...My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.  I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath." [Hosea 11:6-9]

After the door has been slammed in God's face, God reserves the right not to walk away.

After we have chosen despair, God reserves the right not to stop speaking hope.

After we have chosen fear, God reserves the right not to give up sending angel after angel who announces in the dark, "Be not afraid."

In other words, even when we seem hell-bent (literally) on choosing the worst and turning away from the way of life, God refuses to let our arm-crossing, brow-furrowing temper tantrums be the last word.  God lets us speak those words, sure.  But God doesn't have to stay silent after we have thrown the plate against the wall in anger, or slammed the door in a huff, or shouted, "Fine! I'm done!" in the face of Mercy.  God's patience lets us speak our foolish, childish, selfish rants... and then God's grace is strong enough not to let our ugliest outbursts be the last word.

This is the story again and again in the Scriptures.  It is the story in the Garden, when human beings decide to throw away a life of balance in harmony with one another, with God, and with creation in order to grab more for themselves and throw each other under the bus... and then how God does not give up on the whole project of creation, but clothes the now ashamed and naked couple and starts them over.  It is the story of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, over and over, who keep falling into the same godforsaken pattern of throwing their allegiance behind whatever latest ruler or altar or stockpile comes their way, and then how God keeps starting over with them, stripping them down to essentials and making a new go of things with them.  It is the story of Jesus and, well, just about everybody he ever met: Zacchaeus the sell-out tax collector, Peter the arrogant boaster with a frequently chicken-hearted resolve, Saul the bloodthirsty religious zealot, looking to round up and punish everybody who didn't follow his exact code of piety and orthodoxy...and anybody else you might add to the list.  Every last one of them turned their backs on the way of grace, the way of life, the way of self-giving love, and traded it in for a rotten collection of fear, empty boasting, and blustery rage--and yet grace didn't let their awful choices be the end of the story.  Grace reserved the right, once the door had been slammed in its face, still to embrace, still to seek, still to open the door right back up again, even if the plates were flying again, and speak another word.

That's what it means for us to believe--to confess--that grace wins in the end.  It is not a pie-in-the-sky, "Let's-forget-about-how-rotten-things-are-now-because-it-will-all-be-better-in-heaven" kind of wishing in religious robes.  And it is not the equally vain hope that everything will all be better today because we wish it would be.  It is the promise, grounded in the character of the God we know in Jesus, not to let our stupidity and selfishness be our own death warrant.  It is the conviction that even after we keep turning away, God keeps saying, "How can I give you up, O my people?"  It is the way that after God has said NO to our choice for violence, for fear, for cowardice, and for selfishness, God then speaks another YES to staying with us, being with us, and transforming us.  It is the divine prerogative of God not to let our choice for godforsakeness be the last card laid down. 

God lets us speak our little angry rehearsed speeches, lets us build to our dramatic conclusions, and then lets us say our most hateful final sentence, thinking we have gotten the last word... and then God says, "But I have something more to say... yours, it turns out, was the un-last word."

There's a beautiful, haunting little acoustic song by the band OkGo, called "Last Leaf," which keeps coming back to me as I think about the persistence of grace despite our rotten choices.  The lyrics go like this:

If you should be the last autumn leaf, hanging from the tree

I'll still be here waiting on the breeze, to bring you down to me

And if it takes forever, forever it will be.

And if it takes forever, forever it will be.

If you should be the last seed in spring to venture out a leaf

I'll still be here, waiting on the rain, to warm your heart for me.

And if it takes forever, forever it will be.

And if it takes forever, forever it will be.

Some days you wake up feeling caught in the pile of rotten choices you are tangled in--some your own, some choices that others made that still tie you up.  And on those days, it can feel like any other voice in your life would say, "Fine, have it your way.  You've made your bed--now lie in it.  I'm done here."  It can feel like there is no reason to believe things can be made better again.  It can feel like you regret speaking the awful, hateful last word the moment it has left your lips, and that you wish you could un-choose the rotten choices you have made. 

It can feel like you and I have slammed the door in the face of the way of Life.

But God reserves the right still to wait, still to love, still to open the door back up again and say, "O, my people, O my beloved... I will not let your hate be more powerful than my love."

And so we begin again.  And the next time we make a stupid or selfish choice, grace waits again, insistent that it will win in the end.

And if it takes forever, forever it will be.

Lord God, give us hope on this day that we can begin anew, even when we have gotten ourselves into a godforsaken mess and slammed the door on love, on mercy, on courage, on truth, and on peace.  Open the door we thought we had locked behind us. And crash into our world again with your fierce love.

All of this