Sunday October 23, 2022
Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Scripture Reading: Joel 2:23-32
The book of Joel is a short little book – only three chapters long, tucked into the middle of the prophets. I’ve heard it called a “Table of Contents Book” because most people need to look it up in the table of contents in the bible in order to be able to find it – I know that I had to this week!
And we don’t know very much about Joel beyond his name and his father’s name – we don’t even know when he was living. Most prophets include some hints that let us guess when they were alive – a reference to who was king of Israel or Judah, a reference to what was happening in the world. But Joel is missing any of these hints that might let us put his words into context.
He is writing about time of drought, a time when locusts swarmed over the land and devoured anything green, a time of famine and hunger. And into the midst of that, God promises that a time will come when abundant rain will pour down, a time when the threshing floors will be full of grain, a time when the storage vats will be overflowing with all of the wine and olive oil that is produced, a time when the people will have more than enough to eat.
If you look closely at the grammar of this passage though, this time of plenty is all still in the future; which makes me think that Joel is prophesying in the middle of the drought and famine. The people have to trust that a time will come when the rain will fall, a time will come when there will be enough for everyone to eat.
If you get my mid-week e-mails, this week I used a phrase to describe hope – “Hope is only possible when everything is hopeless” (and I really wish that I could track down the source of that quote that I came across years ago). When things are good – when the famine is over and there is enough to eat – this isn’t when we need hope. Hope doesn’t hold any meaning when there is nothing to hope for. Instead, it is in the middle of the famine when everything seems to be hopeless – this is when hope comes in to play – this is when hope means trusting that the famine will eventually end and a time of plenty will come.
Reading through Joel this week, I was thinking about the time that I spent in Tanzania. Here in Canada, our seasons are defined by the temperature and by the length of day; but on the equator the length of day stays the same throughout the year, and the temperature also stays fairly consistent from month to month. There are seasons, however, but they are defined by the rains. In the part of Tanzania where I lived, there were two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. The long dry season usually lasted from mid- to late-May right through to the beginning of September. In those months, not a single drop of rain falls. The water level gradually drops in rivers and in streams. The dirt dries out into powdery dust that gets in your nose, in your hair, in your clothes. The grass dries out and turns brown.
And yet every year, the people who live there trust that the rains will arrive with September. In August each year, people start burning the grass in the fields and on the hillside to clear away the roots so that when the rain starts to fall, the new grass will be able to spring up easily. Every year in late August, people start planting bean seed and peas and spinach so that when the rain starts to fall, the seeds will already be in the ground.
In the midst of the dryness and dust, people trust that the rains will come, and so they live their lives trusting in the rain.
This is a powerful testimony to hope – trusting in something that you can’t see yet – but the metaphor does break down. In that corner of Tanzania, we know the timeline for the rains. We know that they are going to begin in September each year. But God’s promises don’t usually come with a timeline. God promises that a time of abundance will follow a time of famine, but doesn’t tell us when. And yet we are called to live as though we expect the abundance and feasting to be any day now.
And it’s hard. It’s hard to sustain hope through the drought, through the famine, when you don’t know when it is going to end.
And yet we are an Easter people. We aren’t a Good Friday people – we are an Easter people. We know that resurrection is always just around the corner.
And I think that is what passages like the one we read today from Joel remind us of. No matter what Good Friday we might be going through right now – the Good Friday of grief, the Good Friday of fear, the Good Friday of loneliness, the Good Friday of oppression, the Good Friday of pain, the Good Friday of addictions or illness or anxiety or depression or or or… No matter what Good Friday you are travelling through right now, Easter is coming. No Good Friday lasts forever; and the Easter that is coming will be even better than a little chocolate bar for everyone. (Note: this refers back to the Story for All Ages – see below.) It is worth waiting for!
And that is hope. Hope means trusting that Easter is just around the corner, even though we can’t see it yet. Hope means trusting that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even while we are still in total darkness. Hope is only possible – hope is only a thing when everything feels hopeless.
And that is my prayer for all of us – that the Holy Spirit might breathe hope into our Good Friday lives – that seeds might be planted even when the rain hasn’t started to fall yet – that our voices might join the song of the birds who sing before the sun has risen, encouraging the world to hold on just a little longer because the dawn is coming, because the rains are coming, because Easter is almost here! Amen.
Story for All Ages:
Cards were set up and we took turns turning over a card
looking for the Queen of Hearts.
A surprise was promised once someone found the right card.
The surprise was a chocolate bar for everyone!
If you can trust me, that I haven’t removed the Queen from
the deck (even though we had to wait a bit before she was found),
how much more can we trust God and trust in God’s promises,
even when we have to wait a bit for them to come true!
And may it be so.
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