Breathing Under Water: Hope That Finds Us First
2 Corinthians 1:9-11 The Message;
Last week, Hunter helped us begin in a place most of us would rather avoid: powerlessness.
We were reminded that there are some things we cannot fix by trying harder. There are some burdens we cannot carry by pretending they are lighter than they are. There are some patterns we cannot outthink. There are some wounds we cannot heal by ignoring them.
That is a hard place to begin.
And it is also a deeply faithful place to begin.
Because the life of following Jesus does not begin with proving ourselves to God. It begins with being met by God.
The Twelve Steps begin with that same kind of honesty. Step One says, in essence, “I cannot do this by myself.” Not as a slogan. Not as a temporary admission on a difficult day. But as a doorway into a different kind of life.
And then Step Two says something that sounds simple, but is often anything but simple: we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Came to believe.
Not “we instantly believed.” Not “we had no questions.” Not “we felt hopeful every morning before breakfast.”
We came to believe.
Which suggests that belief is a journey. Hope is a journey. Trust is a journey.
Sometimes faith begins as a crack in the wall of despair. Sometimes faith begins as willingness to imagine that the way things are right now is not the only way they can ever be. Sometimes hope begins before we are even sure we want it.
This week in our Breathing Under Water series, we are moving from powerlessness to hope. From honesty to trust. From “I cannot fix this by myself” to “maybe God is already moving toward me.”
That movement matters because powerlessness without hope can become despair. And hope without honesty can become denial.
The gospel gives us something stronger than despair and denial.
The gospel gives us hope that tells the truth.
Not the flimsy kind that says, “Everything is fine,” when everything is clearly not fine. Gospel hope looks at what is real and says: God is not finished. God is not absent. God is not waiting at a distance for us to get ourselves together. God is already moving toward us.
That is the heart of this week’s good news:
God moves toward us before we believe fully.
That is prevenient grace.
I know. “Prevenient grace” is one of those very Methodist terms that can sound like something you need a seminary degree and maybe a strong cup of coffee to appreciate.
But the idea is beautiful.
Prevenient grace is the grace that comes before. Before we understand. Before we respond. Before we know how to pray. Before we can name what is wrong. Before we have cleaned up our lives. Before we have figured out what we believe. Before we have made our way home.
God is already there.
Or even better: God is already here.
Today’s reading from Deuteronomy gives us an image for this. The Common English Bible says that the most ancient God is a place of safety, and that God’s eternal arms are a support.
Support.
God’s arms are our support.
Most of us spend a lot of time trying to support ourselves and those around us.
We support the schedule. We support the household. We support the people who depend on us. We support the ministry. We support the version of ourselves that looks competent and calm and faithful. We support the appearance that everything is manageable.
And sometimes we do that for so long that we forget we were never meant to be the whole structure.
Some of us learned early that being responsible was how we stayed safe, that being useful was how we earned love, that if we could just keep everyone else okay, maybe we would be okay too.
And then in our psyche, we baptized all of that and called it faithfulness.
But Deuteronomy offers this instead: underneath all our effort, underneath all our managing, underneath all the places where our strength gives way, there is God.
Not as one more demand. Not as one more expectation. Not as one more voice saying, “You should be doing better.”
But as support.
God as the One whose arms are already beneath us when we cannot hold ourselves up.
That is hope.
Not hope as optimism.
Hope as the mercy of God holding what we cannot keep holding by ourselves.
And Paul says something similar in Second Corinthians.
In The Message version you heard today, Paul does not sound polished. He does not sound like he is offering a tidy, verbose theological conclusion from a comfortable distance. He sounds like someone who has been honest about how bad it got.
He says, in essence, “We didn’t think we were going to make it.”
There is no candy-coating there. This sounds like someone who has come to the end of the illusion that strength and cleverness and effort and self-sufficiency will always be enough.
Paul says they learned not to rely on themselves, but on God. And not just any vague religious idea of God. No – Paul says they learned to rely on the God who raises the dead.
Not the God who helps the already-capable become slightly more capable.
Not the God who rewards the spiritually impressive.
The God who raises the dead.
The God who brings life where there was no life and can be trusted when we cannot rescue ourselves.
That is the movement from Step One to Step Two.
Step One tells the truth: I cannot do this alone.
Step Two dares to hope: there is a God who can be trusted with what I cannot manage.
This kind of faith is not the denial of powerlessness.
This kind of faith is what becomes possible when our powerlessness meets God’s grace.
That is part of what Fr. Richard Rohr is trying to help us see in Breathing Under Water. The Twelve Steps are not a side road away from Christian spirituality. At their best, they are one way of walking straight into the heart of it.
Because so much of our spiritual trouble comes from the ways that all of us in some way keep trying to build our happiness on things that cannot finally sustain us: approval, control, security, usefulness, success, being right, being needed, being seen as good, being seen as strong, being seen as the one who can handle it.
None of those things is evil in itself. But when they become the foundation, they cannot hold the weight of our lives.
If my peace depends entirely on approval, I will never have peace. If my hope depends entirely on control, I will never have hope. If my belovedness depends entirely on being useful or impressive, I will spend my whole life exhausted.
And I have to tell you that I feel entirely too much of THIS in my spirit – a longing for approval, for control, for affirmation.
That is not freedom. That is not wholeness. That is not life in Christ.
This is where Step Two matters.
Because Step Two does not say, “Try harder.” It does not say, “Improve yourself into peace.” It does not say, “Be stronger, smarter, better, more impressive, more religious.”
Step Two says: maybe there is a Power greater than yourself. Maybe restoration is possible. Maybe you are not the source of your own salvation. Maybe God can do what your control cannot do.
Maybe the arms of God are already supporting you.
And then in today’s reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells a story.
A younger son demands his inheritance, leaves home, spends everything, loses everything, and finds himself in a far country hungry enough to envy pigs.
He has lost his money. He has lost his place. He has lost his illusions. He may even believe he has lost his name.
So he starts home with a speech.
I think I know that instinct. Because our shame almost always comes with a script. Shame tells us what we should say. Shame tells us how low we should bow. Shame tells us not to expect too much. And sometimes, shame dresses itself up as humility.
But shame is not the same thing as humility.
Humility tells the truth and stays open to grace.
The son starts home with a shame-script. He knows what he will say. He knows what he no longer deserves.
And before the son can get all the way home, before he can manage the encounter, before he can finish the script he has prepared, the father sees him and runs.
The father’s love moves faster than the son’s shame.
That is the gospel good news – love is ready and waiting for us. And that waiting is not passive.
It is not that the son explains himself well enough to be forgiven. It is not that the son performs repentance convincingly enough to be welcomed. It is not that the son gets the words exactly right and finally earns his place back.
The good news of the gospel is that love is already moving down the road.
The father sees him while he is still a long way off. The father’s heart is moved. The father runs. The father embraces him. The father kisses him.
Before the speech is finished. Before the older brother can object. Before the son can prove he has changed.
Love moves first.
This is the scandal of grace.
God does not wait on the porch with crossed arms. God does not say, “Let’s see if you really mean it this time.” God does not demand that the son crawl the final mile as proof of sincerity.
God closes the distance.
God interrupts the shame spiral with an embrace.
That is hope that finds us first.
Now, let’s be careful and clear.
This is not cheap grace.
The son still has to come home.
The truth still has to be told.
The relationship still has to be healed.
The household still has to deal with the consequences.
There is more work ahead. There is always more work ahead.
Recovery is work. Healing is work. Repair is work. Truth-telling is work. Learning to live differently is work.
But the work begins in love, not in shame.
The work begins in embrace, not in rejection.
The work begins because the father has already come running.
That is what hope means in the life of faith.
Not that everything is suddenly easy. Not that every wound is instantly healed. Not that every relationship is magically restored. Not that every addiction disappears, every illness lifts, every grief resolves, every injustice is undone by sunset.
Hope is not magic. Hope is not denial. Hope is not pretending that we never walked away from God.
Hope is trust that God is already at work before the whole story has been healed.
Hope is the support of God beneath us when we have stopped being able to hold ourselves up.
Hope is learning, with Paul, to rely not on ourselves, but on the God who raises the dead.
So maybe the question for us this week is not, “Do I feel hopeful enough?”
Because some of us do not.
Some of us are tired. Some of us are grieving. Some of us are anxious about our families, our country, our health, our children, our church, our future, our own inner life. Some of us are carrying things we have not yet spoken out loud. Some of us are skeptical of hope because we have been disappointed before.
So maybe the question is not, “Do I feel hopeful enough?”
Maybe the question is:
Can I allow for the possibility that God is already moving toward me?
Can I allow for the possibility that I am not beyond God’s reach?
Can I allow for the possibility that the thing I cannot fix alone might still be held in God’s grace?
Can I allow for the possibility that underneath all my trying and all my weariness are the supporting arms of God?
That may be enough for this week.
Not perfect certainty. Not spiritual fireworks. Not a dramatic breakthrough.
Just a small opening.
A small willingness.
A small, desperate desire for the God who is already near.
This week, I want to invite you to pay attention to where you are looking for hope.
Are you looking for it in control? In approval? In being needed? In staying busy enough not to feel what hurts? In being right? In some future version of yourself who finally has it all together?
And then I want to invite you to ask a different question:
What would it mean to let God meet me here?
Not once I am better. Not once I believe more confidently. Not once I can explain everything clearly.
Here.
In this actual life. In this actual body. In this actual week. In this actual mix of faith and doubt, longing and resistance, fear and hope.
Because the good news is not that we have found our way perfectly to God.
The good news is that God has found us. While we were still far off. While we were still rehearsing our apology. While we were still unsure whether home was possible.
God saw us. God sees us.
God moved toward us.
God is moving toward us still.
So come home.
Or begin to take one step in that direction.
Or let yourself want to want to come home.
That counts too.
Because hope is not the feeling we generate once we become strong enough.
Hope is the support of God beneath us.
Hope is the love of God running toward us before we have finished rehearsing our apology.
God, meet us where we are,
and lead us toward wholeness.
Amen.
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