Yes, Virginia, there is a promise to hope for...

I think that this week’s Gospel reading of Mark 6:1-13 has something to say about expectations and hope. We’ve seen in the Gospels that the disciples, who may have thought Jesus was the hope of Israel, had several different expectations of what this hope was and what the hope of a Messiah might be. We hear that several probably thought that Jesus was going to be a mighty savior of Israel, a warrior king that would liberate Israel from its captors and establish a nation that would be a light to the nations. But I think Jesus, throughout the Gospels recognizes that his followers don’t quite get it and that they have focused on a horizon point that isn’t the horizon that Jesus sees and is trying to explain to them.

I think Jesus’ neighbors in Nazareth were doing a similar thing. They couldn’t see the horizon that Jesus was explaining and instead saw a lower horizon point that the hope that Jesus was trying to share. So far, we see Jesus healing people, calming storms and raising a young daughter from the dead. But those around him weren’t getting it. Those who were healed by Jesus would have another infirmity someday, there would always be another storm and those Jesus raised were still going to die someday. That wasn’t the hope that Jesus was trying to point to, that wasn’t the horizon Jesus was trying to point out. The hope and horizon that Jesus was trying to share and explain to his followers was something larger, something much larger than that expectation that those around him were looking to. Jesus was trying to point to the hope and promise of the Beloved Community, the expectation that all people could come together in community around a simple thought that they were stronger together, a community that gathered to share stories of their life and struggles together, a community that was confident in the promise of God that such a community fashioned around a wholesome relationship with God and one another was the foretaste of the promise that awaited them down the road together.

Jesus hints at this trust and confidence in God’s promise and providence when he sends the Twelve out instructing them to take nothing with them. He hints at the providence of God available to the Twelve as they went to share the good news of this new radical way of living, of living in solidarity with God and one another. Jesus was trying to get the Twelve to lift their eyes from the hope and horizon that they were fixed on to see the hope and horizon that Jesus saw, the hope and horizon that Jesus was continuing to trying to explain to them. He wanted them to be able to lift their eyes to be able to see the hope and promise of Beloved Community – it was right there; a horizon point that is just a bit higher than they were fixated on.

I see a similar thing today as many evangelical Christians who are focused and fixated on a horizon of Christian nationalism. They have lost their vision of the Beloved Community, a vision that will always be a here but not yet reality in our finite, imperfect world. Instead, their expectation is keyed on a failing proposition, a proposition that is counter to that of the Beloved Community, an agenda that will instead bring injustice and division that is an antithesis to the Beloved Community of living together in solidarity with God and one another. Their hope, expectation and horizon are like that of those in Nazareth in which they were missing the point, missing the hope and promise that was being shared with them if only they lift their gaze a little bit higher than the one that they are compromising their gazed upon.

I think that we need to look at our own expectations to recognize when we are falling short in keeping our own gaze on the promise and hope that Jesus is sharing with us, to recognize the promise and hope of the Beloved Community and to be a prophetic voice calling ourselves and other to lift our gaze to the hope and promise that Jesus calls us to, that of the Beloved Community. As we consider whether our gaze is too low on the horizon, I think we need to continually ask ourselves: what promise do we hope for?