Listen for these words of seeking promises in the dark: “Since 49 or 50 [years old], this terrible sense of loss – this untold darkness – this loneliness – this continual longing for God – which gives me that pain deep down in my heart – darkness is so much that I really do not see – neither with my mind or with my reason – the place of God in my soul is blank.1” Do you know who wrote these raw and authentic words?
She was 5 ½ when she received communion for the first time. She wrote later of the love she experienced when she first received the sacrament. She felt the call to enter the missionary life at 12, but considered the weight of her decision with her particularly pious family. Until at 18, as she left for Bengal, her mother said, “Put your hand in Jesus’ hand and walk along with him.2” She embraced the life as a nun educating children in the love of Christ and the world around her. She taught young girls at St. Mary’s Bengali Medium School for 17 years. She was 36, when she received her call within a call. Riding on the train headed towards her spiritual retreat, she experienced the mystical presence of Christ calling her to ‘satiate the thirst of Christ on the cross’ by caring for those most in need at their time of death. During that time of retreat, she knew the voice of Christ instructing her in how to live out this call within a call. She founded the Sisters of Charity serving others and inspiring people all over the world to do so as they, too, saw the face of Christ in each one. This was none other than Mother Teresa.
But for approximately 40 years after knowing the light and presence of Christ, according to her own words, she experienced darkness. She wrote of feeling “a terrible pain of loss – of God not wanting me – The darkness surrounds me on all sides. I can’t lift my soul to God.3” In the midst of the most incredible work with those most in need centered on Christ’s love, Mother Teresa knew darkness.
This was the darkness that surround Abram. Abram who heard and knew God. Abram, who left his home to go where it was that God was leading. Abram, who generosity of spirit shone through when in-fighting hit the herders of his nephew, Lot and his own, and he allowed them to choose choice land. Abram, who heard God say multiple times that his descendants would exceed dust and stars, east and west, north, and south. Abram, who believed God’s promises, fell into darkness and despair in the midst, at the center of God’s presence.
Once we have encountered God, we often want each moment to be filled with such reassurances and calls. Abram hears the call and promises of God multiple times. God covenants with Abram again and again. God never leaves Abram. And Abram know darkness and loneliness, despair and fear, rock-bottom and falling further.
But it is not just Abram and Mother Teresa who have known this kind of darkness. It is you and I who have lived through it or who are living there, even now! It is you and me as we wait for test results to come back. We try to put on a strong face. We tell our families that we are sure everything will be all right. But we feel as though fear and anxiety, worst-case scenarios, and incredible horrors are all we can see. The darkness feels closer than the promises.
It is you and I when we have messed up, but good. When we scramble frantically to fix our mistakes and solve the problems. When we work hard at untangling tangled messes. But shame and disgrace cloud our view. The darkness feels closer than the promises.
It is you and I when we feel as though we are utterly alone in a crowded room. It is you and I when our darkness exceeds our hope and the end feels imminent. It is you and I when we feel lost and unanchored in trial after challenge after catastrophe after devastation. There is a pile on. It is you and I when we want to work with others and care well for one another, but feel unable to move or help in anyway due to the darkness. We can call it suffering or pain, anxiety or fear, forces of evil, power and principalities, devil, or Satan, internal or external. But anytime we have touched the darkness, we know when it finds us again.
It is you and I who numb our pain, deny our darkness, avoid the silence, combat the hard stuff, and rarely engage the pain. We drink too much to numb our pain. We fill our calendars to deny loneliness. We talk too much to avoid listening. We fight the wrong fights. We try not to think too hard.
But like Mother Teresa and Abram, God has never left us. In fact, God’s promises have been recounted and retold again and again. God is made to known to us in grace and abundant love. Out of a desire to redeem the darkness with light.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus speaks to the gathered crowd, said to be in the thousands, “Do not be afraid, little flock” with tenderness. It is God’s good pleasure, delight to give you the kingdom. So, now act as if it were already here by selling your possessions, sharing with others, giving freely, preparing for the kingdom. For what you give you time and money to now, is your treasure. Where your treasure is, shows your true heart.
So for Abram, his treasure was the impossible promise that God gave him that he, who had no children, would be the father of many nations as many as the stars of the sky and dust of the ground. He, who feared that his progeny would be based on his household servant, clung to the seemingly unkeepable promise that he and his wife, Sarai would have children and grandchildren.
For Mother Teresa, her treasure was that even in the darkest moments, she clung to Jesus. She writes, “Every time I want to tell the truth – “that I have no faith” – the words just do not come- my mouth remains closed- And yet I still keep on smiling at God.4 ”
For you and me, the stars of Abraham’s nights are still twinkling in our eyes, as we are proof of God’s promises kept to Abram. The vastness of the night might lead us towards loneliness, but it can also remind us the light shines, even in moments and seasons of darkness. God who has never left us, is present making promises to us, especially in the dark. These are signs of hope and commitment.
This is the ribbon cutting for the cave in which you live. Embracing your treasure in life. Acknowledging that even in the darkest caverns, the light of Christ shines and is not overcome.
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
1Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, edited by Brian Kolodiejchek, p. 1-2, 2007.
2Ibid., 13.
3Ibid., 193.
4Ibid., 238
Old Testament lesson from Genesis, portions of chapters 13 through 15
So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.
Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.
Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together, and there was strife between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.
Then Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.’
The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northwards and southwards and eastwards and westwards; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring for ever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.’ So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.
When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. Abram divided his forces against them by night, Abram and his servants, and routed them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then Abram brought back all the goods, and also brought back his nephew Lot with his goods, and the women and the people.
And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said,
‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
maker of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’
And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’ But the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.’ God brought Abram outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Then God said to Abram, ‘I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?’
As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him. Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgement on the nation that they serve, and afterwards they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
Gospel Lesson from the Book of Luke, Chapter 12, verses 32 through 34
‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Meditations: August 6-12
Sunday: “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northwards and southwards and eastwards and westwards; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.” Genesis 13: 14-16. God’s practice is to use the world around us to point to God’s way, character, and promises. Dust as offspring! Where is God using the world you see to show your God’s promises?
Monday: “But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’” Genesis 15:2. God’s promises are often steps ahead of our understanding and can seem downright crazy. What does it mean for you to trust where you cannot see how the promise will come to be?
Tuesday: “The Lord brought Abram outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then God said to Abram, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” Genesis 15:5. Give thanks to God for awe of stars and God’s promises.
Wednesday: “And Abram believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6. When you can’t see how God’s promises will be kept, prayerfully believe in God’s steadfastness.
Thursday: “As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.” Genesis 15:12. There are times when deep and terrifying darkness descends upon us. May the God of promises be known to you in the dark.
Friday: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12: 32. God’s promises and goodness are ultimately for your welfare. Give thanks to God and rest in delight of God’s unfailing goodness.
Saturday: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12: 33-34. As we rest on God’s promises, our actions are the ways in which others see God. Let your actions reflect God’s compassion and heart for all people.