Charles Dickens’ next to the last completed novel, Great Expectations, is the tale of an orphan, Philip Pirrip [a.k.a. “Pip”], born with few advantages. The novel, first published in installments from December 1860 to August of 1861 and then published in three volumes [it is definitely NOT a short read!], is set in Victorian England, specifically the Kent countryside and the seething cauldron which was London in that day. It is a graphic catalogue of the harsh realities of life experienced by those who were of the “lower classes” and an eye-opening exposé on the tragic inequities of the British class system. The book spins a detailed account of Pip’s struggles to survive. Early in the novel he encounters Abel Magwitch, an escaped convict who is treated kindly by Pip even after the lad had been threatened with death if he did not supply Magwitch with food and drink. Magwitch, exiled eventually to Australia [a.k.a., the British penal colony conveniently on the other side of the globe], manages to become independently wealthy. He will become Pip’s anonymous benefactor in time.
Dickens’ landmark novel is considered a “coming-of-age” story of a decent boy who, despite all the strikes against him as an impoverished orphan, is willing to trust, befriend, and remain loyal to the friends he makes. He exhibits the marks of true discipleship Jesus commends to those who would follow him. Although facing substantial setbacks, heartbreaks, and forced to grow up far too quickly, thanks to Magwitch’s patronage he masters a trade and eventually becomes a “gentleman.” He never loses his ability to hope and to muster great expectations about life itself.
As baptized disciples of Jesus, we also are called to hope and expect great things, because we have been gifted, loved, and equipped by God. We are granted the ability to live life with what is necessary to ensure our dignity and the ability to grant that same dignity and loving regard to others. Taking Pip’s story as a guide, we needn’t be fooled that faith’s journey is a piece of cake. We’ve had fair warning from Jesus as well as St. Paul that it can be harrowing, but we’re not cast on our own to survive the struggle. There is a faith community which supports, relationships which endure, and the abiding hope in “things unseen” which all remain God’s gracious gift and promise to us.
Nevertheless, in the same way that Pip’s early life was impacted by the cutthroat, dog-eat-dog existence that poverty can inflict, the journey of faith [Lent is but a focused portion of that journey] is our own “coming of age” chronicle. Becoming disciples of Jesus is the start of God’s relentless work to transform fallen creation in order to heal, forgive, encourage, and save, thereby setting us all on paths of service and mission wherever we find ourselves in this world. God’s transformative work is anchored in Jesus’ own suffering and death. He remains faithful to the unbreakable bond with the Father of all mercies. God’s abiding relationship with his Son is revealed in this coming Sunday’s second reading: “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek” [Hebrews 5:5b-6]. The passage echoes what we heard on the Baptism of Our Lord, at the Transfiguration, and even on the First Sunday in Lent. The reiteration is significant, not so much for Jesus, perhaps, but for us who experience the trials of faith’s journey.
To grow, mature, and become people of integrity we learn the hard lessons about letting go of our stilted, egocentric, self-serving ideas about life and living. We don’t survive and prosper by our own cleverness and conniving. Rather, we learn to trust as God’s unfathomable love breaks through our hard shells and breaks down the walls of fevered self-protection and isolation we erect. Thus, we also hear on Sunday more of Jesus’ reflections on grains of wheat: Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor [John 12:24-26]. We ARE grains with exceedingly hard shells. Some folks never learn to trust, remaining isolated in this world, dying slow spiritual deaths of loneliness and despair. Several striking characters in Great Expectations do, in fact, experience such a demise. God began the process of our spiritual germination long ago, and we who sprout into new life in Christ can fulfill our roles, too. Like grains of sprouted wheat which break through first their hard shells and then through the soil’s surface, we grow and mature, turning to God’s radiance to become the folks we’ve been called to be. Plants are able to turn to and move with the sun’s daily journey through the heavens, thanks to phototropism [moving with the light]. God’s baptized people exhibit their own deotropism [moving toward God’s redeeming light].
Sunday’s first reading is Jeremiah 31:31-34, also appointed for the Festival of the Reformation, itself a remembrance of God’s transforming work in our lives as communities of faith. God is at work “carving” into our hearts a new covenant, the divine seal of abiding, fruitful relationship for eternity. How do we recognize God’s spiritual surgery in each one of us? How do we begin to understand that our lives are fashioned to be lived in abiding community with God, one another, and with whomever we encounter in life’s journey? One of the most significant ways we do this is to “stay in touch!” To family, friends, those we love, and those who are far from us, we often repeat that phrase, even pleading to “stay in touch.” This is not the voyeuristic snooping many do thanks to the invasive abilities of social media. Instead, it is the commitment to remain in conversation with God and one another. For abiding relationships, this is NOT OPTIONAL!!! Luther, when preaching the dedicatory sermon for the Castle Chapel at Torgau on October 5, 1544, noted that worship was a holy conversation: God speaks to us through Word and Sacrament and we speak to God in prayer and praise.
It remains a question of our being intentional about participating in this holy conversation God started long ago. A “spiritual director” friend of mine, a Roman Catholic sister in West Virginia, once mentioned that her Lutheran clients often had difficulty with prayer; they were too easily distracted because they remained unfamiliar with the church’s long tradition of a disciplined [a.k.a., formed by discipleship] prayer life. I continue to ponder her comment all these years later because her words address me, too. Do we understand our gatherings each week as first and foremost motivated by the need for us to GATHER FOR PRAYER? Do we think we can check off the “prayer box” because we’ve run through the Lord’s Prayer and the few others we encounter in the hymnal or in the bulletin? Sunday’s second reading reminds us that Jesus …offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission [Hebrews 5:7]. Do we know what it is to engage in such prayers …with loud cries and tears, compelled to do so because the one with whom we converse is able to …save [us] from death? When we enter the Church and reconnect with those whom we have loved and known as friends through the years, are we moved to pray together, or do we get distracted with the casual chatter of the day to day? Our choices reveal much about us!
I’m pleased that I have that good Sister’s comment niggling in my mind, not that it always compels me to turn to prayer, alas. I’m also pleased that we repeatedly gather together, which means we repeatedly have opportunities to become praying, baptized servants of the living God. One of my great expectations is that those days are surely coming, as Jeremiah the prophet proclaims again and again.