I Have Nothing Left To Hope For

Matthew 24:36–44 (NRSV)

36 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

I’m having a hard time with Advent this year.

Advent is the beginning of the church year where we remember and wait in anticipation of the light that has come/is coming to the world. We begin in darkness and look towards the light.

The collect for this, the first week of Advent, states, “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which you Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and that dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever Amen.” It sounds so hopeful, so encouraging. It’s a prayer asking to be kept on the good works we are doing so that we might realize the life immortal when Jesus comes again. It’s being found among those who are awake, who are waiting in expectation, and whose expectation keeps them firmly grounded in the works of light.

I just don’t buy it this year.

It sounds too hopeful.

I’m not against staying the course, against doing good, or against the idea that we need to stay awake. I’m not feeling hopeless about the work we can do in the face of the darkness.

My letdown comes in that once again, we are starting off a year with hope, and things look exactly the same (if not worse) than they did last year.

Let’s be honest here for a moment. For all the hope I espouse and all the liberationist theology I write about, encouraging us to keep doing good, to keep faith, to keep hope alive in the face of empire… empire is still in control. Cesar is still firmly on his throne, and Jesus is nowhere to be found.

I look to the poor, the disinherited, the lost, the marginalized, and I might see the face of Jesus, understand the reality that this is where Jesus is most incarnate, that in oppression and suffering we find God, but so what? We find a suffering divinity and no real movement of liberation.

Domestic terrorism under the guise of immigration reform continues in our neighborhoods, our schools, our businesses, our churches.

Queer people are not just being marginalized. There is an exerted effort to erase them from the public eye completely, to strip away rights hard won, and to exile them from the life of the nation.

Racism doesn’t just run rampant; it seems to be a governing principle in policy and national consciousness.

Christian nationalism continues to co-opt all of Christianity in the U.S. and beyond, stealing the vocabulary, concepts, and faith long passed down and twisting it into a thing of corruption, evil, abuse, and terror.

War continues to rage around the globe, adding casualties upon casualties despite protests.

Genocide continues under the guise of a holy right to exist.

The U.S. is continuing its decline into moral excrement with no sign of slowing down.

The greedy keep getting rewarded more and more for their greed, while the poor keep going with no safety nets in place.

Now, add this reality of the state of the world to your own life.

Where are you seeing conflict with those you care about?

Where are you in desperate need of refuge and release with no chance of change happening anytime soon?

What is it that you desperately need, yet have no hope of getting?

How are you supposed to survive another year?

This is our litany, but there is no response.

This is our lament, with silence as its answer.

This is our longing that threatens to existentially swallow us up.

And this is why I have no strength to believe the Advent prayers this year.

I have nothing left to put into the works of light. I have nothing left to stay awake for. I have nothing left to give me hope.

The world feels hopeless. Things aren’t getting better. Even when they seemed to be, drone strikes continued, families broke apart, friendships ended, and the economy kept us enslaved to the almighty dollar.

Tell me where am I supposed to place my hope? In a God that suffers with us? It seems blasphemous to say, but right now I don’t need a suffering savior. I need a liberator. Not just a spiritual savior to keep me from sliding into the machine—I’m already there, in the gears, being ground to a pulp—by reminding me that it doesn’t have to be this way. I know it doesn’t have to, but it is.

But I don’t want to just give up.

That’s the threat, isn’t it? To just give up and give in. To resign ourselves to the shitstorm and fuckery of this world. To lose all hope that things will ever be different.

I don’t want that. I don’t want to give up… but I’ve got nothing left to hold onto right now.

I am desperate; I am hungry; I am needy… and this is the place advent truly starts.

Everything I have said is one hundred percent true. The world is a shit show, my personal life is a bloody mess, my spiritual life is dry and cracked, calloused and dead. So, I have no choice but to hope if I don’t want to give in.

This is protest.

With the threat of losing my hope completely, of being crushed body and soul in the gears of violence and dominance that the powers and principalities control and endlessly grind around me, I muster up some spite and give a “fuck you” to the way things are.

This is defiance.

In the face of the reality of everything that steals faith, hope, and love, I cry out to some sort of divine being to come and save me, to save us, to do some damn thing to change the way things are because if things don’t change, we are all going to die.

This is lament.

Protest, defiance, lament. These are the things hope is made of.

Hope is not a warm feeling you get while strategizing and dreaming of how I am going to change things.

Hope is not a vision of an alternative way of living that I am going to enact.

Hope is not something that keeps me going in the midst of overwhelming odds.

Hope is not vision; it is not an escape route; it is not the chance to make things better.

Hope is spitefully refusing to die in the face of everything that is going to kill you, knowing you are in a losing battle, and demanding that something, someone, some god come and act on your behalf so that you don’t die.

Hope isn’t rolling over, giving up, and taking the violence. Hope is receiving the fullness of that violence in your body, your mind, your soul, and demanding God come to your rescue.

Hope is protest, defiance, and lament in the form of a fierce demanding that God be the god God said God is.

This isn’t being a spiritual toddler, stomping my foot and demanding God give me what I want.

This is relational audacity, holding God accountable to be the God that was promised.

This isn’t spiritual capitalism, demanding that God holds up God’s end of the bargain because I’ve earned it by doing my fair share.

This is a reputational challenge to a God who claims to be the God that led the people out of slavery in Egypt.

Hope like this doesn’t challenge God to some sort of pissing match. No, hope like this stands before God, bearing witness to all that is wrong, all that hurts, all that is oppressive, and demands God do something because God has already spoken saying God will act. This is standing before the king of the cosmos and declaring, “A false king is on the throne, and it is killing us all. Aren’t you, as the true king, going to do anything about it?”

Protest.

Defiance,

Lament.

Hope.

This is where we stand when we ask the Son of Man to come. This is what we do when we say, “I want to stay awake, to not be caught off guard by the coming of my Lord, but is the Lord ever going to come?” This is what we cling to when we try to stay awake, try to lay aside the works of darkness, and demand that God do something to save us.

Advent begins in hope, and hope begins in the crushing. Only when we have nothing left to lose will we risk standing naked before divinity and demanding God’s action.

So, what are you standing before God demanding?

What is your protest, your defiance, your lament?

What do you need to survive that only God can give?

What is crushing you that you know will kill you if God doesn’t act now?

Start here.

Hope from here, full of longing and spite.

Embody this hope; do it with everything you can, because without it you will be obliterated.

This is us waiting in expectation, with our breath held and our stomachs in knots.

This is us longing, with weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This is us never giving in and knowing that defiance will cost us everything.

This is Advent.

I am in the process of becoming a community chaplain with The Order of Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead and serve from the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.

If you’re aching to listen for God in the real stuff of life—grief, wonder, doubt, desire—I offer spiritual direction as a space to breathe and be heard. We listen together for the Spirit moving in the ordinary, the hidden, the in-between. No fixing. No formulas. Just presence, honesty, and room to be fully human before God.

If that sounds like what your soul needs, I’d love to walk with you