The Obedience of Hope

 “We rarely have been given the whole picture, but we’ve all been given enough to obey.”

— Bill Johnson (“The Devil’s Tactics,” 7/30/2020)

*****

Some years ago, I was sitting in the auditorium of a megachurch in Southern California, waiting with an unknown number of other students to be told, officially, that we’d really made it through that grueling race of confusion they call “college.” We were listening to our commencement speaker, a gentleman probably none of us had ever heard of and whose name (and subsequent authoritative alphabet soup) probably none of us would remember. Mostly, I think, we were wondering how many pictures we’d have to bear before someone would announce lunch, or perhaps how long it would take (and whether it was worth it) to undo all the bobby pins holding our caps so we could participate in the customary celebratory toss at the end of the ceremony—and how embarrassing would it be if we missed it?

Here and there our minds would drift back to the address, which we all knew was supposed to have been a very encouraging send-off that reminded us ever-so-nicely of the clichés we’d spent senior year questioning: “You’re built for this! Follow your heart! The world is lucky to have you!”

But in our case the clichés were different. And they weren’t encouraging. The speaker’s address wasn’t even really addressed to us. It was aimed at the business execs and tightly-coated employers and frizzy-haired mid-level managers sitting behind us—the ones we were about to join in that other grueling race of confusion they call “work.” Our speaker wanted them to know what they were getting. His word for it: millennials.

He looked right over our caps into their eyes and told them that we were going to be quite a strange breed to work with. He gave them tips on “engaging” us, strategies for “communicating,” warnings about the oddities we were about to bring. I think there were some positive notes in there somewhere, something about, “If you give ’em a chance, they might surprise you with a good idea.” But for the most part, his speech felt like a warning to the world at the strange aliens that were about to be unleashed amongst its unsuspecting citizenry.

I’ve wondered about that speech many times since then. Of course, by now, it’s muddled in my head, probably exaggerated over time. It’s the feeling I remember, not the words. Yet that feeling is one that puzzles me repeatedly. Why is it that there is so much distrust between generations? Why are millennials stereotyped as troublesome and aimless unconventionalists who may come up with a good idea sometimes but who more frequently cause their employers to rub their foreheads and sigh? What caused the rift? What’s “wrong” with us? And how in the world do we fix it?

These are dense questions. And I’m not about to pretend I have answers for them.

But there is one aspect I do want to touch, and I’m going to touch it, admittedly, from the perspective of a millennial. It is this: When my generation looks at the world, we’re not entirely convinced that we like what we see. And we’re pretty vocal about it. That’s what gets us into trouble at times. We look at what’s been handed us on an institutional and cultural level (think schools, churches, political games, corporate structures, socio-cultural norms and attitudes, etc.), and we pick apart what we see: the ironies, the hypocrisies, the oppression, the boredom, the lack of flexibility. And then we’re told that we’re ungrateful, that we’re lazy, and that we just need to suck it up and deal with it because that’s the way the world “is.” And our response, largely, is anxiety-ridden despair. We’d been told for so long that we could be anything, but when the chance comes, we find ourselves trapped between not liking what we see and having far too many options and obstacles around us to even begin thinking of a way to fix it.

I’m speaking broadly about this. And likely, as I do so, there are a lot of you reading this who aren’t millennials but feel the same way—and likely a lot of you who are millennials but don’t feel it one bit. (And both of those are assuming that “a lot” of people are even reading this at all.)

The point I’m trying to get at, though, is that one of the things we millennials tend to bring to the cultural, institutional, and societal “table” is a willingness to expose the hypocrisies that we see. Some of us seem to do that “exposing” by expressing panic, hatred, cynicism, or apathy (usually in memes or videos that seem shallow and inconsequential at first glance). Others have been able to clarify their reactions by starting conversations, lending themselves to service projects, or pursuing other ways to “make a difference.” Yet even the most mature voices shake with pain, with questions, and with aimlessness in the midst of trying to sound like they’ve found an answer in their latest “life hack.”

Perhaps it’s here that I should admit my voice is shaking too. What I’m about to say is worth saying, I think. But it feels inconclusive. And as I say it, there are tears in my eyes because it’s hard to keep believing it. But maybe just starting the conversation is enough for right now. And in that conversation, there are two things I want to say.

1. My generation is crying out for direction, and the places we’re looking for it are not where we’re going to find it.

It may be that everyone is crying out for direction; maybe millennials just cry for it more loudly. But we are crying, crying for help in a world that is overwhelming, a world with too many options and not enough hope. We are aimless, trying to work jobs and navigate adulthood even though we’ve watched our parents’ misery and aren’t really sure we’ll find anything else. And as we feel all of these things, we’re beaten down by the voices around us, voices that say we’re soft, incapable, and annoying. Yet in our usual candid manner, we can’t help but admit that the direction we needed wasn’t passed down to us like it should have been. What we got were Disney princesses telling us to dream and wish for rescue by fate and a kiss. We got years of education in math and science and physics and statistics—strategies to increase our illusion of control over a world that’s quite out of that control. We got escapist eschatology from the Christian circles, postmodern cynicism from our colleges, manipulative media that wants our attention rather than our growth, and psychology’s coping mechanisms to help us carry on the pretense that all of this is “manageable.”

But what we needed? What we needed was the very thing that’s been silenced.

What we needed was somebody to say, and to say honestly, “This is where the good way is. And this is how you walk in it” (see Jer. 6:16). What we needed was somebody to tell us seriously, with their words and their lives, “The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes” (Ps. 19:8b, NIV 1984). What we needed was a generation that had committed to teaching their children the commands of the LORD “so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children” (Ps. 78:6).

This has not been entirely absent. I’m still alive today because I’ve known people who were able to point to the “ancient path” of which Jeremiah speaks. I’m still hanging on because I’ve known people who have recounted the stories of the Lord’s faithfulness loudly, specifically, and often, so that I could have no doubt that the answers I’ve been looking for could be found in Him.

And yet, when I look at the generational level, the voices we need the very most are the voices that culture wants quiet: the voices that proclaim the truth of Jesus directly and unashamedly, even the parts that our culture condemns as offensive, outdated, irrelevant, and illogical. To those leaders who are proclaiming this truth, I must say, “Thank you.” But I must also say, to us all, “We need more.”

2. Perhaps even more than direction, my generation needs hope.

I was listening to The BEMA Podcast a few days ago, and the hosts were discussing the betrayals of Jesus by Judas and Peter (Episode 131: “Betrayal,” Aug. 22, 2019). What they said was that, from a Jewish perspective, Peter’s betrayal was worse. Whereas Judas acted from a misunderstanding of his Rabbi’s purpose, trying to push Him to move a little faster on the whole messianic-revolt-against-Rome thing, Peter denied (three times) having any association with his Master at all. In the Jewish world, Judas could have been rebuked and reinstated. Peter had wiped himself off the map.

And yet, the Gospel writers make it clear that Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus. Peter gets another chance.

Why? The podcast hosts conclude it was simply a question of which of the two men kept their hope. Judas gave up. After his mistake, he took his own life. But Peter let Jesus take him on a walk on the beach, excruciating as that must have been. He let Jesus into the place of his fatal mistake, and he was given a second chance, a chance to go again.

The Scriptures often picture God as the One who can conquer chaos. At His command, seas still, storms are silenced, and horrible monsters grow tame. The mistake that Judas made—the big one, I mean—was his decision to give up on hope that the Rabbi he witnessed calming the raging seas was able to conquer chaos in him too. He didn’t trust that there would be a second chance.

This is the question I believe we’re faced with when we examine the “state of things” I’ve just described. Our world is chaos. No generation knows how to handle that. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve prioritized wrongly. We’ve set up structures and propagated attitudes that are unhelpful, destructive, and immoral. 

And yet, in the face of it all, we have to ask the question that Judas and Peter may not have even realized they were facing: Will we give up hope? 

As much as I think our world could have been vastly improved by previous generations providing direction, committing to pastoring and shepherding and pointing people emphatically to Jesus, we all know speculation doesn’t help things much. What we have before us instead is the task of asking, “What shall we do now?”

The cultural currents are murky. The skies look dark. But we’ve seen our Rabbi on wild waters before. Will we believe that He can conquer chaos again? Will we hang on to hope that He does have answers, that He will quiet our seas, and that our mistakes are only tragic if we let them be? 

Bill Johnson, as quoted earlier, said, “We rarely have been given the whole picture, but we’ve all been given enough to obey.”

Maybe all the direction we have right now is the direction to keep hoping. Maybe hope is our obedience. But if Peter’s story teaches us anything, that hoping is enough to set us with Jesus on the path of a second chance, a chance to see Him conquer chaos again.