What to do in a time of uncertainty? (6.15.25)

John 16:12-15

A week ago, I had a conversation with one of the dads in the congregation. I followed up to make sure I could share. The conversation went something like this: “My kids asked me,” he said, “if both the Cubs and White Sox believe in God and they’re playing each other, who does God root for?”

“What’d you tell them? I asked, “the janitors?”

“The janitors!” he said, “and the ticket takers and the staff that have to put up with all the crazy people.  Then,” he went on “they asked me who Jesus would root for in the NBA finals.”

“And—?"

He shook his head and laughed. “In our house,” I offered, “the kids don’t ask who he would root for in the NBA finals, they just know.”  

“Man,” he said, “these are the easy questions: the ones about God and baseball. It’s the other ones that undo me.  I didn’t ask my dad the tough stuff until much later in my teens, but I feel like our kids are well ahead of that these days: national politics, geo-politics, Gaza and the hostages, bullies, Epstein and P. Diddy, vaccination boards, protests. All the questions. And, they want to know what I think.”

What do you tell them?” I asked him and he exhaled.  

“I tell them what I can--I try to tell them about right and wrong, and good and evil. I can’t say everything.  I don’t know—I’m trying to figure it all out myself.

*************

I’ve been thinking about what to do with this four verse gospel this last week and I thought of this conversation with this dad.  As I thought about it, something stuck out: In this story, Jesus comes to a point where it seems he doesn’t quite know what to say to his disciples gathered in the upper room that Passover night. Or at the very least, he stops himself. He holds back.

Up until this point, they’ve been eating together and he’s trying to explain everything, elaborating and talking and showing them by washing feet. Were they asking question of him? Maybe.  I think of him trying to answer when finally, he lands (or stumbles) at: “I still—I still have so many things to say to you--but you cannot bear them now,” and he pauses.

Apparently, we cannot bear them either because the stock image our software offered as a bulletin cover for us this weekend only says the part “I still have so many things to say to you…” They left off the part where Jesus said “--but you can’t bear it.” Apparently, they thought we couldn’t bear it either.  I guess, we have enough uncertainty in the world right now. Why leave us hanging with these obtuse references to all the things Jesus didn’t say to us? 

********

Uncertainty is unpleasant.  We prefer decisiveness. Plans.  Clarity. Knowledge. Facts.  Our brains are wired for predictability and patterns. It’s probably some safety thing.  All the advertising that comes at us capitalizes on our need for certainty: “if we buy this thing or make this choice, we will surely be:  secure, handsome, safe, successful, or ______fill-in-the-blank.”

Uncertainty doesn’t sell well. Everyone wants their doctor to say, “you’ve got a 91% chance of a good outcome on this path instead of, “Hmm. we’ve looked at your diagnosis and situation and, well, we’re not really sure what to do with your case, but we’ll give it our best shot.”

The fact is, life has a lot of uncertainty. We never know what will happen. Your kid transitions into a new life phase—9th grade or college, or maybe kindergarten—will they be okay? Or: you can’t get a handle on what’s going on with the market and your job is in limbo, or your IRA is in limbo...  How is this going to shake out? Or: maybe your life isn’t rolling out quite like you hoped, and there are really a lot of unknowns.  And it’s hard.  

Life is uncertain. No one knew that evening in the upper room with Jesus how the disciples would respond to everything he was telling them. There were a lot of unknowns. You never quite know what people are going to do when faced with uncertainty.

One of the last times things got really uncertain for the disciples when they were all out in the boat and there was that storm on the water. Everyone lost their minds and started freaking out and blaming Jesus who finally had the wherewithal to wake up and calm the storm, thank heavens!   We’re not always our best selves in moments of uncertainty.  

Sometimes, when we’re not sure of what’s coming down the pike and things are unsteady we blame people:

This wouldn’t be happening if so-and-so just stayed in their lane or followed through on their commitments or did what they’re supposed to!! And now we’re lost and confused and messed up because of this person or that group of people in society that we blame for everything—(like perhaps, a religious minority, a powerless workforce picking food in CA…)

In the book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve mess up and eat the apple, they both freeze when the Lord finds out:  How’s He going to react!? 

And when God asks, “What happened?,” Adam can’t stand it and immediately points the finger: 

“Eve made me do it!”

And then, Eve points the finger: “the snake made me do it!”

The world gets unsteady and just like that, blame starts flying. Classic. Human. Behavior.

Sometimes when things are uncertain, we catastrophize. I love the story from 1 Kings when the prophet Elijah gets a death threat from Queen Jezebel.  He completely loses it, and when he realizes he has no idea what going to happen, he spirals, runs to the desert, lays face down under a broom tree and wails, “it’s all over! This is the end! Take my life Lord!!”  God essentially sends him a plate of cookies and a mug of juice and an angel that will sit there next to him patting his leg as he gets a hold of himself.

You never quite know what people are going to do when faced with uncertainty.

Jesus lived in highly uncertain times:  Across the sea in Rome during Jesus’ time, the emperor Tiberius was erratic and tyrannical. He relied heavily on his corrupt advisor, Sejanus who purged political rivals and used false charges of treason to get rid of senators and other powerful people.  Back in the region where Jesus lived—Judea and Galilee—it was a political and religious pressure cooker with deep social tension and inequality.  Galilee was a poor region.  In it, there were a few wealthy elite who had a whole lot of power while ordinary folks like fishermen, widows, and farmers struggled with debt, taxes and poverty—remember the story about the wee little tax collector, Zacchaeus and the suggestion that the system was rigged to benefit the powerful?

Ancient people’s trust in institutions like even the temple and certainly the Roman government was fraying. They were highly uncertain times. And into that reality, Jesus continually cried out for all--but particularly poor folks--with a message of mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness, humility and generosity.

************

People have had a history of turning to prophetic voices that speak out from the margins in uncertain times. Generations before Christ, it was Jeremiah who also spoke in a time of national crisis, corruption and collapse in ancient Israel. Whether Jeremiah or Jesus’ time, the issues are the same and they seem to resonate, no?

Theologian Walter Bruggeman put it this way: “the world we have trusted in is vanishing before our eyes and the world that is coming at us feels like a threat to us and we can’t quite see the shape of it.” ⁠

“There is so much I want to say,” Jesus said, “but you cannot bear it.” 

People listen for prophetic voices now, too: pundits, commentators, even public theologians, wise sages that will speak truth, anyone! I get it. We like that certain, assured voice.  Some of those voices that speak with moral clarity have a role. 

While these prophetic voices are powerful, Jesus offered another word of hope and guidance in this moment in our scripture passage today.

But to get there, let me remind you quickly about Thor.  I assisted as a backpacking guide in the Rockies one of the summers when I worked as a camp counselor.  The week I was scheduled to lead a group of highschoolers out on the trail, I was very nervous. My co-leader was a big guy named Thor, who carried what seemed like 50 extra pounds of group gear on his back.  Not only did Thor look the part of mountain-man, he was very smart about trail guiding.  I was nervous and uncertain, our camp director, Dave, pulled me aside and said something like, “Lindsay, Thor is a very experienced guide and you are in excellent hands. Just follow him and do what he says.” Dave was right.

Jesus tells his disciples in this uncertain moment that “the Spirit will guide you into the truth.”  In essence: “The Spirit is wise and good and trustworthy. Just follow her and do what she says. Let her guide you and form you.”

If Jesus is the truth, our pattern, our way that we walk in, then the Spirit—God’s mysterious living presence--will form us, shape us and guide us through the uncertainty around us.

This way of Jesus, that the Spirit mysteriously moves as, is our home base.  When in doubt, we live by her fruits: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (and more). When we live by these guideposts or bass notes, our inner lives are reshaped, even in the most uncertain and trepidatious situations. 

This subtle kind of change that is generated through how we live might not be as loud as a prophetic voice, but it’s just as powerful.  That has been a theme the last few weeks: God does these awesome things, and then we follow with our ordinary human effort.

Maybe it wasn’t the disciples’ capacity to handle all the things that Jesus couldn’t bear to tell them.  Maybe it is that Jesus knows that there is so much more to living this way than the disciples can make sense of at that moment.  There’s so much more to embodying God’s love on earth than they can wrap their arms around. Some things must be lived to be understood. 

Like the dad trying to field impossible questions from his kids—Jesus doesn’t dump all the answers at once. He walks alongside us. He gives us a Holy Spirit: a guide to find our way through.  

The truth that Jesus promises is not a download of certainty. It’s a Way, a presence, a pattern of living. It’s a mysterious Holy Spirit who walks with us. Who reminds us when we’re overwhelmed, that we’re not alone.  

It’s a practice of grace in the face of meanness and judgement; 
generosity instead of selfishness; 
peace in a culture that seems to be addicted to conflict; 
non-violence in a world bent on retribution; 
compassion when turning away towards comfort is easier.

That grace is still the center.  (Well, that grace and the truth that God is still rooting for the janitors.) 

The Spirit doesn’t just cushion us in the uncertain moments, She shapes us in them.  We don’t just survive the uncertainty—we can be formed in it. Even when we hate it and push against it and resent it and want to dominate it, God works on us in that mysterious space and it’s there that we imagine what is possible. It’s there that we become people of hope. It’s there that we muster the courage to step out (to step through) as loving people and as emissaries of transformation.