1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Pentecost +26 – Year A

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

There will be grieving, but the way in which we grieve still has some choice available within it. Not all grieving is equal.

We might grieve that those who have preceded us, who had been left behind, have as their main perk that we will not precede them. The dead and gone will rise before those still clinging to their life – a sure metaphor of conversion that the current life must be lost before it can be raised.

Without preceding our predecessors we will be able to be joined together in transforming this world (there will still be additional worlds needing transformation for the process of transformation and wholeness is never completed and always completable).

So let's not be uninformed by claiming that which is beyond claim – that our heritage holds sway over our present or that an anticipated future trumps every ancestor's limit. Early or late, soon or anon, we eventually need to arrive at today – a creative intersection of a lost past and an unformed future. Let us encourage one another with the reality of redemption of the past and intentionality of the future. We are not bound by past limits nor beyond a well-articulated, heavenly, "yes, we can" come to earth.