Episode 9

There is always something.

A lack of sleep.

A lack of income.

A lack of time.

A lack of something…

This is the Lo-Fi Gospel Minute, a five-minute podcast about eternity. I’m Tripp Hudgins.

There is always something. Something that keeps us from living into the promise of Christmas, that love is real, that love came down to save the whole world, that nothing but love will save us. We often believe so strongly in the power of “lack” that we imagine it is more powerful than the power of love.

We insist on “realistic expectations” and not divine revelation.

Listen to Luke’s Gospel.

“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now,
    for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now,
    for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

We often choose lack over love. We mistake our privilege for blessing when our abundance is actually the fruit of systemic sin and not God’s grace. Affluence is not a blessing until it is shared.

I don’t know about you, but I see a hierarchy of needs. Thank you Maslow and Erikson. There is such a thing as real lack. But even then, God’s response is love in the form of the holy work of those who have. When we encounter true lack, we are to share what we have so that the person who was burdened by having nothing is more at liberty to respond to the love of God themselves.

This reality we insist upon - of haves and have nots - is not God’s reality.

Where we see limitation, God sees possibility.

Where we perceive a lack, God perceives generosity.

Where we imagine absence, God gives us God’s presence.

God loves us. God loves this world. God, however, does not abide by our precepts.

Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
    for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.”

This is the cornerstone of Jesus’ understanding of the deliberate presence of love in this world. The poor lack nothing they need to receive God’s love.

Salvation is like this. It is the moral imagination to see the way that God sees and then to act accordingly.

There’s always something.

Howard Thurman famously summarized it this way for Christmas.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

My name is Tripp Hudgins. Thank you for joining me this week on the Lo-Fi Gospel Minute, a five minute podcast about eternity.

Y’all have a very Merry Christmas. I’ll see you in the new year.