First Comes An Everyday Hope
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Today's great spiritual priority may be for a grounded everyday hope. "When I taught high school in the inner city community of Watts in Los Angeles, I was most troubled by the lack of any sign of hope reflected in the faces of my students," says American poet Maya Angelou. This holds true all over our world. The dominant religious need of our time seems to be for a solid hope. This need seems as strong in the jaded, bored, and frantic persons of privileged classes as well as those at the bottom of the socio--economic heap. We desperately want to know that Orphan Annie is right - "The sun'll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun."
Of course we remain sinners who must rely on the forgiveness of God. We still mess up our lives, and the lives of others. We still build sin into the systems and institutions of society. We will always need God's judgment and mercy. But as much as we desire God's forgiveness, even more we cry out for hope. We seem to want this more than being forgiven sinners.
A radical shift has occurred in human consciousness over the last few centuries. Before this change, Christian evangelism centered in a message of mercy and forgiveness through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church offered this and it provoked the great missionary enterprise of the nineteenth century. Driven by a sense that one's eternal destiny was secured only by a profession of faith in the atoning death of Jesus, the church pushed out into the far parts of the world.
An urgency in one of the church's liturgies declared that "everyone stands in the grace that it (the church) alone provides...." This belief drove missionaries and evangelists out to proclaim the mercies of God in Christ. Bishop Francis Asbury once confessed his reluctance to travel to a despicable place in North Carolina: "If there were no sinners I would not go." Yet he did go. The church can be proud of what has been called "this endless line of splendor." Simply put, we will never be without the need for a grace--full God.
Yet there is an undeniable change in the human spiritual quest. People are desperately asking for a sense of hope and future in their personal lives and in the life of humanity. Jurgen Moultmann, is known for his provocative book, A Theology Of Hope. Moult--mann was a German soldier in an Allied prison camp in World War II. He did not have religious beliefs at that time, but the witness of some of his Christian captors in Scotland made a serious impression upon him. After the war, he returned to Germany and entered theological school. Increasingly hope became a dominant mood in his Christian study. His characterizations of the nature of Christian hope have touched a nerve in the human soul. Today many books and authors explore the ground of Christian hope to a world hungry for a solid and sustainable hope.
I
On the personal level there is hunger for hope. We sometimes get ourselves into all sorts of predicaments and see no way out. Many teenagers who sense they are sexually different choose suicide because they have no hope of acceptance by their family or peers or their church. Many women stay in abusive marriages because they have come to believe they can find no safe way out, or because their church has taught them that they must defer to their husband in all things, including his violence. Many fall victim to various addictions and have no sense that there is hope for overcoming their slow slide toward death. Many become hopeless because of mental or physical handicaps that make coping with the simple tasks of everyday life a chore.
The structures of poverty create a hopelessness that ends up in addiction, violence, or prison. Even up--and--coming persons are often driven by exorbitant demands of their profession, living lives of hopeless anger and depression, seeing no way out of their dilemma. Terminally--ill people have hope taken from them when they are forced to live with constant pain and degrading conditions because there is no way of allowing peaceful death.
Psychologist Erik Erikson thinks the church has often contributed to a sense of hopelessness. In his study of the young Martin Luther, Erikson says the theology of the church in Luther's time promoted a sense of hopelessness. Hope was in short supply. Proclaiming a Christ who fiercely judged the sins of persons, many felt little of the mercy of Jesus. To the sensitive young Luther, even his entrance into the church did little to assuage his terrifying anxiety before the troubling judgments of Christ.
Today, there are repressive religious communities that operate on a system of shame and guilt. Rigid standards of behavior are tightly enforced, doctrinal belief is insisted upon, and fierce ostracism is practiced toward any who deviate from the teachings of the church. Most of those who question any of these are forced into outward compliance lest they be cut off from relationships with spouse, family, or community.
Our life situations and the structures of politics, economics, and cultural attitudes, including religion, have pushed many into the camp of the hopeless. This is to be in hell, and Dante rightly depicted a sign fronting the gates of hell reading, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
II
The Christian doctrine of life after death is not an adequate answer to hopelessness as the Black churches found during the Civil Rights Movement beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. Looking to heaven and the next life were not enough. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was true but it was insufficient to help one manage life under segregation. Suddenly the message in their churches began to encourage them to resist segregation and dare to confront these indignities. A young black pastor who was inspired by the New Testament and Ghandi was thrust into a prominent leadership role. Martin Luther King, Jr., used his inspiring oratory and courage to bring a new sense of hope to American Blacks. The Black church discovered their hopelessness was not met by a promise of life everlasting, alone.
This does not mean that a belief in life after death is unimportant. Indeed it is a part of our deliverance. It is difficult to believe in the goodness of creation without God's grace beyond this life. Too many tragedies, lives cut short, too much loss of human value gone forever - all cry out for something beyond. We may not be certain of the details of life after death as earlier generations asserted. But we must admit that it does contribute to the full range of human hopefulness.
III
Our lection today, Isaiah 11:1--10, was originally created by Isaiah to express the people's hope for the crowning of a new king. Isaiah hopes that the king will fear the Lord, judge the poor fairly, and attend to those with little power or prestige. Isaiah hopes the king will take care of the wicked, and live with godliness and faithfulness. And in an astounding image that closes this oracle, Isaiah offers the hope that even nature, in all its violence, will become peaceful and harmless.
Later there came a time when there were no more kings in Judah. The Babylonians came and deported many of the people, making national independence and kings a sad memory. Then pious Jews began to find in Isaiah's words a frame for their hope for a Messiah - one who would deliver them from political oppression and allow them to become a nation once more. Early Christians also began to use Isaiah's words to ground their earthly hope in Christ. They believed that Christ would return and then the whole earth would become the wonderful place Isaiah imagined for the king in his time.
Two things are important here. First, complete human hopelessness cannot be cured by anything less than worldly changes and reforms. Simply to transfer all hope to heaven is a cruel avoidance of working for a more Christlike world. Second, as Rudolph Bultmann has told us, Christians have no blueprint for society, only duties and responsibilities. There is no detailed scriptural plan for how things in this world ought to be before God. It seems that God trusts us to work out the details of a hopeful world, listening to the Holy Spirit and mustering all the God--given smarts at hand.
Will the human race ever see the complete fulfillment of Isaiah's vision? Will earth and the entire cosmos come to be the place of peace, justice, and well--being for all forms of life? And will there be an escape from creation's burning out into that empty, cold nothingness that science suggests? Will all our efforts at an earthly kingdom of God turn into a hopeless swallowing up in some black hole?
William James' Gifford lectures were published as The Varieties Of Religious Experience and it has remained a classic. The word was that his brother, Henry, wrote novels like a theologian and that William wrote theology like a novelist. In this book, William presented a graphic illustration of human hopelessness when viewed through the eyes of modern naturalism. James wrote that the unbeliever is reduced to endure an existence like some imaginary people who live on a frozen lake. The mountains that are impassible come down to the edge of the lake. But in the cold winter, life is good for those living on the surface of the lake. They eat, enjoy each other's company, skate, and center around a huge bonfire in the middle of the lake. But warmer days are coming and since they cannot escape over the mountains, their happy existence is destined to be swallowed up in the melting, taking them and all their possessions down into the waters forever.
Perhaps all our efforts are doomed to such a future. But since the issue is one of a faith choice, not sure knowledge, we could dare to believe in the hopefulness of the human future, and in the meaningfulness of our human condition. Our faith prompts us to believe that God is sufficient to these bleak scenarios, and that we work to make the earth a godly place. An everyday hope comes first. Isaiah would like this. Jesus would like this. The New Testament would like this. Much Christian tradition and theology would like this; and deep within ourselves we find a joyful assent. This is certainly a great part of what it means to be saved in our time and day.
Of course we remain sinners who must rely on the forgiveness of God. We still mess up our lives, and the lives of others. We still build sin into the systems and institutions of society. We will always need God's judgment and mercy. But as much as we desire God's forgiveness, even more we cry out for hope. We seem to want this more than being forgiven sinners.
A radical shift has occurred in human consciousness over the last few centuries. Before this change, Christian evangelism centered in a message of mercy and forgiveness through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church offered this and it provoked the great missionary enterprise of the nineteenth century. Driven by a sense that one's eternal destiny was secured only by a profession of faith in the atoning death of Jesus, the church pushed out into the far parts of the world.
An urgency in one of the church's liturgies declared that "everyone stands in the grace that it (the church) alone provides...." This belief drove missionaries and evangelists out to proclaim the mercies of God in Christ. Bishop Francis Asbury once confessed his reluctance to travel to a despicable place in North Carolina: "If there were no sinners I would not go." Yet he did go. The church can be proud of what has been called "this endless line of splendor." Simply put, we will never be without the need for a grace--full God.
Yet there is an undeniable change in the human spiritual quest. People are desperately asking for a sense of hope and future in their personal lives and in the life of humanity. Jurgen Moultmann, is known for his provocative book, A Theology Of Hope. Moult--mann was a German soldier in an Allied prison camp in World War II. He did not have religious beliefs at that time, but the witness of some of his Christian captors in Scotland made a serious impression upon him. After the war, he returned to Germany and entered theological school. Increasingly hope became a dominant mood in his Christian study. His characterizations of the nature of Christian hope have touched a nerve in the human soul. Today many books and authors explore the ground of Christian hope to a world hungry for a solid and sustainable hope.
I
On the personal level there is hunger for hope. We sometimes get ourselves into all sorts of predicaments and see no way out. Many teenagers who sense they are sexually different choose suicide because they have no hope of acceptance by their family or peers or their church. Many women stay in abusive marriages because they have come to believe they can find no safe way out, or because their church has taught them that they must defer to their husband in all things, including his violence. Many fall victim to various addictions and have no sense that there is hope for overcoming their slow slide toward death. Many become hopeless because of mental or physical handicaps that make coping with the simple tasks of everyday life a chore.
The structures of poverty create a hopelessness that ends up in addiction, violence, or prison. Even up--and--coming persons are often driven by exorbitant demands of their profession, living lives of hopeless anger and depression, seeing no way out of their dilemma. Terminally--ill people have hope taken from them when they are forced to live with constant pain and degrading conditions because there is no way of allowing peaceful death.
Psychologist Erik Erikson thinks the church has often contributed to a sense of hopelessness. In his study of the young Martin Luther, Erikson says the theology of the church in Luther's time promoted a sense of hopelessness. Hope was in short supply. Proclaiming a Christ who fiercely judged the sins of persons, many felt little of the mercy of Jesus. To the sensitive young Luther, even his entrance into the church did little to assuage his terrifying anxiety before the troubling judgments of Christ.
Today, there are repressive religious communities that operate on a system of shame and guilt. Rigid standards of behavior are tightly enforced, doctrinal belief is insisted upon, and fierce ostracism is practiced toward any who deviate from the teachings of the church. Most of those who question any of these are forced into outward compliance lest they be cut off from relationships with spouse, family, or community.
Our life situations and the structures of politics, economics, and cultural attitudes, including religion, have pushed many into the camp of the hopeless. This is to be in hell, and Dante rightly depicted a sign fronting the gates of hell reading, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
II
The Christian doctrine of life after death is not an adequate answer to hopelessness as the Black churches found during the Civil Rights Movement beginning in the 1950s and 1960s. Looking to heaven and the next life were not enough. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was true but it was insufficient to help one manage life under segregation. Suddenly the message in their churches began to encourage them to resist segregation and dare to confront these indignities. A young black pastor who was inspired by the New Testament and Ghandi was thrust into a prominent leadership role. Martin Luther King, Jr., used his inspiring oratory and courage to bring a new sense of hope to American Blacks. The Black church discovered their hopelessness was not met by a promise of life everlasting, alone.
This does not mean that a belief in life after death is unimportant. Indeed it is a part of our deliverance. It is difficult to believe in the goodness of creation without God's grace beyond this life. Too many tragedies, lives cut short, too much loss of human value gone forever - all cry out for something beyond. We may not be certain of the details of life after death as earlier generations asserted. But we must admit that it does contribute to the full range of human hopefulness.
III
Our lection today, Isaiah 11:1--10, was originally created by Isaiah to express the people's hope for the crowning of a new king. Isaiah hopes that the king will fear the Lord, judge the poor fairly, and attend to those with little power or prestige. Isaiah hopes the king will take care of the wicked, and live with godliness and faithfulness. And in an astounding image that closes this oracle, Isaiah offers the hope that even nature, in all its violence, will become peaceful and harmless.
Later there came a time when there were no more kings in Judah. The Babylonians came and deported many of the people, making national independence and kings a sad memory. Then pious Jews began to find in Isaiah's words a frame for their hope for a Messiah - one who would deliver them from political oppression and allow them to become a nation once more. Early Christians also began to use Isaiah's words to ground their earthly hope in Christ. They believed that Christ would return and then the whole earth would become the wonderful place Isaiah imagined for the king in his time.
Two things are important here. First, complete human hopelessness cannot be cured by anything less than worldly changes and reforms. Simply to transfer all hope to heaven is a cruel avoidance of working for a more Christlike world. Second, as Rudolph Bultmann has told us, Christians have no blueprint for society, only duties and responsibilities. There is no detailed scriptural plan for how things in this world ought to be before God. It seems that God trusts us to work out the details of a hopeful world, listening to the Holy Spirit and mustering all the God--given smarts at hand.
Will the human race ever see the complete fulfillment of Isaiah's vision? Will earth and the entire cosmos come to be the place of peace, justice, and well--being for all forms of life? And will there be an escape from creation's burning out into that empty, cold nothingness that science suggests? Will all our efforts at an earthly kingdom of God turn into a hopeless swallowing up in some black hole?
William James' Gifford lectures were published as The Varieties Of Religious Experience and it has remained a classic. The word was that his brother, Henry, wrote novels like a theologian and that William wrote theology like a novelist. In this book, William presented a graphic illustration of human hopelessness when viewed through the eyes of modern naturalism. James wrote that the unbeliever is reduced to endure an existence like some imaginary people who live on a frozen lake. The mountains that are impassible come down to the edge of the lake. But in the cold winter, life is good for those living on the surface of the lake. They eat, enjoy each other's company, skate, and center around a huge bonfire in the middle of the lake. But warmer days are coming and since they cannot escape over the mountains, their happy existence is destined to be swallowed up in the melting, taking them and all their possessions down into the waters forever.
Perhaps all our efforts are doomed to such a future. But since the issue is one of a faith choice, not sure knowledge, we could dare to believe in the hopefulness of the human future, and in the meaningfulness of our human condition. Our faith prompts us to believe that God is sufficient to these bleak scenarios, and that we work to make the earth a godly place. An everyday hope comes first. Isaiah would like this. Jesus would like this. The New Testament would like this. Much Christian tradition and theology would like this; and deep within ourselves we find a joyful assent. This is certainly a great part of what it means to be saved in our time and day.
