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Proper 18, Year
A Ezekiel
33:7-11 Rejoicing in Hope In the early 1980’s, I lived in Nashville, Tennessee and worked in the music industry. In five years I held three different jobs. My favorite job was with a company that published Christian choral music and produced Contemporary Christian recordings. I especially enjoyed working with the songwriters and other creative people. They would walk into our offices and sing something they had just written, often accompanying themselves on the piano or guitar. Or they would sit down and write a song right in front of us. I love hearing songs on the radio that I once heard in raw form long before the record producer added a drum machine the mix. The wisdom on the streets in Nashville was that every hit songwriter had written only one song. All other songs that person would write were merely variations on that one theme. One of our songwriters jokingly told me that he was going to sing me a medley of his hit. A careful reading of today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans reveals that St. Paul fits into the category of a hit songwriter. Today, we get a medley of his hit. St. Paul gets credit for bringing to the attention of the world the three types of moral excellence that a Christian should have -- that is, faith, hope and love. Faith, hope and love came to be known as the theological virtues. This theme comes from St. Paul’s biggest hit song -- the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, which ends with this familiar refrain: “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Since I have been focusing on faith in my sermons for the past few Sundays, today I want to zero in on hope. It takes faith and love to have Christian hope, in which St. Paul says we should rejoice. We should be jumping up and down with joy that we have hope. May God have mercy on those who have lost their hope. Let’s look at a classical definition of Christian hope. I’ll start with what hope is not. Hope is not presumption. On the contrary, the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says that hope is “confidence in God’s goodness tempered by fear of His justice.” Therefore, hope is “opposed to both despair and presumption.” Hope may also be described as our desiring and searching for good in our futures – something that might be difficult but not impossible to attain. Paul’s letter to the Romans is full of hope and hopefulness. In fact, Paul hoped that the church at Rome, whom he had never seen face to face, would send him on his way to Spain. His hopes caused him to make plans for the future. His hope was tied to his faith in and love for Jesus Christ. Paul’s hopes were based on his desire for the good of those in Spain who had not heard the Gospel. Hope operates at different levels of our consciousness, all the way to the core of who we are. This level is what I would call inner hope. Like faith and love, hope comes from God. God is the author of our hope and also the main goal of our desires. Hope continues even when our faith is weak. Hope continues even when we don’t feel loving. But unlike faith and love, hope is limited to our earthly existence. Hope stops at the Pearly Gates. In heaven, we won’t need hope because we will have realized our dearest hope – being in the nearer presence of God. In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus gives us this hope. He says that where two or three are gathered in his name, he will be among us. The constant presence of the Risen Christ gives us hope. This is why St. Paul says we can cling to what is good and treat each other honorably. Because we have hope in the Risen Lord we can generously contribute to the needs of others and show hospitality to them. We can live in harmony with other people. We can weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. Ultimately, our Christian hope has to do with resurrection. When I die, I want to be buried from the Episcopal Church because the priest will be required to bury me “in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Hopes, dreams and plans are different from inner hope, although hopes, dreams and plans also operate this side of eternity. Inner hope knows within itself that all things work together for good to those who love God. Inner hope knows that even if things don’t work out the way we thought they would in this life, we will be with God for all eternity. That’s why inner hope is often compared to an anchor. This past week, we have stood by and watched as hopes, dreams and plans dwindle and disappear for our neighbors along the Gulf Coast. It has been especially tragic in New Orleans as people there sought refuge from the rising waters. Hopes for finding loved ones alive, hopes for being rescued, hopes for finding cherished possessions or pets have been dashed. And yet, hope springs eternal in the human breast. Many of those who are escaping are finding renewed hope. One person who made it as far as Atlanta said he never knew people could be so welcoming and loving. Those who showed him hospitality gave him renewed hope. Some people are even seeing their losses as an opportunity to start over. Since last Sunday, a lot has changed. The world is no longer the same as it was at this time last week. Since last Sunday, on the other side of the world in Iraq, about a thousand people have died as the result of panic caused by a rumor. Since last Sunday, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have died as the result of Hurricane Katrina. I don’t even have to say that none of us has been left untouched by the far-reaching consequences. Yes, since last Sunday, a lot has changed, and will never be the same again. A hush of mourning is settling over our country. It’s difficult to take it all in. The devastation is so alarming that we are almost numb from seeing the images. Just when we think it can’t get worse, it gets worse. By this time, reality has set in, and set in hard. Is there any good news in all of this? Yes. Christians continue to have hope. Modern Christian philosophers and theologians say that Christian hope in a future world beyond this one is precisely what gives us the idea that this world can be a better place here and now.
As Christians, I hope that we can all have one hit song – that of faith, hope and love, and that all our other songs will be a variation on that theme. I hope we will always be singing a medley of our hit. Following the sermon, I would like us to take a few minutes of silence to pray for those who have died, for those who have survived their loved ones, and for all who have been adversely affected by last week’s hurricane. Let us pray that God will turn their present circumstances around for their good and for the increase of their faith and love, and that their hope and hopefulness will be restored. Note: The photo above, taken by an Episcopal News Service photographer shows St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Gulfport Mississippi worshipping on the slab foundation which is all that remains of their buildings. Click on the photo above to see more pictures from that church. |
