June 14, 2020
"Hope" - sermon by Ruth Moore
- Romans 5:1-8
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
I do not know why I ever choose to preach a sermon on anything written by the Apostle Paul, although the letter to the Romans is one of my go to books in the bible. But the theology is just so hard to understand and it has layer upon layer of meaning. And I am just not smart enough to figure it out. So I am relying on the Holy Spirit this morning for help.
It was verse 3 that caught my eye. “…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” Because if ever our world and our country have been suffering it has been the last 3 months, and I want to get to the hope and not be disappointed.
And I have seen examples of how the suffering of this viral pandemic has produced endurance and character and how you have gone on hoping. You have stayed at home, worn masks, stayed in touch with family and vulnerable church friends. You have encouraged each other; you have kept going even in the midst of isolation and loneliness and you have developed new ways of being the church and the community of faith. I hear you say, “We will get through this,” and I know we will. And so we continue to hope.
But in his letter to the Romans Paul says hope does not disappoint. Which I honestly have a hard time believing. Especially as the world seems on fire right now. And like all of you, I have had hopes which have ended in disappointment. And sometimes it’s just easier to not hope at all, rather than to risk starting with hope and then end up with disappointment. And as much as I am drawn to the cadence and sentiment of Paul’s words and I yearn for their truth, there is a whole lot of suffering in this world that is not redemptive.
What have you hoped for? Did you hope that the time and money you spent on a graduate degree would mean you would have a job by now? Did you hope that by this time in your life you would be married, or have children, or have a meaningful career, or would be able to retire, or feel like you at least knew what you were doing? Did you hope that Black Lives Matter would be understood as a precursor to All Lives Matter?
Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, whose words I use in much of this sermon says, “…hope as a starting point looks like Palm Sunday. It looks like the crowds entering triumphantly into Jerusalem shouting Hosanna. But Palm Sunday always turns to Good Friday eventually.”
This could be why Paul not only talks of a hope that does not disappoint, but he links it to suffering. Which is just not something I want to hear. And I do not believe God wants us to suffer just for the sake of suffering, or to “teach” us something. That is not a God of love.
When I am in the midst of suffering and someone tritely says to me “When God closes a door He opens a window,” I just want to push that person through the first empty window I see. So I do not find it helpful to ignore or not acknowledge the difficult reality of our lives in favor of some kind of cheerful optimism. I find that damaging and dismissive.
But maybe the way suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produced hope is that suffering, endurance and character actually free us from the burden of being naively optimistic. Maybe if hope isn’t a very reliable starting point, then hope is not something we strive to achieve on our own. Maybe hope is always something we are surprised by. Maybe hope is that which is left after all else fails us. This would be an Easter kind of hope wouldn’t it?
Rev. Bolz-Weber shares this quote from a friend. “Hope is an encounter that captivates our imagination so we can’t help but become more than who we thought we were and find ourselves living for something that is all at once preposterous and impossible.”
And we want hope don’t we? We want a vaccine that will end this horrible virus that has claimed more than 115,000 deaths in the US and over 400,00 worldwide. We want to see changes that make a difference in systemic racism and injustice. We want to see everyone fed. We want the beauty and reconciliation and possibility that comes from something other than our own limitations or the limitations of others. But we also want a hope that isn’t naïve optimism or wishful thinking.
Hope is deeper than optimism or wishful thinking. It requires risk and assumes responsibility. Hope has everything to do with what God wants in me, while wishing has everything to do with what I want from other people and even from God. As Rev. Peter Marty says, “Hope grows in the soil of the possibilities of God, not in the dirt of life’s present circumstances.”
So I want hope – I just don’t want a hope that disappoints. I want a hope that finds us living for something that may seem impossible and yet be the most real and honest and right thing we know. In other words, I want God.
Because a hope that doesn’t disappoint has very little to do with me, or you, and more about God’s work. And it is a hope that can only come from a God who has experienced friendship, and betrayal, and love, lepers, and sinners; and suffering, death, burial and the descent into hell itself. Only a God who has suffered can bring us any hope of resurrection and new life.
Hope is what keeps a cancer patient going when the doctor says the disease has metastasized. Hope is believing in your child, whom you love with every fiber of your being, even when they test your patience endlessly. When you live in hope you do not worry about what is coming next. Because you are confident it will be good for one reason only – because God is good.
Christian faith does not pretend that things aren’t bad. Christian faith works for justice and love and equality in God’s world. Christian faith acknowledges and names the suffering and requires action to make change. Christian faith realizes that systematic change will take endurance and character as well as love and listening and education. Christian faith does not offer platitudes to the families of George Floyd, or Breanna Taylor or Ahmud Aubrey. Christian faith is not wishful thinking or an optimistic attitude. It is a faith that produces a defiant hope that God is still writing the story and that despite all the darkness, a light shines, and that God can redeem us, and that despite every disappointing thing we have done or endured that there is no hell from which resurrection is not possible. “The Christian faith is one that kicks at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.” (That is also a quotation from Rev Nadia Bolz-Weber. Actually I should have just read her sermon word for word today, because she says all this better than I do.)
Hope is what sustains us and encourages us to action, when we’re not ready to give up on God beaming light into our darkness. Healing and change will take time. But we can endure, and we can change, and we can have hope because as Paul reminds us, “… God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5: 5) May it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen.
www.christiancentury.org/article/publisher/difference-between-wishing-and-hoping
www.sojo.net, or Sarcastic Lutheran blog, Nadia Bolz-weber.