February
27, 2002
Lenten Noonday Preaching Series
Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, TN
(This
sermon is also available in audio.)
Psalm
42:1-11
Romans 8:18-25, 31-38
This
is a sermon about Christian hope. It is based on a passage from
one of the most important chapters of Paul's letter to the Romans.
That book has been and continues to be perhaps the most powerful
statement of the Christian faith. Hear Paul's words:
We
know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains
until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who
have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while
we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in
hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For
who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do
not see, we wait for it with patience (8:22-25).
Today
we can see enough to confirm at least part of Paul's description
of a world groaning--racial injustice and rage, the abuse of
power, alienation of women from men and men from women, brutal
violence and war and famine.
Richard
Hughes recently published a book entitled The Culture of Complaint,
with the depressing subtitle, The Fraying of America.
Despite the prosperity of the economy, there are thousands if
not millions of people
who live in anxiety about the future of their jobs, the security
of their families, and the prospects of a better life.
An
incident in Jonathan Kozol's book Illiterate America,
serves as a parable of our human condition. Even though the Census
Bureau finds that 99.5% of the American people are literate,
Kozol argues that functional illiteracy afflicts 25-60 million
people.
It
is the human reality behind these statistics that is awful and
wrenching. Kozol tells this story of an illiterate
whose car had broken down on a California freeway:
"There
was a phone," the person reported. "I asked for the
police. They was nice. They said to tell them where I was.
I looked up at the signs. There was one that I had seen before.
I read it to them: ONE WAY STREET.
They
thought it was a joke. I told them I couldn't read. There
was other signs above the
ramp. They told me to try.
I
looked around for somebody to help. I couldn't make them
understand that I was lost.
The
cop was nice. He told me: 'Try once more.'
I
did my best. I couldn't read. I only knew the sign above
my head: ONE
WAY
STREET.
The
cop was trying to be nice. He knew that I was trapped. 'I
can't send out a car to you if you can't
tell
me where you
are,' he said.
I
felt afraid. I nearly cried. I'm forty-eight years old. I
only said: 'I'm on a one-way street."'
(Illiterate America by Jonathan Kozol, 1985, Anchor Books)
Isn't
that the way you feel sometimes--as if you're on a one-way street,
as if you're trapped and lost, as if you cannot figure out the
pattern to the frantic and frenetic pace of life? Can't you identify
with the Psalmist who cried,
My
soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me continually,
"Where is your God?"
Now,
when I talk about Christian hope, I do not mean optimism. To
be optimistic is to expect certain things to happen.
I am optimistic
about the future of Louisville Seminary. I am optimistic about
the future of the Presbyterian Church, despite all of its challenges.
Optimism
is based upon what is concrete or as Paul would put it, on what
can be seen.
Instead,
Christian hope is based on what we do not see. It focuses on
the meaning and purpose
of life. Christian hope is what gives us direction.
My
friends, the Christian faith is essentially a religion of hope--an
expectation and longing for what cannot be seen. Hope lies at
the heart of what it means to be human--to be alive.
Paul
certainly has few illusions about the world as it is. He knows
that God's
children suffer. "We are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered," he
declares (8:36). And yet it is a world groaning in labor pains--straining
to give birth to new life--a new creation.
Paul's
world is one conquered by hope instead of fear, anxiety and despair.
Therefore,
Paul writes, "For in hope we were saved." "In
hope we were saved."
What
can that possibly mean? What,
after all, is Christian hope? Let me answer that with three simple
sentences:
1.
You are not alone.
2. You belong to God.
3. You need not be afraid.
The
Christian faith has many ways of trying to capture the meaning
of salvation and the nature of hope, but they all revolve around
one fundamental idea--being bound together with God through Jesus
Christ.
Here
in Romans, Paul uses the metaphors of redemption and adoption.
Through Jesus Christ, God has bought us and brought
us back into relationship with God; God has redeemed us. Through
Jesus Christ we are adopted by God. We become children of God.
When
we belong to God, we are saved in hope--because nothing will
ever separate us from God. We are never alone. We need not be
afraid. This is the hope that drives Paul's passionate affirmation:
For
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord (8:38).
Hope
is not some talent or expertise that we can nurture. Instead,
it is a gift--a product of our loving and being loved by God.
It is the promise of abundant life, even eternal life, because
we will know--even in and beyond death--that God has not left
us alone. God will not abandon us. That is our hope; that is
eternal life.
There
are times when the meaning of hope can become crystal clear. Four years ago my mother died. It was a terrible death, the kind
of death we fear for ourselves and our loved ones. Trapped by
medical technology, she spent three months moving between intensive
care, coronary care, and pulmonary care until even machines could
not keep her alive.
Throughout
her life, my mother often seemed joyful and free. She laughed
easily. She was proud of being the joke editor of her high school
newspaper.
But
beneath this exterior was anxiety and fear. Perhaps it began
when they buried her mother on her fifth birthday. A
near-fatal auto accident and years of recovery from a nervous
condition obviously contributed to her uncertainty about herself
and her world.
What
kept her going was her faith, even though she confessed to me
many times that she wasn't sure she was
saved.
The
last time I visited her she could not talk because of the tubes
in her mouth. She looked helpless--12 or 14 tubes going into
her and who knows how many coming out.
She
had a tablet on her tray. Typical
for her, the tablet was a complimentary one she had picked up
from a lumber company. She also had a large black
crayon. She grasped the crayon in her swollen hand, scrawled
a message, and then pushed the tablet toward me.
At
first I couldn't read her barely legible writing, but then it
came to
me. She
had written: "I can't worry." When I looked at her,
she gave me a funny, crooked smile.
That
is Christian hope. In the face of death,
looking back on a lifetime that had mixed joy and sorrow, security
and anxiety,
she declared, "I
can't worry." Why? Because she knew she was not alone. She
belonged to God. She was saved in hope.
But
that is not the end. Christian hope is not only the conviction
that we belong to God but also the motivation for all our work
and witness.
Martin
Luther declared, "Everything that is
done in the world is done by hope." When we belong to God,
we are free from ourselves and liberated to serve others.
St.
Augustine made the same point with a simple and beautiful
image. "Hope
has two daughters," he wrote. "They are anger and courage--anger
so that what should not be, may not be. And courage, so that
what must be, will be." In other words, Christian hope is
not only the answer to death; it is also the answer to life.
Consider
one illustration of how hope's two daughters, anger and courage,
can make a difference. In the continuing saga of violence from
our nation's cities comes this story from New York.
Four
whites attacked two black children--a 14-year-old boy and his
12-year-old
sister-- as they set off for school. They robbed them, cut
off some of the girl's hair, and then smeared them with white
sneaker
polish.
Their
bodies recovered, but their souls and minds were scarred. Their
mother, Nellie Wilson, was distraught. "If
they hadn't put paint on them, I could have taken it," she
said. "But the painting, the cutting the girl's hair and
the racial slurs, that's the part that bothers me. This world
is so vast, so big, big, big. Why can't we get along?"
"Why
can't we get along?" That is the cry of a world groaning
in labor pains, straining for fairness and justice. God's message
of hope is that the cry of suffering will be heard.
Nellie
Wilson's children received letters from an entire fifth grade
in Lexington, Massachusetts. One girl wrote:
Before
I tell you how I feel, I want to tell you that I wanted to
write this letter and that no one made me. I was shocked
when I heard what happened to you. I don't see why anyone
would or should hurt anyone just because of a different skin
color. Even though I am white I am still mad. Why would anyone
do this? And then she concluded: Please don't lose
hope!
That
is the message of Paul in Romans. That is the message to take
with you today: "Please don't lose hope!" That is the
good news for each of you--caught in your own traps of fear and
anxiety. That is the message to proclaim to others.
You
are not alone. You belong to God. You need not fear.
Each
of you is called by God to be a bearer of hope, whose daughters
are anger and courage. Tell people, show people, that what is
does not need to be, that what should be will be.
Help
people see a world which is groaning in labor pains, straining
to bring
new life into the world, a society in which justice can prevail,
a new creation in which God's love is triumphant.
Be
messengers of hope, for we know that nothing shall separate us
from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are saved in hope.
With
that conviction, we can declare with the Psalmist,
Why
are you cast down, 0 my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
With
that conviction we too can write: "I can't worry."
Copyright
©2002 Dr. John M. Mulder |
