St. John’s United Church of Christ
July 20, 2008
A Sermon by the Rev. John Krueger
A Long, Thin Line of Hopers Romans 8:12-25
Our sister church, Ellenberger United Church of Christ, on E 10th Street, made the Indianapolis Star this past Wednesday. They have erected a large sign on their front lawn, “Pray For Peace.” This started out as an individual effort to focus attention on peace in our city in the light of 65 homicides as of Wednesday, and now this has been embraced by most of their people.
Talk about paddling a canoe upstream! We all wish there was more peace in our world, between nations, within families, in our neighborhoods, but it takes some gumption to actually hope for peace, to announce an intention to work for peace, to move beyond a good sentiment to actually doing something about it. However, that is exactly what we are called to do, direct orders from Jesus of Nazareth, the one we call the Prince of Peace.
Jesus lived in a turbulent time, under the heel of Roman occupation, within a religious system that deemed some fit and some unfit for God’s favor. Yet he proclaimed a gracious Gospel of love and mercy and peace, stoking the warm fire of hope in a dispirited people.
Yes, we come from a Long, Thin Line of Hopers, a heritage we need to recall and embrace, The Apostle Paul talks about hope: “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.” And hope makes the list of the three greatest gifts of the Spirit, these three: Faith, Hope and Love.
The Hebrew community that birthed Christianity was also grounded in a hope that survived some challenging realities. Abraham and Sarah kept alive the hope to be the parents of a mighty nation when all the neighbors scoffed at them. Jeremiah bought a piece of land, an investment in the future, when the Babylonians were about to destroy his nation. Nehemiah returned to a ruined city to rebuild a new nation from utter devastation.
Not everyone shared the vision of hope of our ancestors, for many gave up and became cynical and calloused, unconvinced that God was still invested in them. That’s why I call this a thin line of hopers, for many could not catch the vision of a different and better day, thanks to God’s gracious participation. This line of hopers may have length, back to our spiritual ancestors, but the line is precariously thin, for many threw in the towel.
The dictionary says that hope is “a feeling that what is wanted will happen,” and “desire accompanied by anticipation or expectation.” Hope is standing on tiptoe, anticipating something to happen that will surprise and amaze. Scott Libbey, one of the saints of the United Church of Christ, said that “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change.” Hope is the conviction that with God all things are possible, that 2 plus 2 in God’s mathematics sometimes equals more than 4. Hope proclaims that what you expect may happen could be considerably better than what you had imagined.
Now this sort of thinking could lead us to think that what we want to happen automatically will happen, if we are bona fide, true hopers. This might suggest that just believing, just squinting our eyes and holding our breath, is enough to guarantee the desired outcome. But as Paul says, hope that is seen is not hope, and we hope for what we do not see, and in the meantime we wait for it with patience.
This is the reality check. Not everyone who hopes for a good report from the hospital lab receives a good report. Not every operation is successful. Not every prayer is answered as we may like and not every story has a happy ending.
Perhaps that is why this Long Thin Line of Hopers is thin. Patience is a gift we don’t often have. Waiting is not our desired attribute. Keeping the faith when your world is crumbling is a severe test for us. Where is God when we need God to be close and receptive? Why do our prayers at times seem to go unanswered? Is God powerless, or inattentive, or uncaring?
The Apostle Paul ties hope, not to some wishful thinking, but to our relationship with the God of Jesus Christ. “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ – if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Children of God. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
I remember my first negative reaction to a song made popular by Peggy Lee around 1969 entitled “Is That All There Is.” The chorus, repeated about four times, goes like this:
“Is that all there is, is that all there is.
If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing.
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is.”
That thought of basic emptiness and meaninglessness is certainly not original with that song. My guess is that most of us, in some of our dark moments, have wondered about the meaning of our lives, about some of the injustices we have experienced or those we care about have endured.: The holocaust of World War II, the genocide of Darfur in Sudan, the senseless murders in Indianapolis, the terrorism in our world, the incidences of inhumanity and cruelty. What is going on in our world, and where is God in all of this? Is That All There Is?
People of faith have tried to respond to such questions, to provide a context in which we can sort out what is happening around us. The key for me is to remember who we are, or better, whose we are: Children of God heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.
Our hope in the unseen, our hope in that which defies laboratory proofs and scientific verification, is based on the stubborn proposition that we are children of God. We are not dispensable throw-aways with limited shelf life and therefore expendable ciphers. We are created in the image of the God who created us and the entire universe around us. We have within us something of the divine, the holy, which sets us apart for all the rest of the created order. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, as the psalmist said in our call to worship. We are instruments of God’s grace, proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus Christ, stewards of the majesty of God’s creative genius.
Certainly not every one agrees with this, but this is our belief, our sense of our calling, the foundation for our hope. God has not given up, on us, or on our world, and every new day is a renewal of God’s investment. We are participants in this Long, Thin Line of Hopers, pointing to a God who is always beyond our knowing, yet a God we believe is tangled into our lives.
We see God’s purposes only dimly, to be sure, through a mirror darkly, as Paul has said. Yet we see enough to bet our lives and trust our futures in God’s providential goodness.
We pray for peace, a peace that eludes us. We work for justice, not yet realized by all. We seek to love the neighbor, a tough calling. We work and wait with patience, hoping for what we do not yet see, trusting in the God who hovers over each of us.