Kurt Nelson
9/25/08
Matthew 5:38-47
Whenever I tell someone about our theme for this term:
Hope.
They give me a funny smile.
Surprised, perhaps, that I would pick something so simple,
and so basic.
And they almost invariably say,
“That’s good. I could use some of that right now.”
Hope.
Which is deeply important to the life of faith.
But I’ve found,
during the course of preparing for the term,
it’s also deeply challenging to articulate.
Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single sermon on hope,
that didn’t begin with a full laundry list of reasons
to be unhopeful.
I will do my best to spare you that list this term.
For I’m confident that if we each paused for the briefest of moments,
we could come up with plenty of reasons,
for lack of hope in the state of the world.
But our theme for this term is not “trouble”
or “bad things.” or “despair.”
It’s hope.
What brings us hope?
What founds our hope?
Where does our hope lead us?
In that spirit,
I want to share with you that I have a new hobby.
See, I read my news on the web,
(which isn’t particularly new).
But I’ve noticed over about the past year or so,
That even reputable news sites,
Have begun to encourage their readers,
To post their individual thoughts and comments on news stories.
And it’s often hard to believe
The thoughts, opinions and spelling errors
That so may deem fit to share.
And so a friend and I
have begun to catalogue particularly inappropriate or egregious postings
in the form of a blog.
And there’s one from last week that I feel compelled to share with you,
Not because of it’s political implications,
But because of its relevance to our discussion today.
On a follow-up story to Sarah Palin’s first ABC interview:
After many comments full of the standard Palin bashing.
A woman named Roberta shared,
“I hope the godless liberals keep attacking Sarah Palin's religion. God will not be mocked. Liberals will pay the eternal price for their disrespect for this angel of God.”
Now, we as Christians might have a couple of problems,
With what Roberta had to share.
But I’d like to point you especially to those opening words:
I hope.
I hope those with whom I disagree,
Will be bound forever in the torments of hell, says Roberta.
I hope they continue, in her mind, to sin.
and I hope my God will be justifiably angry,
And will enact vengeance.
This is indeed a problem, for me.
But lest we judge Roberta too harshly,
we should keep in mind that this is, in fact,
a problem as old as the scripture itself.
Those of us lucky enough to be a part of a tradition,
that follows the revised common lectionary,
likely heard from the prophet Jonah this past Sunday.
And while many of us are quite familiar with the opening of Jonah,
Jonah is called to prophesy to the people of Ninevah,
that evil capital of Assyria,
known for its particularly brutal destruction of Samaria.
He is called to tell the Ninevites of their immanent destruction
at the hands of the God of Israel.
but Jonah refuses,
and flees via boat,
and he’s cast into the sea and swallowed by a whale.
But we often neglect the second half of Jonah,
When he’s spit up upon the shore,
and called again to prophesy to the evil people of Ninevah.
And he does,
and Lo and behold the people repent.
and God show mercy on the people of Nineveh.
I would be remise if I didn’t pause for a moment,
and point out this baseline of hope.
That the sun rises and falls on the good and the bad.
And even in our moments of deep despair,
God cares.
That God cares even for these Ninevites.
These violent and evil people.
“Should I not be concerned about Nineveh?”
asks God, at the end of the book of Jonah,
those people that God created.
“that large city of 120 thousand people,
who do not know their right hand from their left,
and also many animals?”
This is how Jonah ends.
God cares even for the animals
of the evil residents of that evil capital of that evil empire.
Sworn enemy of Israel.
And in our darkest moments,
we’re probably at least on par with these animals.
and there is indeed hope
in knowing that we too are cared for.
But Jonah is displeased.
He says,
“Oh Lord I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,
and ready to relent from punishing.
And now, Oh Lord please take my life from me,
for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah and Roberta have both made the mistake,
Of linking their hope to their expectations of retribution.
And while they may have taken such a sentiment to an extreme,
It’s certainly not uncommon in many religious circles.
And I think it’s maybe even a sentiment to which I can relate.
A sense of false pride in my rightness.
False hope in my own righteousness.
Knowing that others fall even more short than I,
and that I’m somehow deserving of something greater.
It reminds a little me of all those times growing up,
When my little brother and I used to fight.
And no matter what bad things I did,
I could always rest easy knowing that it was he who started it.
That I was somehow in the right.
That I would be spared and he would be punished.
But somehow it never worked out quite the way I thought it would.
This false hope that things would turn out the way they ought.
That ‘Ninevites’ and ‘liberals’ and little brothers alike would get their just punishment.
There are as I see it
two problems with calling this sort of thing ‘hope.’
First, because it’s simply delusion.
No matter how much I thought my brother started it,
I was always doing bad stuff too.
No matter how bad Jonah thought the Ninevites were,
Jonah had his problems.
And I can imagine that Roberta probably has her own vices too.
We all fall short, after all.
But second, this is not so much hope,
As it is a strange kind of optimism.
Thinking things will work themselves out for the best.
That it will surely get better,
regardless of what we do,
in this life or the next.
And our theme for the term isn’t “Optimism.”
It’s hope.
As William Sloane Coffin reminded us:
“Hope has nothing to do with optimism. Hope’s opposite isn’t pessimism – it’s despair.”
Hope asks:
What do we do when we can’t see the horizon?
What happens if things don’t get visibly better?
This distinction between hope and optimism is an important one.
For optimism means, ‘let’s wait and see and expect things to improve’
and hope asks:
“What can I do?”
To me, hope is nothing if it’s not the great motivator.
And our reading from Matthew today,
Gives us a powerful and frightening vision of what that hope might look like.
It calls us to a higher love.
A love not just of those who are easy to love.
But those who are difficult.
And thus our hope rests not on the prospect of the immanent change
about to take place in the Jonahs and Robertas
And little brothers and Ninevites of the world.
Hope rests not in a picture of eternal damnation for those that give us trouble.
But rather our hope can come from the sure knowledge,
That we are called to radically love,
both friends and enemies.
but these difficult people as well.
Following Jesus’ call and example,
We are meant to love better.
And thus transform the world.
This is a hope grounded in action and practice.
A hope that is not cheap or easy.
But will undoubtedly lead to pain and hardship.
A hope that will allow us to fall short.
And fall short we will.
But it is a hope that will pick us up again.
It is true hope.
For it rests on God and on us,
not on them.
Quoting from Coffin again:
“Hope criticizes what is, hopelessness rationalizes it.
Hope resists. Hopelessness adapts.”
Knowing that we are loved and saved and called by God.
We are called by hope to resist.
Resist evil.
Resist despair.
Resist, even our enemies.
But to love them,
to begin with care and attempt at understanding.
To refrain, of course, from violence.
Understanding that violence is not just about fists and weapons and guns,
but also about words and actions and attitudes.
Hope calls us
in especially difficult times,
pray for those who give us difficulty.
To pray not for retribution, like Roberta or Jonah,
but pray in hope and love.
Hope begins with faith that we are loved and created,
by a good and merciful God.
And hope ends with a call to action.
A call to resist the state of the world,
and to do so with love.
May it be so for us. Amen.
