Hope

by Lay Preacher, Charlie Houghton

​Dear Lord, please help my words find a home in the hearts of those listening.  Help me to be a light of your hope.  Amen
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all –
                            Emily Dickenson


 Ever since middle school, whenever I hear the word hope, this is the first thing that comes to mind.  An amazing English teacher who inspired a love of poetry in a class of eighth graders – no mean feat that – left me with a lasting love of poetry and especially Emily Dickenson.  And this poem in particular has been a lasting favorite.  It makes hope seem a bit magical, though, and magical is not what I need right now.  
Why do I not need magical?  Because we seem to be living in a world on fire.  Politics in America has become completely toxic, with legislators unwilling to embrace the idea of compromise.  Even common courtesy is absent these days, where name calling and a complete lack of respect seem to be more prevalent.  Climate change is creating weather conditions never seen before – storms are worse and more frequent, and we have been plagued with flooding and wild fires as well as longer and more virulent hurricane and tornado seasons.  Gun violence, as we noted at the beginning of our service this morning, is terrifying.  Our children are not safe in schools, shopping malls are fair game, and even political candidates are feeling a little less safe.  

Richard Rohr and John Feister can help us to understand that difficult times are not forever, nor do we need to feel alone and hopeless.  Instead they remark, “Darkness is sacred ground. The God who calls us into darkness will also sustain us and lead us through it. ‘God . . . brings the dead to life and calls into being what does not yet exist’ (Romans 4:17). Resurrection is the one and only pattern.” Difficult times are largely what the book of Lamentations is all about.  To set this first reading into some context, it was written to express the grief and pain of the people of Jerusalem after the fall of the great city at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BCE, a fall that the author attributes to Jerusalem’s sinfulness.  Certainly this reading from Lamentations begins in a very painful vein, but then in verses 21-23 we hear, “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” The author reminds us that even in the midst of our most difficult times – what John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul” – God is always with us, and God’s love will sustain us if we let it.  

Then suddenly, this whole idea of hope in the face of painful and difficult times became very personal.  Our daughter called at 6:30 one evening to tell us she was at the Emergency Room in Greenfield with her son who was having chest pain and shortness of breath.  We got there as soon as we could, but there was no news.  X-rays had been taken and we were waiting for the cardio thoracic surgeon to tell us what was happening. It turned out he had a spontaneous pneumothorax, or simply put, a collapsed lung with no apparent cause.  They had been at the ER since about 2:30 in the afternoon and it wasn’t until 11:00 that night that the decision was made to move him to Springfield where he would be near the thoracic surgeon in the event she was needed.  It wasn’t until eight days later, after a chest tube, a second lung collapse, surgery, a lung that remained inflated and where it belonged, and discharge, that I finally took a deep breath.  In those eight days, while I spent most of my time at the hospital, I had a lot of time to reflect on hope in the midst of pain and anxiety; a lot of time to pray.  And a lot of time to internalize Lamentations - “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope…” I felt the prayers coming from friends who knew about the situation.  And I felt God’s love and mercy.  In the midst of this I prayed a simple prayer that I had cobbled together some time ago, and still change when my needs change.  I call it a prayer for hope in difficult times.  It goes like this:

“Heavenly Father and mother of us all, in times of difficulty and uncertainty, I turn to You for hope. For you are the source of all hope and the light that shines in the darkness. I ask that you fill my heart with hope, Lord, and help me trust in Your plan, even, or maybe especially, when I cannot see the way.  Please help me do as you would have me do, going beyond my fear to bring light to others I pass in my days. I ask this through you, God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen”  
Sometimes, though, our hopes are not realized in our time.  Does this mean that they will never be realized?  Or does it simply mean that God’s time is very different from our human times?  Martin Luther King, Jr. reflected on this very concern.  “Some of us, of course, will die without having received the realization of freedom, but we must continue to sail on our charted course. We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. Only in this way shall we live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of resentment.”   

Theologian and climate activist Sallie McFague suggests that the most difficult task facing us in these challenging times is having and maintaining hope. Despite the facts that look more than a little daunting – our lack of will to live sustainably and justly, greed appearing more important than planet health, the difficulty of persuading others to join the movement toward a healthy planet – the greater issue according to McFague is our lack of hope.  She points out that part of the problem seems to be that we don’t understand where our hope should reside, that is, not in ourselves and our abilities, but in the power of God’s love found in the Holy Spirit and our willingness to cooperate with the spirit.  She goes on to describe a faith-filled hope that should ground our engagement with this complicated and frightening world.  “As we consider the basis for our hope, let us recall who God is. We must and can change our ways, live justly and sustainably on our planet, because of God, not because of ourselves. The hope we have lies in the radical transcendence of God…. God’s transcendence—God’s power of creative, redeeming, and sustaining love—is closer to us than we are to ourselves. God is the milieu, the source, of power and love in which our world, our fragile, deteriorating world, exists. The world is not left to fend for itself, nor is God “in addition” to anything, everything. Rather, God is the life, love, truth, goodness, and beauty that empower the universe and shine out from it….”  

And finally, look around at our service today.  Our very young and talented pianist, Anderson Weng; our own families with their beautiful children.  We often refer to them as the future of our church, but make no mistake, they are the hope of our world.

So with a God like ours, a God who consistently inserts God’s self into the fray for us, a God who gives us every possible opportunity to succeed at being our best selves, how can we possibly lack hope?       Amen

---