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"Hope" Vance L. Toivonen

The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. 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 LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

READING Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair that to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

SERMON

Sometimes people ask me why I use a biblical text each week. The use of a biblical text is, for me, directly tied to a long-standing discipline of using the revised common lectionary. This is a three-year rotating schedule of lectionary readings from the bible shared by most mainline Christian denominations. So it is, I suppose, a way of keeping a connection with the larger church. I like it because it challenges me to be creative with texts that I might not otherwise choose. You too might wonder on some Sundays why a certain text is being read. Thus we wonder, and wander, together.

I choose only one from 3 or more lessons appointed for a given Sunday. The other reading is wide open. I allow myself to go anywhere I wish with that one. This Sunday the first reading is from the book of Lamentations. This book is tucked in that later section of the Old Testament reserved for the prophets, and is thus written in the voice of the prophet – some prophet. We do not know which prophet; but that matters not.

Lamentations holds in its title the purpose of the book itself – an opportunity to lament. Lament is not a very popular activity in our culture, it seems. We are not encouraged to vent. We are, instead, goaded to think positive thoughts, make lemons into lemonade, and put the best construction on everything. But lament was a regular element of the ancient worship of Israel. Actually we sang a hymn of lament last week when we voiced the question, “When will people cease their fighting?”

Taken as a whole, however, the lectionary of traditional Christianity tends to downplay the lament. Today’s text is evidence of this. The first two complete sentences of this reading are actually the last two sentences from the lament. Let me read for you the entire lament from Lamentations chapter 3.

I am one who has seen affliction under the rod of God's wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; against me alone he turns his hand, again and again, all day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago. He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked. He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. He shot into my vitals the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunt-songs all day long. He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord." (Lamentations 3:1-18)

Now that is a lament! The prophet is a wreck. The prophet’s life is in utter chaos and ruin. The prophet is in physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. The prophet is, to use the prophet’s words, “bereft of peace.” And the most pathetic statement of all is when the prophet says, “I have forgotten what happiness is.” We would probably send the prophet for some counseling; perhaps prescribe some medications to deal with the depression. The lament of the prophet is all-consuming. We must understand this before we can hear the words that follow the lament:

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 LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. (Lamentations 3:21-26)

I have chosen the word Hope as a title this morning. This is our namesake. It is the word on the sign outside. People see it whenever they drive down Michigan Avenue. It is on the front page of our website. It is perhaps the word that either consciously or subconsciously invites people into this building. We all lament to varying degrees, because lament is a part of everyone’s existence. I can lament a loss in my life. I can lament the medical bills that come in the mail. I can lament broken relationships. And, I can lament something as seemingly minor as a hang-nail or a headache.

There are a good number of folks in the world, however, who have far more to lament than any of the above. They are just trying not to go to bed hungry tonight, or trying to survive a local military coup, or navigate the landscape of a war zone. I saw a film earlier this year titled Children of Men. Anybody here see the film? I recommend it. It illustrates the navigation of much violence and destruction in order to bring to safety one single new life. At the end of the film I watched the extras and became acquainted with a Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher, and cultural critic by the name of Slavoj Žižek. He is currently the International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London.

Žižek commented on the film in the extras on the DVD. I want to share one quote with you, a quote that opened my eyes to a deeper meaning of our moniker.

Hope is only where despair is. Something truly new beginning happens only when you are in such a deep shit (I used the word “crap” for public preaching) that, within the existing coordinates, you can find no way out, and then in order to survive, you have to invent something new. The magic is to turn a desperate situation into a new beginning…

First of all, I perked up when I heard him say the word Hope. Then I wrote down what he said, pausing the DVD to get every word just as he had spoken it. Then I read it again…and then, I thought to myself, “Wow, this could be a mission statement for a religious community that happens to call itself Hope.”

As Thomas Merton reminds us in the second reading this morning, despair precedes hope. One might reason that hope is not necessary if there is not a pre-existing condition calling for hope. And that last sentence really cuts to the heart of any complacency or comfortable satisfaction in our lives, “A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.” This is not to say that we should seek despair in our lives in order that we might experience hope. But we could choose to seek out despair, to find it around us, and to be present in the despair of others. As the people of Hope this could very well be our calling; a calling we still have a choice to answer or not.

It is likely that we will not find the words “Seek Despair” on our to do lists, or our objectives for life. We do not want to end up like the prophet, now, do we. I struggle with this. My life is so comfortable and “nice” sometimes. It is hard to think about putting all that comfort and niceness away in order to invite the despair of others into my life. And yet, there is something nagging at my soul that says, “Just do it.” I am afraid – afraid of what I might become; afraid of how my life might change; afraid of having my priorities and routines upset; afraid of a lot of things. But the still small voice pesters ever so quietly, ever so gently, deep within my spirit. Do you hear that voice too?

Which brings us back to those words of the prophet that speak of hope itself, and the source of hope. When my source of hope is myself, and my poor choice-making, it is easy for me to shrink from that calling. But if that source is God, or a power greater than myself (however we might define that power), then there is a better chance that in any given moment I will shake off the chains of my fear and anxiety and move into the region of despair; then I will risk living with sadness and pain and grief for the sake of others; then I will avoid the seduction of the media culture telling me how life should be, and embrace life as it really is.

I could ramble on about this, I suppose, but I would like to hear from you; and subsequently have you all hear from each other. I would like us to begin writing about hope, expressing through prose and poetry what our moniker means to us. I will, then, create a link on our website so that we can go there anytime and read about hope as it resides in the hearts and minds of those who form this living, breathing community we call Hope.

As soon as I receive your submissions, via email or, for those of us who do not yet internet, via hard copy delivered to our office, I will begin the process of putting your submissions up on our website for the whole world to read. What is hope in the hearts and minds of those who make up its community? Go, write, and above all – be hopeful.