Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday - Hope

We here at Falls Church Presbyterian are about to finish our preaching journey with Brian McLaren's book, We Make the Road by Walking. Today Diane preaches from the next to the last chapter, and it is drawn from the book of Revelation. Appropriate, it seems, to go to the concluding words of the Bible as we get to the end of our journey, focusing on hope.

Revelation suffers from benign neglect in most Mainline churches. That's understandable, given the difficult imagery that modern people struggle to understand. Unfortunately, however, this has basically ceded the book to the lunatic fringe, whose use of Revelation has largely defined public perceptions of the work.

In truth, Revelation was written as a word of encouragement to Christians suffering through difficult times. It does not mean to predict the future in any exact sort of way. There is no secret formula from which can be drawn timetables of specific, future events. Instead it calls people to remain faithful, sure in the hope that God will triumph in the end.

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One of my favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption. If you’ve never seen it, you really should.  Tim Robbins plays Andy, a bank executive falsely convicted of murder, who is serving two life sentences in a brutal penitentiary. There he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a long-timer named Red, played by Morgan Freeman. Despite his false imprisonment, Andy never gives up hope of someday being free, of one day opening a hotel and operating a fishing boat in a little Mexican town on the Pacific Ocean. He even asks Red to be his assistant. But Red warns Andy to let go of his hope. “Hope is a dangerous thing,” he says.  “Hope can drive a man insane.  It’s got no use on the inside.”  But Andy will not let go of hope.

Finally, after nearly twenty years in prison, Andy pulls off a remarkable escape. A full scale search ensues, but they never find him. Not long afterwards, Red is finally paroled, but after a lifetime in prison, he simply cannot adjust to life on the outside. He is all ready to commit some petty crime so he will go back to prison, but one thing stops him, a promise he made to Andy.  

 

And so he journeys to a field, finds his way to a particular tree, and the rock wall below it. And there, buried at the base of the wall is a box containing money and a letter from Andy. It invites him to come to Mexico, to help Andy get his venture off the ground. The letter concludes, “Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Andy.”

The very last words we hear in the movie are Red’s thoughts as he rides a Trailways bus to Fort Hancock, Texas. “I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.  I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”

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What is it that allows you to hope? More to the point, what is it that allows you to hope when very little evidence exists that hope is a good thing? Christian hope has always been connected to the cross and the empty tomb. In many ways, Jesus suffers the same fate as others who speak against the powers of empire, the powers of exploitation, the powers of terror. But Jesus' movement on behalf a a different sort of world, God's new commonwealth where the poor hear good news, the captives are released, and the hungry are fed, does not end with his death. God raises Jesus.

God brings life out of death, hope out of hopelessness. It's a wonderful and heartwarming story... if by some chance it is true.

But is it true? Certainly many people believe that it is. But is it a foolish hope. Ultimately, who is right about hope, Andy or Red who said, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.  It’s got no use on the inside.” When things are going to pot, when the world seems headed in the wrong direction, does hope make much sense?

Christians have often relocated Jesus' hope to a hope for heaven when we die. It's easy to understand why. Maintaining hope in God's will being done on earth, in the world becoming a sort of heaven, is difficult in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. Yet this is precisely the situation facing to Christians for whom the book of Revelation is written. But why should we or they believe in and trust in hope that God is ultimately in charge of history?

For me, it all hinges on the living Christ. If I can, in fact, experience the presence of Jesus, here and now, then the powers that seem so terrifying and real - empire, evil, death - could not overcome Jesus. Their victory was a sham, for he is still here. And it isn't simply a matter of believing an old story. It is about coming to know Christ, sensing his presence, as the Spirit makes him known to me.

And so.... I hope.