Romans 5:1-5
Trusting in Hope
James Sledge June
16, 2019
“Tim,
will you please stop sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” That’s
the opening line from an article I read on the Presbyterians Today Blog. Tim is a pastor who’s been brought in to
help revitalize a church after twenty years of decline. His diagnosis is that
the church has become captive to the functional
and needs to recapture the spiritual.
Here’s
how the blog post defines functional. “It’s a secular style of operating that
slowly pushes a deep awareness and embrace of God’s presence and guidance away
as we try to do things decently and in order. Functionality cares more about
how the church functions than about how well it leads us to deeper
experiences and encounters with God.” [1]
Of
course it is a lot easier to be functional than spiritual. The world runs on
the functional, and our culture, our schooling, and most of our work experience
trains us to be functional. Inevitably, it creeps into the church, and many of
you have experienced it. You’ve been to a committee meeting that has a prayer
at the beginning and perhaps another at the end, but the meeting itself happens
with absolutely no awareness of the Spirit or that God is present.
Pastor
Tim ran into something like that at the Finance Committee meeting. The blog
post was short on details, but they’re easy enough to imagine. The committee
member said something like, “There isn’t enough money in the budget for that.”
And the Pastor Tim said something like, “If this is what God is calling us to
do, then God will provide a way.”
It
was probably not the first time for such an exchange, but this time, the
committee member had had enough. And he yelled, “Tim, will you please stop
sabotaging this meeting with hope?!” before walking out on the meeting.
What
an odd idea, sabotaging with hope. When I think about sabotage in
organizations, I usually think of people trying to shut down hope. People get
excited about a new idea and began to hope that it might help the organization,
but then the naysayers come out. They begin to point out all the risks and all
the things that could go wrong. They work to undermine hope and excitement. But
this finance committee member accuses the pastor of sabotaging things with
hope. Who knew that hope could cause so much trouble?
In
the movie The Shawshank Redemption, Red,
played by Morgan Freeman, is frightened of hope. Andy, played by Tim Robbins, clings to hope. Andy is a bank
executive wrongly convicted of murder and serving two life sentences in a
brutal penitentiary. Despite this, he never gives up hope of someday being
free, opening a hotel and operating a fishing boat in a little Mexican town on
the Pacific Ocean. He even invites Red to join him.
But
Red warns Andy to let go of hope. “Hope is a dangerous thing,” he says. “Hope
can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside.” But Andy won’t let go.
He even shares hope with others, building a prison library and helping inmates
get high school diplomas.
After
nearly twenty years, Andy pulls of a miraculous escape. Not too long
afterwards, Red is finally paroled, but after a lifetime in prison, he 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 particular field, finds his way to a particular tree and
the rock wall below it. 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 work
with Andy. 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
final 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.”
He’s
taking a big chance. Hope could make a fool of him. He could use up all his
money getting to Mexico and not find Andy. He would be broke in a strange land
where he didn’t speak the language, but still he takes the chance.
In
our scripture, the Apostle Paul acknowledges the risk of hope, particularly
hope in Christ Jesus. Our translation obscures that a bit. What Paul actually
writes says that hope does not put us to shame. It might well seem to. In Paul’s
day, following Jesus could marginalize you, alienate you from friends and
family. In Paul’s case, it led to suffering, hardship, and prison. Following
Jesus appeared foolish, but Paul knew better. In Jesus, he experienced transformed
life as God’s beloved. That made all his
troubles more than worthwhile because God's love (had) been poured into
(his heart) through the Holy Spirit.
I
don’t recall any mention of Paul or his writings when the Session first came up
with our missional mandate – Gathering
those who fear they are not enough, so we may experience grace, wholeness, and
renewal as God’s beloved – but I feel certain Paul would resonate with it.
Our culture imagines that you are only as good as your latest impressive
achievement or accomplishment, but Paul, and our mandate, speak of experiencing
the transforming love of God that is offered as a gift, regardless of what we
have or haven’t accomplished.
Even
more, the leadership here at FCPC has embraced the seemingly foolish hope that
animated Paul’s life. Having heard the call to gather people into the
transforming love of God in Jesus, they’ve begun planning and implementing
structures for that work that do not look like that of the typical religious
institution. We will step out on faith, on hope, even though where we are going
is not completely clear, trusting that this hope will not put us to shame.
Trusting
in hope, in the promised gifts and encouragement of the Spirit, is not a magic
potion or a panacea. Jesus’ call still asks hard work of us, all of us. It
demands our best. But this hope promises to provide what is needed to answer
God’s call.
The
Session and Deacon’s willingness to embrace this hope reminds me of the foolish
faithfulness of another biblical figure, one Paul references just a few verses
before our reading for today. Abraham set out on a journey to an unknown
destination because God called. "Go from your country and your kindred
and your father's house to the land that I will show you.” And Abram
and Sarai went, trusting in the hope that God would be faithful, that his journey
to an unknown destination would bear the promised fruit.
What
hope animates you, drives your life? What hope would let you risk looking
foolish, would allow you to take great chances? Those are the sort of questions
one might ask at a graduation speech, and they certainly are appropriate for
those who are graduating. But they are fundamentally spiritual questions that
all people of faith would do well to ask themselves.
What
is Jesus calling you to do for which you would risk hardship and ridicule?
Where has hope sabotaged your captivity to the ways of the world, allowing you
to live in new freedom and faith because
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has
been given to us?
[1] N.
Graham Standish, “Hopeful Church: Sabotaging with Hope,” https://www.presbyterianmission.org/today/
June 5, 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment