As I note in the sermon text, I listened to my colleague and friend Julia Wharff's recent sermon on hope preached at Worthington Presbyterian Church. Her context was a stewardship series, which was different than mine, but it was good to hear (and still from her) her perspective on hope.
I had fun with the opening section on searching for hope on Amazon. I don't think I've had something silly like that in a while in a sermon, so it was good to have a lighter moment.
I preached a couple of years ago on the difference between hope and optimism, so I did not go there in this sermon, although the idea of hope that is grounded in reality is a similar train of thought.
I probably would not use the Acts passage if I preached this sermon again, I would probably read the Lamentations passage.
The conclusion below was left out of the sermon. When i got to that point in the sermon, I decided to just end the sermon.
“What I Need from My church: Hope” SAPC, Denton; November 14, 2021; Fall, 2021 series; Romans 5: 1-11;
26 Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began to defend himself:
2 “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.
4 “All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, 7 a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency,[a] that I am accused by Jews! 8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
Introduction: We continue our preaching series, although it’s almost over, reflecting on what we need from our church in order to grow in our discipleship.
Someone recently suggested to me that they did not need anything from their church because they had an Amazon account.
I think they were kidding
Made me curious about getting hope off of Amazon. so I did an Amazon search for hope.
Sure enough, you can find lots of hope-related things on Amazon.
Here is a sample:
Three books from 2021 - the pandemic must have inspired writers.
multiple videos, some with the same title; you can download and play immediately if you are desperate for hope, or you can purchase and watch at your leisure.;
philosophy hope in a jar eye and lip cream, 0.5 oz
HOPE'S Premium Home Care Countertop Restoration Polish and Protector Granite, Marble, Concrete, 8 Ounce, 2 Pack, White, 16 Fl Oz
Hope & Henry Girls' Intarsia Horse Sweater
Mug Hope Ivory
REPUBLIC OF TEA Good Hope Vanilla Red Tea
jewelry at all prices; deal on 40pcs Infinity Hope Symbol Connectors Charms Pendants for DIY Necklace Bracelet Jewelry Making Accessories(Antique Silver) - $6.99. quite the deal on hope
YOu can drink hope - Willow Tree Angel of Hope, Sculpted Hand-Painted Figure
But this morning we are reflecting on the hope that we need from our church.
Move 1: We need hope that lifts us up.
a. hope has movement (This point grows out of a sermon preached by my colleague and friend Julia Wharff at Worthington Presbyterian Church, 10/24/21. Her husband Dennis suggested I listen to the sermon for her thoughts on hope. She also tied this point to the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” which I had already chosen to include in the sermon.)
1. Alexander pope “hope springs eternal in the human breast” Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
2. Hope is an upward movement - lifts us from where we are to a new place.
b. later in the service we will sing a wonderful hymn, Great is Thy fAithfulness
1. Based on a couple of verses in Lamentations 3: 22-23.
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
22
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,[b]
his mercies never come to an end;
23
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
2. But before we get to this hope, we hear the lament:
my teeth grind on gravel,
I cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is
The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
is wormwood and gall!
Wormwood and gall. Sounds nasty. nasty like pandemic, or racial injustice, or terrorism.
3. the lamenter is in a bad spot; feeling down; the world around is crushing;
4. But then, the lament shifts as the lamenter calls to mind God’s steadfast love which lifts up, which brings hope.
c. Church’s role
1. the church is not the holder of hope because our hope comes from God.
2. But the church helps us remember and claim the hope we have in God.
Move 2: Hope is grounded in our reality
a. hope is not some naive optimism that continually spouts everything is great.
1. Being people of hope means being people willing to name what oppresses or weighs us down.
2. Paul points to hope that grows out of suffering.
3. Paul knows we face challenges and difficulties in life. He certainly did.
4. But when we point out the challenges, when we point to the gap between the world in which we live and the hope we have in God, we begin the movement toward that hope.
c. then Journal for Preachers, Lent 2015, Volume XXXIII, p. 10, “Preaching during Lent in 2015” Liz Goodman shares an image used by Charles L. Campbell and Johan H. Cilliars in their book Preaching Fools: the Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly):
South Korea has the Observatory of Reunification, which sits as far north as you can be in S. Korea, looking over the river at North Korea; one can see the military presence in with training camps, uniforms, machine guns visible; S. Korea side there are also statues of Buddha with his arms open in blessing and Mary, her hands folded in prayer. Both face north toward North Korea.
Up the hill is a chapel, with the whole front of the chapel is glass, looking out over into North Korea, the beauty of the land, but also the barbed wire and fences of the DMZ; the pulpit is right in front of the window. When the sermon is preached, the one preaching the congregation sees the one preaching God's word standing in S. Korea, but the rest of their view is North Korea – the enemy, but also the brothers and sisters of those in South Korea;
the church - standing in the gap between how the world is and the hope we have in God.
all that stands between the two is God's Word; which points to the division and offers hope. HTTP://kidsfuninseoul.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/odusan-unification-observatory/ FPC, Troy, 2/22/15
Move 3: Hope grows out of resurrection.
a. We read this morning about Paul standing before King Agrippa on trial.
1. paul references the hope that he has - this hope in the God who raised jesus from the dead.
2. This hope that is worth being on trial; the hope worth speaking out when told to be quiet; the hope worth changing his entire life.
3. Paul connects this hope with the hope the Israelites had in God.
4. The hope that Paul now sees most fully in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
5. the hope that Paul has to share, even if it gets him in trouble because the world needs hope that is only found in the power of God to resurrect.
b. NT Wright: The deepest meanings of the resurrection have to do with new creation. …it was, therefore, the sign of hope for the future, not only for individuals but for the whole world.” (The Meaning few Jesus: Two Visions, Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright, 125-126)
1. hope tied to new creation.
2. Creative spirit tied to hope.
3. Hope grounded in resurrection opens the imagination to see new possibilities.
4. When we claim the hope that God is at work doing a new thing, it invites us to imagine a world beyond whatever it is that brings us down in the present:
imagine a world without a pandemic;
imagine a world without racial injustice
imagine a world without violence and hatred.
then look at how God is working through us to make things new.
c. Church’s role
1. Proclaim resurrection.
2. Stand in the muck and point to the God who is still at work.
‘
3. Point to where God’s power to resurrect is at work.
.
4. Several years ago around Easter time, the movie Risen was released.
as you may remember the movie follows a Roman centurion, Pontius Pilate's right-hand man, as he sees the crucifixion and then leads the investigation into what happened to the body of Christ after the tomb is discovered to be empty.
Late in the movie the Roman centurion who is tracking down the disciples has joined them on the beach at the Sea of Galilee where the resurrected Christ finds them (the movie seems to be following the Gospel of John at this point).
The camera moves away from the disciples and reveals a man with leprosy being discarded on the ground, banished from being around anyone.
As this is happening, the centurion has a has a conversation with one of the disciples.
“Did you know Jesus was going to be raised from the dead?.”
“he had told us, but we doubted.”
“Why then do you believe?”
“Watch this,” the disciple responds, and they watch as Jesus heals a man who had been isolated and ostracized for his leprosy.
The miraculous sign was more than the healing in the moment – it was the reason for disciples to have hope - the God of resurrection is still at work. t
conclusion: Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember (San Franciso: Harper and Row, 1984), 32-33. as referenced by Ted Wardlaw in Journal of Preachers, “Preaching Hope in a Time of Discouragement,” Volume XXXVII, Number 4, Pentecost (10): Buechner imagines a church where he preached as people who were not changed much at all, but: yet they keep on coming anyway, and beneath all the lesser reasons they had for doing so, so far beneath that they themselves were only half aware of it., I think there was a deep reason, and if I could give on one word to characterize that reason, the world I would give is hope.
They came here...to get married and stood here with their hearts in their mouths and their knees knocking to mumble their wild and improbable vows in these very shadows.
They came to christen their babies here – carried them in their long white dresses hoping they wouldn't scream bloody murder when the minister took them in his arms and signed their foreheads with a watery cross.
They came here to bury their dead, and brought in, along with the still finished bodies, all the most un-still, unfinished love, guilt, sadness, relief, that are part of what death always is for the living,
In other words, what they were doing essentially beneath this roof was offering up the most precious moments of their lives in the hope that there was a God with them.
That God would take them and do a new thing.
the hope that God who raised the dead will lift them up.
Will lift us up. Amen.
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