(part of the “Waiting on the World to Change” Advent Series)

Romans 15:4-13 (Advent 2A)

⁴For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

⁵May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, ⁶so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁷Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. ⁸For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, ⁹and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name”; ¹⁰and again he says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people”; ¹¹and again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him”; ¹²and again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.”

¹³May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, we’re still here even as we journey through this Advent season.  We’re still here waiting on the world to change.  But bad news keeps coming.  People keep hurting each other and taking from each other and not listening to each other.  We keep destroying each other.  And, yes, we keep trying to find the things that need to be changed.  We keep waiting for that change.  And then Paul tells us to abound in hope.  Sure, we’ll get right on that!

Hope is one of those words that we throw around a lot.  “Hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness.”  Just have hope.  Always have hope.  But what is it?  We seldom talk about WHAT it is; we just say that we’re supposed to have it. So, we hope against hope that things will change.  (And, I guess, we hope against hope that we’ll have hope, whatever that may be.)

Paul frames this passage around what he sees sparks hope.  Our hope, according to him, begins in the past.  It begins with what is written in the Scriptures, the stories, the history, the acts of faith.  OK, I guess that’s a good enough beginning but it still doesn’t really tell us what it is.  I mean, it would be really easy if hope came in some sort of ancient bottle that Barbara Eden would come out of in a cloud of pink smoke in a genie costume and grant our every wish.  No, wait, that’s wishing.  That’s not hope.  Maybe it’s what we imagine for the future, the “perfect future” that is in our dreams.  No, that’s dreaming.  That’s not hope.  Emily Dickinson said that “hope is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all—”  (Pretty, but is it helpful?  I mean, it sounds like it’s going to fly away at any moment.) Dante wrote of hell as the abandonment of hope. (Well, that’s dark!) William Sloane Coffin said that “if faith puts us on the road, hope keeps us there.” (Closer…)

The truth is, hope is not just wishing that things would change.  Hope has to do with rising to the challenge before us.  Hope is participation in God’s work.  Hope means saying “yes” to going forward, abounding, as Paul said, in hope by the power of the holy spirit.  Soren Kirkegaard defines hope as the “passion for the possible”.  That passion is what prompts us to hope not for things to be “fixed”, not for things to be easier, certainly not for some sort of lost Garden of Eden in our lives when we remember that things were better.  Hope opens the door to what’s ahead and pulls us toward it, pulls us into it.

In a 2008 interview with Matthew Felling of WMAU radio in Washington, D.C., Dr. Gordon Livingston said that the greatest enemy of hope is nostalgia.  He said that “it tricks people into believing that their best days are past.”  (Which is why, I guess, there are so many people right now that dream of returning to what was and, dare I say, what will never be again.)  He went on to say that “A more realistic view of history envisions the past as a theater of experience, some good and some bad, and opens up the possibility of growth and change. Our best days are ahead, not behind. Hope for the future.” I think that’s what Paul was trying to say.  Hope is here, here for the taking.  It is grounded in the past, in what we know. But hope is what goes forward.  Hope is what makes us keep walking.  Hope is what allows our faith to become realistic, gives us something to grab hold of.  Hope is what enables us to look up and see what is just ahead.  Abound in hope.

Hope holds with it the promise that God always answers our questions by showing up, not necessarily with what we ask for but with remarkable gifts that change our lives and the world. (Mary Lou Redding)

Grace and Peace,

Shelli