Weekly Sermon

"Hoping Against Hope" : March 16, 2003

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Romans 4:13-14, 18-22

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. Hoping against hope, Abraham believed that he would become "the father of many nations," according to what was said, "So numerous shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness." Prayer: Lord God, our hope is founded on our faith in our Savior Jesus Christ. Through this passage, may our faith grow stronger and our hope greater. Amen. We are living in dramatic times - times when a great many people feel hopeless. I myself have struggled with a sense of hopelessness this past week. Part of it is the situation in Iraq. Everyone has strong opinions about it and everyone seems opposed to everyone else's view. But my feeling hopeless this week was more than that. I was feeling hopeless because it's now been six months since we've heard a word from my daughter or my grandsons. Tomas seems close to giving up on ever seeing them again. So this past week there were moments when I despaired of seeing them again, myself. That felt hopeless to me. Because of the international situation, my personal grief, and the many friends among us who are facing illness, grieving losses, and worrying about jobs and money, things can look bleak. It can seem overwhelming. There is always that question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" When I was in New Jersey, the director of the church nursery school was a parishioner and a friend. One day as we were standing together at the copy machine I was bemoaning the fact that so many good people were getting sick and having problems. I said something like, "It sometimes seems like the worst things happen to all the good people." She gave me a gentle smile and said, "You know my husband is the chief surgeon at Overlook Hospital. I can assure you that bad things are happening to bad people at the same rate." In a few well-chosen words, she reminded me that God has never promised us a life free of strife and difficulties. What God does promise is to be there with us through it all. And we believe it, hoping against hope. Good and bad people struggle to hold on to hope, but in Christ we have the eternal reason to hope against hope. Cornel West put it well when he said, "As a Christian, I am a prisoner of hope." [Cornel West, The Other Side, July & August, 1998] Reverend Peter Gomes writes, "Hope does not deny the circumstances of the present, and hope doesn't help us get out of our difficulties. Hope doesn't get us out, but it does get us through." [Peter J. Gomes, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart (New York: Avon Books, 1996), 205] The loss of hope in the face of downfalls and disappointments is a sure spiritual sign that we are relying on our own strength and accomplishments and not on God's strength and providence. "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 31:8) It is very important to keep our perspective. Once, in his very early days in Africa, Albert Schweitzer was talking with a European guest about a cannibal tribe living close by. "Aren't you afraid that you might end up in a cannibal's pot?" the visitor asked. "If I do," Dr. Schweitzer said, "I hope they will say, 'Dr. Schweitzer was good to the end.'" [George N. Marshall and David Poling, Schweitzer (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971), 174] What did Paul write about hope? First, he says that Abraham was a good role model for hope. He believed in God's promise despite evidence to the contrary. Now I would take issue with Paul's statement that Abraham never weakened. We have the story right in Genesis, and there were several times when Abraham questioned God about the plan for him and Sarah to have a baby, but God reassured him and Abraham was strengthened in faith. I'm convinced that it is not our faith that pulls us through, but God's faith. God believes in us even when all the evidence says we're in a hopeless situation. William Barclay includes a charming story about this idea. "Saint Theresa set out to build a convent with a sum the equivalent of twelve pence as her complete resources. Someone said to her, 'Not even Saint Theresa can accomplish much with twelve pence.' 'True,' she said, 'but Saint Theresa and twelve pence and God can do anything.'" We must not give up hope. [William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1875), 71] According to Dante, written over the gates of hell are the words: Abandon Hope, You Who Enter. Newspapers and the evening news show us the gates of hell every night - we are tempted to abandon hope every time we enter the world: We had hoped…that everyone would survive. We had hoped…that the economy would come back. We had hoped…that there would be peace. And on the personal side: We had hoped…that the tests would be negative. We had hoped…that the results would be positive. We had hoped…that he would stop drinking. We had hoped…that she would call. We had hoped…that… Abraham had hoped…that the child would be born years earlier. We must not abandon hope for when we abandon hope, we separate ourselves from God and we enter the gates of hell. Which leads to the second observation I would like to make about Abraham. Did you notice the sentence "Faith was reckoned to him as righteousness." You may have wondered what that means. In the simplest sense, it means that Abraham's faith in God put him in right relationship with God. Holding on to hope puts us in right relationship with God. God is relational. Faith is relational. Our relationship with God cannot be separated from our relationships with each other. I remember a powerful story that made the national news. In 1992, Michael Weisser, the cantor at his Lincoln, Nebraska, synagogue, hoped against hope. He found himself the target of interest of the local Klan Grand Dragon, Larry Trapp. It seems Trapp took it upon himself to harass, intimidate and threaten Weisser with the ultimate goal of driving him out of town. When the chilling, late-night phone calls and the hate mail began to bombard Weisser, he knew where it was coming from and he was afraid. Yet, his response spoke of hope, not hate and fear. Weisser called his tormentor back and got his answering machine. After listening to its pre-recorded anti-Semitic diatribe, he calmly offered to take Trapp, who was confined to a wheel chair, out to the grocery store. For weeks Weisser kept at it, leaving recorded messages of offered help for the Grand Dragon. Finally, Klansman Trapp called him back, complaining, "What do you want? You're harassing me." But Trapp soon called Weisser with another question; he confessed, "I want to get out of this and I don't know how." Weisser immediately responded, "I'll bring dinner and we'll talk." His wife brought along a silver ring as a peace offering. When they met face-to-face, the Klansman and the cantor, Larry Trapp burst into tears. Eventually Trapp moved in with the Weissers, who cared for him as his health declined and he died. (reported in Time, 2 February 1992 and later on National Public Radio) The second point is that strong relationships with God and our neighbor foster hope. The final point is that life is filled with both good and bad things, but it is well to remember that our Savior did his best work under the worst conditions. After entering Jerusalem, Jesus gathered his disciples for one last meal together. There he revealed to them, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me" (Matthew 26:21). Then, with full knowledge of the weaknesses and treachery lurking at their table, "Jesus took…bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat, this is my body'" (Matthew 26:26). On the night when all the very worst of their fears came true, Jesus gave his disciples (and all of us) the best of himself. This is the promise of the gospel. All of us, even and especially at our very worst, are promised that God can do with us the best. It is that promise that enables us to live on in faith continually "hoping against hope." Throughout history the worst has repeatedly produced the best: Lying on his back, his "canvas" curving overhead, Michelangelo produced the glory of the Sistine Chapel. Stone-deaf Beethoven composed music so moving that it brought audiences to tears. Feeling called to give back some of the many gifts he had been given, Albert Schweitzer took his considerable talents to a tiny, isolated mission in Africa and stayed on, even in the middle of war, and among cannibals. The Salvation Army intentionally targeted the very worst in society as their concern. Choosing the very worst slums of Calcutta for her mission, Mother Teresa's order now reaches millions as a witness for Christ's love and compassion. The Good News of the gospel is this: The best has come, the best is with us now, and the best is yet to come. Our hopes are based on the best of Christ transforming the worst situations.