What is Grace?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 26th 2006

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“What is Grace?”
Ephesians 2:1-10

Of all the sermons I have ever prepared to deliver this sermon on grace is one of the most difficult. How is that for ironic? Grace, a cornerstone of our faith, had become too difficult to preach. If anything, grace should be the easiest. After all, the simple truth is that grace is all about God’s love for us. And, God’s love cannot be earned - it is freely given. So what is so difficult about this? Despite knowing all this and more, I have this gnawing feeling that all is not well with our understanding of grace.
In order to deal with this feeling, I decided not to deal with the feeling and looked for an answer in a book. I then returned to my seminary class notes and worked my way back through many of the required reading lists. This exercise did little to deal with that gnawing feeling. However, it did convince me that we ought to spend a few moments dissecting the famous reformed declaration that “we are justified by grace through faith.”
To be justified means that we are no longer alienated from God and one another. This takes place, as we understand it, through the actions of God and not the actions of human beings. However, this doctrine has been grossly misinterpreted. It been used to paint God as angry and ‘out to get us.’ So, it follows that, the only way to be saved from God’s anger is to be justified. This action of justification then happens when God sacrificed Jesus. In other words, our lives are spared through the process of divine child abuse. This line of reason, or lack thereof, has taken an important truth and so distorted it, that it may be beyond redemption. However, I believe there is something of value worth reclaiming.
The idea that justification of human beings is necessary has nothing to do with quenching God’s thirst for vengance. The idea that justification of human beings is necessary is built upon the premise that human beings are sinful. Sin is not something that most of us like to talk about. After all, we generally like to think we are nice people, prone to mistakes but sin just overstates the case. However, our discomfort with sin, I believe, has more to do with a limited understanding of sin.
There is no doubt that sin involves those actions for which we are personally responsible. However sin also includes more than just our personal actions. Sin is about our state of being. In order to better grasp this concept we need to spend a few moments unpacking the reality of Sin.
Sin as a state of being can best be understood as encompassing three concepts. 1) Alienation from God and from one another. 2) Anxiety as the basis for human existence, and 3) Contempt for God and neighbor. By taking each one of these concepts and connecting them with real world examples we may reach a better understanding of how sin is at work in the world. The following examples are not perfect but do provide a starting point for better understanding. And most importantly it may help our own discernment and work in the world.
1) Alienation from God and one another: I believe that alienation from one another is a symptom of our alienation from God. When we are alienated, estranged or are too much distance from other people we are no longer in relationship. When this happens it becomes quite easy to demonize them. A good example of this is the use of the term “welfare mother.” This racially coded language has allowed large numbers of people unaware of the realities of trying to live at or below the poverty line to assume that everyone on welfare is black and ‘cheating the system.’ The distance from or alienation from the growing numbers of poor people in our society allows more comfortable folks to feel better when we make decisions which will harm the most vulnerable in society. This one example of alienation not only allows for the continuation of coded racist language to affect national politics it also makes life more difficult for the those at the bottom of the economic ladder. This ongoing situation, while bigger than our individual actions, is known theologically as sin.
2) Anxiety as the basis for human existence: Living in a “post 9/11” makes it easier to talk about anxiety. Living with the constant reminders that we are at war and could be attacked at any minute feeds our already anxious existence. Most promises to trust our authorities figures, who know best seem to do little to curb the anxious lives we live. Instead, our anxiety has actually brought to the surface some of the worst in human behavior. Anxiety has allowed our society to find ways to makes excuses for the dehumanizing practice of torture with the belief it will make the world a safer place. While there may be well developed rationale for this common practice, it is known theologically as sin.
3) Contempt for God and neighbor: Contempt for God is most evident in our treatment of neighbor. This sort of contempt can take all sorts of forms. The key is to figure out who is our neighbor. Fortunately, Jesus answered this question fairly clearly… All people are our neighbors. So, if all people are our neighbors then this actually includes some folks we may not like. The hard reality is that the contempt we feel towards our enemies is really contempt for God. Despite the teachings of Jesus this sort of talk is usually dismissed as not dealing with the “real world.” Yet, despite the debates about ‘real world’ issues simply obscures the fact that it is theologically known as sin. These very few examples show the pervasive nature of sin in our world.
Faced with these realities it can seem rather disheartening. If we are really part of this world of sin what shall we do? Fortunately, we have this little doctrine know as grace which means even if we are directly responsible for the few sins mentioned above we do not have to worry. We simply have to believe and all is well. So as a result nothing has to change. So sin boldly, in the words of Luther, and then just believe you are saved and your actions do not matter.
If you are anything like me there is something deeply troubling about all of this. This is precisely where my deep uneasiness about the doctrine of grace is most powerfully known. Fortunately, we are not alone. There is at least one reformed theologian who was troubled in the same way. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
In his book Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer struggles with the doctrine of grace. Concerned about the misuse of this doctrine, he said that when grace becomes only “a doctrine, a principle, a system’… or “an intellectual assent” or “(when) grace alone does everything…so everything can remain as it was before” we are no longer talking about the grace of God. Bonhoeffer called this distortion of grace, cheap grace.
This sort of grace, cheap grace, makes no claims upon ones life. In other words, it is the sort of grace which causes us to make no changes as a result of Jesus’ life. Cheap grace has no need for disciples and never asks for any repentance. God has done everything so no changes are needed only that we believe it to be true. To emphasize this point Bonhoeffer adds this confession: “We confess that, although our Church is orthodox as far as her doctrine of grace is concerned, we are no longer sure that we are members of a Church which follows its Lord.”
For Bonhoeffer, grace demands discipleship. It is the belief that an encounter with grace would compel you to abandon all and follow Jesus. During his life, Jesus invited many people to leave everything and follow. The earliest disciples were the ones who sought each day to practice the call to follow Jesus. Bonhoeffer went so far as to say that: “the only person who has the right to say they are justified by grace is the one who has left all to follow (Jesus).”
While this may sound like Bonhoeffer was a proponent of works righteousness it would be a misunderstanding of his message. This call to Discipleship was nothing more than a response to grace not as a way for one to earn grace. For Bonhoeffer the simple truth was that Jesus’ love changed things. His concern is that the church was no longer practicing or preaching this simple message. It is true that one cannot have an encounter with the embodiment of God’s grace and live life in the same way again.
It is true that God loves all people. We believe that God’s grace is abundant. The difficulty comes with the messengers. If the bearers of this great good news use it simply as a ‘get out of hell’ free card and do not seek to live differently then the rest of the world addicted to violence and death, where is the good news? In what way does this give witness to the grace of God?
These questions and challenges are not meant to place guilt upon anyone. Instead it is a call for us all to look closely at our lives and our confessional statements and see if we are seeking to live out our beliefs. If we believe in the radically inclusive grace and love of God, then our lives should reflect this. May God grant us the grace, as individuals and as a community, to be living witnesses to this truth. Amen.

What is Wisdom?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 19th 2006

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“What is Wisdom?”
I Corinthians 1:10-31

There was a fight in the church. That was nothing new for Paul as each of his writings deal with the many struggles in early Christian communities. So the Corinthian church was not that unusual. This time, the community has broken into factions which claim loyalty to different leaders. Some claim to follow Apollos, some follow Cephas, and others even claim Paul. It was such a serious issue that Paul begins his letter by addressing that struggle.
This ancient struggle is amazingly relevant. We live in an age where charismatic leaders often lead the largest churches. In fact, the effectiveness of many pastors is often judged on the number of members in the congregation. Many of the largest churches in our denomination and our country are often known by who is the pastor. And in the early church, if anyone had bragging rights about church growth and church development it is Paul. However, when given the opportunity to brag about his accomplishments, he does something rather amazing.
In his letter, Paul says nothing about the other leaders or the arguments which have caused these divisions. Paul does not even take the opportunity to make himself look good. Instead he reminds us that there is no room for pride and arrogance in Christian community. Paul makes it clear that the effectiveness of a community has nothing to do with the strength, wisdom, or even the charisma of its leaders. Instead, the effectiveness of the community has everything to do with the cross of Christ.
This week I heard that a church in Town and Country is struggling with the city council. The issue is centered on the church’s wish to build a hundred and twenty foot cross in their front yard. Eventually the church offered to make a concession and reduced the height of the cross to only ninety-nine feet. I do not pretend to know all the details or reasons for this ongoing conflict. However, I am puzzled as to why the church has decided that now is the time to place a cross outside their church. I am equally puzzled as to why city council continues to change the rules for the church. In fact, I am not really all that interested in the details of the case at all. What drew my attention was something that a representative of the church said in a recent interview.
During the interview the representative said something that I found contained a great deal of wisdom. He said something to the effect of: The real problem is that those people are offended by the cross and they just will not admit it. The wisdom contained in this comment has little to do with the actual intent of his comment. That is because it become clear in the interview that the ‘they’ being referring to was: Jewish people, secular humanists, and liberals. Instead, where I heard the wisdom - the unintended wisdom of this statement - had to do with the offensiveness of the cross. If we can even begin to grasp the reality of the cross we all ought to be offended. I am not referring to a ninety-foot cross. I am talking about the reality embodied in the execution of Jesus upon the cross.
For Paul, for the followers of Jesus Christ, the center of our faith is built on the foundation of the cross. Unfortunately, many have misinterpreted this event. The result of that misinterpretation is that we limit the event to personal guilt and piety or we simply believe it has no place in our faith at all. For far too long the cross has been used to teach that God is angry and ‘out to get us.’ As a result God’s blood thirst can only be quenched through the execution of Jesus. In this interpretation we, who are guilty, are made innocent through the execution of one who was innocent. This unfortunate and enduring misinterpretation misses the core of the story.
Some interpretations of the cross have reduced the event to be one of personal and individual significance. However, when the cross becomes just a ‘get out of hell free card,’ it obscures the larger significance. If, we believe that Jesus is Lord then it means that there is no area of life which is excluded. Which means, simply put, that the cross is bigger than ‘me and Jesus.’ While this may seem like an exaggeration today, the early Christians clearly understood the implications that Jesus, the embodiment of God, had been executed by the world’s most powerful empire. Charles Campbell captures the essence of this when he says: “On the cross Jesus deals decisively with the large and powerful social realties- institutions, corporations, bureaucracies, ideologies, states, governments – that actively and aggressively shape our world and lives.”
The reality of the cross highlights how foolish the ways of God can seem to human beings. After all, we would prefer that God would act more like a superhero instead of submitting to public execution. It can seem quite foolish that God would risk becoming human. It simply makes no sense that Jesus was born at the margins of society and not into positions of power and privilege. However, this is exactly how God works. God deliberately identifies with the powerless.
Throughout his life, Jesus called people to live a new way. Jesus proclaimed the arrival of a new life-giving empire built on community and inclusion. He showed his followers in all ages how to resist the ways of the death-dealing empires in remarkable life-giving ways. Jesus was a revolutionary who rejected the ways of violence and warmly welcomed all people, including those in collusion with the empire. In the cross, Jesus shows, in no uncertain terms, that the purposes of God cannot be fulfilled through violent means. Jesus offered life, but chose death on a cross, rather than participate in the ways of empire.
The foolishness of the cross is the ridiculous notion that Jesus, the embodiment of God’s wisdom and love, would be crucified. On my weaker days, it would seem to be a lot more satisfying for Jesus to jump down off the cross and rain down fire on all the people who had abused him. Just imagine his reputation if he got even with each and every person who was responsible for his death? Or imagine the sort of hero he would have become if he proved his strength by destroying the Roman Empire. Now that is a story that would generate some box office appeal. However, God’s wisdom, God’s love, does not work that way.
Jesus invitation to follow is a summons to join in a life of resistance to the powers of sin and death. Henri Nouwen gives an important reminder about anyone attempting to live a life of resistance. He says: “Real resistance requires the humble confession that we are partners in the evil that we seek to resist.” Resistance, for Jesus, is not about labeling good and evil and simply trading violence for violence. Instead, it is a call to live humanely.
The reality of the cross is not that Jesus had to be punished for our personal sins. Instead, Jesus was executed because his invitation to this new way of life was so radically different, foolish, and even threatening to the existing order that capital punishment was the best we had to offer. Despite living two-thousand years after this event, our world continues its addiction to violence and death. The cross is offensive because it reminds us that we are complicit in the violence of our world.
We live in an age which has seen some amazing technological advances. However, we continue to use the best of our technology to devise more sophisticated ways to kill people. Today we are able to cure so many more diseases than ever before. Despite all the medical advances in our world there are many people who will die from basic curable diseases. We now have the ability to end extreme poverty in our world. (See Columbia University Economist Jeffery Sachs book The End of Poverty) Yet we simply do not have the will to do it. If the cross has nothing to say about these things then Jesus died for nothing.
I do not know about you, but I find much of this really overwhelming. The truth is that if we choose to stand up and follow Jesus, if we seek to live humanely in a world drunk on death and violence, there is a really good chance people will dismiss us as foolish. When we speak up for the way of the cross, we must expect opposition. It will not be uncommon to hear things like: ‘You are not living in the real world,’ or ‘things are never going to change.’ This may seem like the reality of our world however, it is not the reality of the cross.
It is true that despite our best efforts, we will run into walls. One cannot expect to resist our death dealing culture and not face challenges. But remember this: When we resist, when we seek to live humanely, there are times we will actually make changes in the world. However, more often than not, we will not see any tangible results from our actions. The reason we continue is not for the hope of results but instead we live this way because of our faith in Jesus Christ and our desire not to succumb to the ways of this world. What is wisdom? All I know is about the wisdom of the cross. It is a wisdom which ultimately is foolish in our world. It is my prayer that God will grant us the wisdom to be foolish in our resistance to the ways of violence and death. Amen.

What is Faith?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 5th 2006

Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“What is Faith?”
Romans 4

On her forty-ninth birthday, writer, and Presbyterian elder, Anne Lamont awoke in a rather foul mood. She was dismayed about the world around her. Just as Anne was contemplating ending her life by eating too much chocolate, she received a phone call from a spiritual advisor. After being wished a happy birthday, she responded by say: “How am I supposed to go on?” He could have said something like: “You just need a little faith?” Instead he invited her to receive grace when he suggested: “Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.”
Martin Luther was tormented by his need to ‘get right’ with God. He spent hours recounting all his thoughts and actions so he would not forget to confess each sin. His torment continued until he came to know God’s grace in Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is from Luther’s encounter with this letter which gave birth to one of the essential tenets of the Reformed faith. “We are saved by grace through faith.”
Contained in that very short sentence is actually three ‘doctrines of the church.’ The three are: salvation, grace and faith. Since we only have a few minutes together and because I do not want to risk putting all of you to sleep, we will only talk about one. What is faith?
Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome was part of the foundation for the protestant reformation. It was also instrumental in Karl Barth’s break with the liberal theology that dominated much of Europe following the First World War. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome has had tremendous impact on the development of the Reformed tradition. It would only make sense then, for us to look more closely at this letter as we seek to answer the question: “What is faith?”
PaulÂ’s letter to the Romans is unusual because unlike other letters, he had never visited this community. This was not a community which Paul had started. The letter to the Romans was penned in anticipation of an upcoming visit by Paul.
The followers of Jesus in Rome were a pretty diverse bunch. In the community there were folks from across the economic spectrum. Unlike other communities, it consisted of both Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. This was also a community where pluralism, as we call it today, was well known and accepted.
Unlike many other communities, the church in Rome was not at odds over the issue of circumcision. In other communities, known to Paul, there was always a struggle regarding traditional religious practices. Their basic question was: “Was it necessary to follow Jewish traditions in order to be a follower of Jesus.” The most prevalent issue was circumcision for men. While this may seem ridiculous to our modern ears, it threatened to tear the church apart. One way to understand the depth of the conflict would be to simply think about the struggle in our church regarding the full inclusion of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. The conflict was bitter.
Part of Paul’s objective in his letter is to explain and clarify a position he took in a previous letter. Earlier, in his letter to the church in Galatia, Paul says: ‘anyone who is circumcised has cut themselves off from Christ.’ This position would have been welcome news to the all gentile community in Galatia. However, this position is not one which would sit well with the Jewish Christians in Rome. Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, takes a more moderate position. If it is part of your custom then circumcision is fine but it has no bearing on salvation. No longer does Paul say circumcision is at odds with the Christian faith. Paul takes the circumcision of Abraham as a sign in much the same way we talk about baptism. Paul says that it is faith, not circumcision or ritual purity, which makes us right with God.
This doctrine of the reformed church is often shortened to the familiar: “We are saved by faith and not by works.” Unfortunately this ‘rallying cry’ has been used to often to feed anti-catholic bias. However, any use of this doctrine to challenge the salvation of our catholic brothers and sisters shows our ignorance of modern catholic theology. What began as a way of expressing our understanding of God’s grace became a tool for bigotry and ignorance. In spite of this reality it is a doctrine worth understanding and reclaiming in this community of faith.
There is another modern distortion of this doctrine which needs to be challenged. It is a misunderstanding which the early Reformers would challenge. The mistake is to turn faith into something we have to believe. Instead of trying to be good enough to earn GodÂ’s acceptance, we have to believe the right doctrines to earn GodÂ’s acceptance. This way of interpreting this doctrine is antithetical to the reformation and to the apostle Paul.
Theologian, and Presbyterian Minister, Robert MacAfee Brown said this: “The gospel does not say, ‘trust God and he will love you.’ it says ‘God already loves you, so trust him.” He gets to the heart of our belief that faith is not something we can will it is a gift from God.dependent a free gift that is in no way dependant upon us. So, if we really subscribe to this way of thinking, it would make sense to stop saying: “I just need more faith,” and instead say: “God grant me faith.”
This may seem like simple semantics but I believe it is so much more. I believe the assertion that faith is a gift from God can work as a necessary counteractive voice in our culture. After all, our value, in our society, is measured by how much we produce, how much we own, and how much we consume. The highest virtue in our time seems to be that of personal responsibility. It says: you are ultimately responsible for everything which happens to you. While this is the prevailing wind of our culture it is simply not that way things work with God. The old saying that God helps those who help themselves never appears in the bible. The God who gives faith as a gift is a God who helps the very people who cannot help themselves.
Faith is not about trying to earn God’s acceptance. It is, in the words of Paul Tillich, the realization that: “You are accepted… by a power that is greater than you.” Faith is a gift which is meant to free us from anxiety. It frees us from the belief that we are responsible to make ourselves ‘right’ with God. However, most importantly it frees us from being so selfish. It frees us from being so self-centered and narcissistic. And, with this freedom from anxiety we are to live our lives in the service dependent world.
If being made right with God was dependant upon using the right words, or believing the correct doctrine or making a decision then we would have control over God. As our tradition teaches, God is the author and sustainer of our faith. In other words, it is a gift, not dependent upon fickle and unpredictable human beings. Faith, simply put, is our way of acknowledging, receiving, enjoying and returning the love of God.
In our world there is much to be anxious about. We worry about making ends meet. We worry about changing financial markets and how the money will last until the end of the month. We worry about being loved. We worry about war and now we can worry about the ever spreading bird flu. We are a worrying people. However, the good news is that we have no need to worry about the love of God. We do not have to earn it; we do not have to prove ourselves worthy. We are simply called to give thanks for the gift of faith. Faith has the power to set us free from our anxious, self-centered existence and move us to give our lives to the service of GodÂ’s world. May God grant us the faith which can move the mountains of anxiety, and will compel us to serve GodÂ’s world. Amen.

What is Hope?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
March 5th 2006
Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“What is Hope?”
I Peter 3:8-22

Doing a sermon series on the doctrines of the church can be a dangerous exercise. If one is hoping to encourage increased worship participation this is probably the wrong way to accomplish such a task. In our culture, particularly in the churches, one way to loose people’s attention is to say the word theology or doctrine. I am either foolish or naive because that is precisely what I plan on doing during lent. When the church in North America continues to be seen as irrelevant by much of our culture we only feed this notion by our own inability to easily articulate what we believe. That is why it is worth our time to understand, to reclaim, and to even redefine and re-imagine what the foundations of our faith might have to say about our lives today.
In our scripture lesson this morning the writer of Peter’s letter has a tremendous amount of information to share. Only a brief reading of this letter makes it clear that the recipients of this letter were facing some pretty difficult circumstances. The suffering of that community is evidenced in nearly every verse of the letter. The goal of the writer is to encourage the hearers so they will not loose hope when faced with the persecution to come.
This letter serves to remind those who are suffering that they have not been forsaken by God. It is also a way of helping the believers stand strong in the midst of a rather chaotic world. This is nowhere more evident than in the passage from our reading which tells the hearers to be ready to give an account for the hope they have. Hope in the midst of chaos, hope in the midst of suffering, hope in the midst of injustice, hope in the midst of oppression, hope built on the foundation of Jesus. This is the core message of the letter of Peter.
At this point I find it necessary to point out and explain that I have never preached from this letter before. It has less to do with the letter itself and more to do with the ways in which this letter has been used by the church. Here are just a few of the reasons: “Slaves, accept the authority of your masters…Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your husband… For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps... When he was abused, he did not return abuse.” As you might imagine, this book was a particular favorite of our slave-holding Presbyterian forefathers.
Fortunately we now understand that these passages were written for a particular place and time and not God’s approval for the institution of slavery. While it would be logical to do the same with the passage about wives, since they are tied together, there seems to be some confusion on this point. Since it is part of this letter it must be said, from the pulpit, that abuse of women is not biblically justified. Jesus suffering does not justify violence against women or anyone for that matter. And, any justification or belief about the subservience of women, found in this passage, is nothing more than an acceptance of the justification for slavery. This letter of Peter was written by and for people who were powerless. It was never intended as a tool for social control. Instead, it was intended to uplift and remind the hearers of the hope found in Jesus.
The hope mentioned in this letter, and other places in the bible, have become the foundation for the understanding of Christian Hope. To gain a better understanding of Christian hope we must say something about what it is not. Christian hope is not built upon any current social hope. It does not take its direction from the leading economic indicators. Despite some confusion on this next point it is not one and the same with the ‘American Dream.’ Christian hope is not built upon human progress or even our ever expanding and innovative technological society.
Contrary to some modern teaching, Christian hope is not passive. It does not teach us to look at everything that is wrong in our world, throw our hands up in the air and simply wait for life after death. This is not Christian hope at all. This sort of confusion about Christian hope is precisely the reason why Karl Marx called religion the: ‘narcotic for the masses.’ Instead, Christian hope or eschatology as it is known in theological jargon is so much more. Christian hope says that the church cannot accept the present reality of things as God’s intention for the world. It means, in the words of James Cone, “To believe in heaven is to refuse to accept hell on earth.”
If we are honest with one another, there are not many places in our world today where one can find hope. This lack of hope leads to a despair. The despair in our society is almost palatable. It manifests itself in a myriad of ways. Is it any wonder why so many people are looking for an escape when faced with the despair all around us? Instead of dealing with this reality we find it easier to escape through sports and recreation, through drugs, alcohol, sex and yes, even religious activity.
Unfortunately the avenues of escape no longer provide the haven they once did. We find ourselves living in a society where no one feels safe. An unfortunate consequence of all of this is that basic concern for other people can be seen as archaic, idealistic, foolish or worse yet, liberal. This lack of security built on despair rooted in hopelessness is not something which any politician or political party can address no matter how many promises they make. This is why a word about Christian hope is so desperately needed.
The reality of Christian hope says that despite the despair around us, we cannot disengage or join in the despair. However, if we plan to stay engaged, if we plan to follow the example of Jesus, we must get connected with the rich resources of Christian hope. One of the ways we do this is when we gather in this place each week. The practice of gathering helps us to remember that; God has and does act in history. Each week when we pray, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we are issuing an indictment of our world. Unfortunately because of the churches identification with the existing order, we have often missed this radical statement. And worse yet when we are asked, “How do you go on when everything is so wrong?” too often the best we have had to offer is some trite sayings or a misplaced hope in life only after death.
The words from this letter of Peter remind us that we do have a message of hope for the world which is so much more than a narcotic. Theologian Douglas John Hall says this about hope: “Christian hope heightens our awareness of what is wrong with the world… (It) gives us courage to live in the world.” Christian hope is not about understanding correct doctrine but about lifestyle. Christian hope is about our posture in the world. It is the way in which we witness to the hope we have found in Jesus. One of the best explanations of this I have ever heard comes from Cornell West. He calls this posture toward life a tragicomic sensibility. He says: “It is the ability to laugh and retain a sense of life’s joy – to preserve hope even while standing in the face of hate and hypocrisy.” This is indeed a tall order. In fact, it is too much to ask any one person to do on their own. Fortunately that is not the way of Christian hope.
We need one another. This is why we gather on this day to remember and renew the hope which is the ground of our faith. Despite some really rough times, we know hope that will lead us to act despite current realities. Christian hope, in the words of South African Theologian H. Russell Botman: “Tell(s) the story of God acting in history and what it means to us.” Today at this table and at that font, we have had visible reminders that we are called to be living witnesses prepared to explain the hope that sustains us. It is a message the world is dying to know and see lived out. – may we have the strength to do both. Amen.