FORMULA FOR HOPE
John 16:12-15; Romans 5:1-5
…we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.
Let’s turn verses 3-4 around—invert them. I think it would go something like this: We are never disappointed in our lives because we have hope, hope comes from character, and character comes from endurance and endurance’s builder is suffering. We can boast in our sufferings because we know the future that is ours because Christ in his ultimate sacrifice has made us right with God.
Disappointed may be too soft a word here for our generation. In the original text and context, the Greek actually means "disgrace" or "put to shame." Try reading verse 3 that way: We are never disgraced (or put to shame) in our lives because we have hope….
I don’t know about you, but when I am disappointed or disgraced or shamed, hope is usually not the first word that comes to my mind; yet, I want it to be! And when I experience disappointment, disgrace or shame, boasting in my sufferings is not my first inclination either. What about you? How much more palatable it is to deflect the shame and send the blame onto someone or something else; how tempting it is to race from disgrace and avoid all contact with the original source of the suffering.
To deflect, blame or avoid the person, the place or the source of the problem will not sustain us for the long haul; but hope, hope in God, can and will get us through anything we have to face. Let me ask you, Where is your hope this morning? Do you have it with you or did you leave it at home? Do you find hope in something like your house or your investments? Do you experience hope when you attain a goal you’ve always wanted to reach or when you see your child or grandchild succeed scholastically, artistically, or athletically? It is true: such experiences can give us a real rush, but they only make us happy. What we really need in our life is hope!
One of the signs of success from the era in which I came of age was to own one’s own home. So, when I bought my home, I felt proud, successful; I was Mary-Tyler-Moore-spin-around-and-throw-your-hat-in-the-air kind of happy. And now, seven years later, as $10K a year is still going into the bank’s account instead of my own equity, I have to acknowledge that this symbol of success is also a source of suffering.
The director of a medical clinic told about a terminally ill young man who came in for his usual treatment. A new doctor on duty that day said to the man, "You know, don’t you, that you won’t live out the year?" As the young man left, he stopped by the director’s office and wept. "That doctor took away my hope," he sobbed. "I guess he did," replied the director, "Maybe it’s time to find a new one."1
1 Our Daily Bread, December 19, 1996. Upper Room Publishers.
It appears to me that we, this community, need to find a new kind of hope, also. Churches get confused so easily about hope. Typically, a congregation places its faith in a strong and well-kept building, a balanced budget, a famous church supper, and even a great Sunday school curriculum for its children, yet that same congregation is much more likely perceiving its success through a Saturday- Night-Fever mindset (you know, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive, ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Stayin’ alive, yeah!).
Like the terminally ill young man, congregations can place their hope for survival in short-lived substitutes for hope. The real hope, the only kind of hope worth seeking after, worth stretching toward, and worth hanging onto for dear life is the hope that comes in God.
God created us, gathers us, provides for us, and is with us because God loves us. Do you believe that God loves you, really loves you? I know that God loves us because God gave over his son to reconcile the world to himself. Jesus willingly, lovingly, took our sin upon himself and obliterated it on the bloody beams of the cross. God through Jesus has done this amazing, unimaginable, love-beyond-compare thing for me, for you, for us, and so I bow before that amazing grace and seek to keep my hope in God alone.
So, how do we do that—keep our hope in God alone, not falling back to the old patterns of wise investments, balanced budgets and the like? God has given us the formula for hope within God’s self, the Trinity. The church’s complex doctrine of the Trinity states comes down to this: there is one God in whom there are three "persons" who share one "substance." The three persons are named Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the one substance is called God. Where’s my "easy button"?
The formula for hope is not contained in the diagram of three persons sharing one substance. What we really need to know deep down in our hearts and minds is that our God is in three persons to provide all that we need to live as purposefully and creatively as God designed us to live. Yet life is not without its pain; in the midst of our disappointments and fears, and particularly in episodes of shame and confusion, we can’t reach for the easy button, we have to reach for God.
Think about the letter "H"… the two vertical lines. One line represents God. God loves us at all times; everything that God does is because God loves us. The second vertical line represents the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s job is to guide us and teach us and fill us with the power and grace of God’s love. When we feel the Holy Spirit alive and kicking inside us and among us, great things for God start to happen—that’s the glory piece. If God is the love, then the Spirit is the power. So where does that leave Jesus in this formula for Hope?
The short horizontal bar represents Jesus. He is the bridge between God and the Holy Spirit. He joins the expanse between earth and heaven by his reconciling work on the cross and thereby creates the peace which surpasses all understand. Peace from the Son connects the love and the power of God and the Holy Spirit. Without Jesus, we have no direct connection to God. Without that connection, there is no reason for our hope, no promise of peace, no gift of grace.
People cannot live without hope. Throughout history, human beings have endured the loss of many things. People have lost their health, their finances, their reputations, their careers, even their loved ones, and yet have endured. The pages of history books are filled with those who suffered pain, rejection, isolation, persecution and abuse; there have been people who faced concentration camps with unbroken spirits and unbowed heads, people who have been devastated by Job-like trials and yet found the strength to go on without cursing God and dying. Humans can survive the loss of almost anything – but not without hope.2
2 KenBoa.org. "People Cannot Live without Hope" June 24, 2010.
Hope in God is the only true means we have to rely on when trials come—and they do come, don’t they? Yet because we have a triune God of love, power and peace, we should catch ourselves when we behave as others do who have no hope. We can, instead, boast in our sufferings.
We can face the difficulties and burdens of our lives because hope makes it possible for us to understand complicated things, like the Trinity. The formula for hope, however, is not at all complicated. Inverted, converted, reverted or perverted, Paul explained it best: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Friends we have all we need to succeed in stayin’ alive in the church, the body of Christ. The only thing left to do now is to get out there, spin around, throw your troubles in the air, and boast, boast, boast cause your livin’ with hope, livin’ with hope! Amen.
May 26, 2013/First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick/The Rev Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
