"In Defense of Hope"  San Williams, UPC

1 Peter 3:13-22

Paul declares in I Corinthians that there are three enduring Christian virtues—faith, hope and love—and that the greatest of these is love.  While we surely agree that the greatest of these is love, might we not also agree that the hardest of these is hope?  By hope, I mean Biblical hope:  hope for a new creation—one that is peaceable, just, and ecologically sound; hope that wars will cease to the ends of the earth, and that all nations and peoples will join together as one reconciled family.  I have in mind the hope that Jesus instilled in his disciples when he taught them to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Yet how can we possibly defend such a hope against so much evidence to the contrary?  Well, our reading today asks us to do this very thing:  “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”    Faith, hope and love abide:  these three, and the hardest of these is hope.

Hope was surely hard for the Christians to whom the letter of I Peter was first addressed.  These fledgling Christian communities had been encouraged to live just and peaceable lives, to turn away from evil, do good, and seek peace.  Yet the more they tried to be good, the more they seemed to suffer at the hands of their neighbors.  Doors of businesses slammed in their faces.  Window shades of neighbors' houses pulled shut as they walked by.  People whispered behind their backs, calling them “atheists” because these Christians didn’t believe in, or worship, the array of Roman gods.  The hard truth was that their Christian faith had made them outcasts who were subject to social and economic hardship. How could they sustain hope in the face of so much suffering? 

Well, the letter of first Peter was written to address this very question.  These Christians are told, in essence; Do not be dismayed, disillusioned or intimidated when you are made to suffer for doing what is right.  Christ also suffered, so “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.”   What does that mean but that we have a God who suffers with us?  Never despair, or give up to your suffering, the Christians are told, because the suffering, crucified Christ is also the risen Christ.  Easter means that Love has truly conquered hate.  Life has overcome death. Easter means that God is faithful and “Nothing is impossible with God.”   Some students of I Peter believe that the letter may have been intended as a Good Friday or Easter homily because of its focus on the theme of suffering.  Possibly.  What we know for sure is that the letter is addressed to anxious believers who live in a hostile society and who are hungry for a word of explanation, of encouragement, of hope. The writer’s best response is to point them to the cross and the empty tomb.

Now of course, our situation differs substantially from those Christians who first read this letter.  Our struggle to hope doesn’t arise primarily from an experience of social isolation and harassment, as did theirs. Our struggle to hope more commonly arises from a sense of futility. We are a prosperous people, but we are also an anxious people. Twenty-eight years ago, in his book Theology of Hope, German theologian Jurgen Moltman wrote a message that sounds even more urgent today:  “As long as our future drives other people to despair, as long as our prosperity means poverty for others, as long as our growth destroys nature, anxiety, not hope, will our daily companion.”  Without doubt our situation is significantly changed from that of the first century church, but what hasn’t changed is that the basis of our hope remains the Easter cry, “He is risen.”  Christian hope is based on a God who is faithful and for whom nothing is impossible. 

In his reflections on Christian hope, Augustine wrote that hope has two lovely daughters:  anger and courage.  Anger, so that what must not be cannot be, and courage so that what can be will be.”  The question is, What must not be?  Over two-hundred years ago, William Wordsworth grew angry over how the pursuit of the false gods of “getting and spending” were making us blind to the beauty of nature and fostering its demise.  In his sonnet titled The World is Too Much with Us, he wrote:

                Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

                Little we see in Nature that is ours;

                We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

                This sea that bares her bosom to the moon:

                The winds that will be howling at all hours,

                And are up gathered now like sleeping flowers;

                For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

                It moves us not.

Wordsworth was protesting materialism—which is many times more pronounced in our own time—that  is out of tune with the creation and is spoiling of the beauty of the earth.  Yet it moves us not.  This must not be!  Or when we read that food prices have risen eighty-three percent in the developing world, plunging one hundred million people deeper into poverty.  This must not be!  On Tuesday mornings, our fellowship hall is filled with those citizens of our community who are most effected by rising gas and food prices. Who can’t pay their utility bills or buy food. This is unacceptable.  It must not be!  Hope has a lovely daughter. Her name is anger.

But of course anger isn’t enough.  Hope’s other lovely daughter, says Augustine, is courage.  Genuine hope doesn’t just talk about God’s dream of peace and justice, but also acts to bring God’s dream to light in the present moment.  It’s tempting to become so overwhelmed by the misery and injustice in the world that we feel utterly powerless. But Courage moves us to act.  We can add our names to a petition, write a letter to a legislator, work for a cause, make fundamental changes in our lifestyle that will put us more in tune with the environment and with the needs of our fellow creatures, both human and non- human.  During this Easter season, we at UPC are inviting the congregation to share in the ethic of the risen Christ. Hope’s lovely daughter, Courage, moves us beyond merely believing in the resurrection to practicing an ethic of the resurrection. 

“Be ready to give an account for the hope that is in you.” The hope that is in us is the same hope that Jesus had; the same hope that the writer of I Peter encouraged in the Christians of Asia Minor. It is the strong belief that God has not, and will not, give up on the world.  Dr. Scott Hahn, in his book, A Father Who Keeps His Promises, tells how,on December 7, 1998, in Northwest Armenia, 25,000 people died in an earthquake. A distressed father ran frantically though the streets to the school where his son was.  He kept remembering he had said, “No matter what, Armand, I’ll always be there.”  His heart sank when he saw the school in rubble.  He darted toward the east corner, where he knew his son’s classroom had been, and he started digging with his bare hands.  One of the bystanders said, “Forget it, mister. They’re all dead.”  The father looked up and replied, “You can criticize me, or you can help lift these bricks.”  A few pitched in for a time, but the man kept digging:  12 hours, 18 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours—and finally he heard a muffled groan. He pulled the board back and cried “Armand!”  From the darkness came a slight, shaking voice, “Papa?” They found 14 of the 33 students still alive.  When Armand emerged he turned to his friends and said, “See, I told you my father wouldn’t forget us.”  Dr. Scott Hahn, who told the story, said:  “That’s the kind of hope we need, because that’s the kind of God we have.”

Friends, this morning we will call our new elders and deacons forward to be ordained and installed to their office.  We are asking them to help lead us from our anxieties into the hope that God has set before us and within us.