Sermons

The Very Rev. Tracey Lind
Christmas 2008
Speaking of Hope

Every year I go looking for my Christmas sermon. For the past quarter of a century my sermon search has become part of my holiday tradition. It's not like it's lost; I haven't misplaced it; I just don't know where to find it. In fact, some years, I don't even know where to start looking. This year has been no exception. I started searching for my Christmas sermon early in Advent. I looked everywhere, but it was nowhere to be found.

Last week I began to wonder if I would ever find it. So I started asking people: What do you want to hear from the preacher on Christmas this year? And there it was in a resounding one-word answer - HOPE. "Speak to us of hope."

O.K. Hope it is. But what should I say about hope this Christmas? Amidst all the bad news of late, where do we find hope? At first, I turned to the poets, for they always seem have words when I have none. The great American poet Carl Sandberg found hope in:

A tattered flag and a dream of time...a heartspun word and the rainbow...
the shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
the blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
the birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
the ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
the horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
the kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve--¹

Emily Dickinson called hope "that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops...at all." Biographer George Iles wrote of this fragile, delicate, precarious and yet steadfast state of being as "faith holding out its hand in the dark." Nineteenth-century orator Robert Ingersoll once said that, "Hope is the only bee which makes honey without flowers." So much for metaphors.

I have concluded that hope is believing in the future without any guarantees. Hope is what couples proclaim with vows on their wedding day and graduates announce to the world with their diplomas. Belief in the future without guarantees is why people have surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and even stem cell transplants; they hope that one or all of these protocols will cure their disease or buy them time. And in the midst of treatment, when one is sicker than a dog, hope becomes a belief in a better tomorrow, in spite of an awful today. Hope is the reason birds gather 'round our feeder everyday, believing with out guarantees that they will find seed to sustain them through the cold days of winter. It's also why the feral cats visit, in hopes that they might snag a bird or two.

Novelist William Styron, who struggled with severe depression most of his life, once wrote, "It is hopelessness, even more than pain, that crushes the soul." Jesuit psychotherapist William Lynch observed that the path to healing for people struggling with mental illness lies in their ability to imagine a world different from that in which they are imprisoned. In his book Images of Hope, Lynch suggested that to hope is to acknowledge three basic principles: (1.) What I hope for I do not have and cannot see; (2.) What I hope for may be difficult to attain; but (3.) But what I hope for I can have.²

Story after story of American slavery, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the Soviet Gulag, the Rwandan massacre, South African apartheid, Darfur, and even daily life on welfare or in prison remind us that those who survive are the ones never lose hope. Thus, the Indian poet Tagore once penned, "Hope is like the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark." I believe that hope is seeing a little speck of light through the crack in the wall and knowing that there is a world of sunshine out there, and that one day, I might feel its warmth again - even if it's in the brightness of eternity. It is what connects us to the love of God and sustains us through the long, dark nights of soul and body.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? It's really very simple. Christmas is all about hope. It is hoping that the birth of a baby to an unwed mother and her fiance in a backwater town called Bethlehem could really change the course of history. It is hoping that this newborn lying in a manger filled with straw, surrounded by scrawny farm animals and a few smelly camels, could actually save humanity from our sins. It is hoping that the birth of this helpless little creature in a cold barn could make the world a better place to live. It is hoping that this story, which gives us reason to stay up late on a cold winter night, might, in fact, make a difference in our lives.

Christmas is completely, entirely and utterly about hope. The people who walked in darkness hoped for light, and those who were oppressed hoped for a savior. The angel Gabriel hoped that Mary would say "yes." Mary hoped that Joseph would understand. Joseph hoped he could provide for Mary and her baby. The innkeeper hoped that this young couple wouldn't make too much of a mess in his stable, or get him and his family in trouble. The animals in the barn hoped they could get some sleep that night. The shepherds hoped that if they followed the star they would see this thing that had taken place. The magi hoped that their journey would not be in vain. And the Eternal One hoped that someone would pay attention and that this attempt at salvation would be worth all the effort. As any fool can see, Christ was born out of sheer hope, a belief in the future with no guarantees.

Shortly after Jesus was born, life got dangerously complicated as the future unfolded and the Christmas drama continued. As old Simeon knew, the infant born to Mary was "destined for the falling and rising of many" and thus would face opposition, and would one day cause his mother to grieve. So it was probably no surprise to the old man when King Herod sought to kill this newborn child, forcing his family to flee into exile and join the long historic march of refugees and displaced people. But that's often what happens to hope. It is challenged, and sometimes beaten down, by the forces of life. Thus, hope, like love, is both a noun and a verb - it's a commitment to keep on going - come hell or high water.

The fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien understood this aspect of hope. In his trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Grey, the immortal wizard, died in battle and his followers were left completely bereft. They wailed and panicked and cried. Aragorn, the heir apparent, took charge of the distraught crew as he faced into the unknown future: "You are right," he said, "We have no hope. We shall have to go on without it." How apt a remark for a man who, in his youth, was called by his caregivers the elves, Estel, which in elf language means "hope." Aragorn (aka Estel), the last hope for his people, called his followers to muster the will to enter the future without it.

My friend Amy says, "That's what hope really is...when you muster the will to go ahead without it." Like love, hope is a decision to forge into the future without guarantees - no matter how dark and dismal the future might seem.

It is telling that our President-elect wrote a book called The Audacity of Hope and now must become like Aragorn, calling our nation to muster the collective will to face squarely and creatively into our future, even if we're not feeling particularly hopeful.

The road ahead for us is a complicated one, and it certainly feels like unfamiliar and uncharted territory. But the truth of the matter is that something new is trying to be born - a new way of living on this earth; a new way of being in community; a new way of caring for family and friend, neighbor and stranger; a new way of working, eating, investing, building, recreating, and educating ourselves and our children. This is good news if we are willing to answer the call.

I am confident that we will face the future without guarantees because we really have no choice. And although I realize that, like most things worth doing, this transformation might not be completed in our lifetime, I am hopeful that we might seize this moment, claim the calling, and accept the gift of new life that God has set before us. And I believe that if we do, God will provide what we need to see us through. That is the promise of Christmas.

In closing, I want to turn again to poet Carl Sandburg, who during the Great Depression expressed the hope of Christmas in words than I cannot muster:

Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.
The spring grass showing itself where least expected,
The rolling fluff of white clouds on a changeable sky,
The broadcast of strings from Japan, bells from Moscow
Of the voice of the prime minister of Sweden carried
Across the sea in behalf of a world family of nations
And children singing chorals of the Christ child
And Bach being broadcast from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
And tall skyscrapers practically empty of tenants
And the hands of strong men groping for handholds
And the Salvation Army singing God loves us...

Reinhold Niebuhr used to say that, "The ultimate form of hope is prayer." So my prayer this Christmas is that you and I may face into the future without guarantees hoping and believing that the birth of Christ made a difference, continues to make a difference, and will make a difference if we follow where He leads. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may be abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.³ And may God grant you and your loved ones a blessed Christmas and hope-filled New Year.

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¹Carl Sandburg, "Hope is a Tattered Flag," 1936 (Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, Harcourt Brace, 1996)

²William Lynch, Images of Hope: Imagination as a Healer of the Hopeless (Baltimore, Helicon, 1965), p. 32

³Romans 15:13