Prisoners of Hope
January 4, 2009
A sermon by
The Rev. Dr. Alan Kelchner
Zechariah 9:9-12
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations;
his dominion shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
John 1:1-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Eleven pipers piping, on this Eleventh Day of Christmas. That means that tomorrow is Twelfth Night, the traditional climax of the Christmas season. Many years ago, when we lived in New England, and I was pastor of a classic white clapboard church on the village green, the Episcopalians invited us Congregationalists to join them for a Twelfth Night party. We hauled our Christmas trees down to the snow-covered church parking lot; and we lit a great bonfire. Inside the Parish Hall, there was hot chocolate, and singing, and games for the kids. And then, we ate Three Kings’ Cake, and found out who got the prize in their piece of cake. It was a marvelous way to end the holidays.
Well, Twelfth Night may not be part of our tradition here in Danville; but, we have our own cherished traditions. It is now eleven days since we gathered here in a darkened sanctuary to sing Christmas carols and re-tell that glorious story that we never tire of hearing: the story of a husband and his young wife, who gives birth, late at night, in a stable, because there is no room for them in the inn. The new-born babe is laid in a manger: a baby whose birth is greeted by shepherds and angels. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.”
And so, you and I came together on Christmas Eve, with our families and with our memories, and we lit our candles against the darkness. We sang “Silent Night,” we prayed for Peace on Earth, and we gave thanks to a wondrous God.
And then came the new year. I suppose we all have our own New Year’s traditions: celebrating with parties and friends, or champagne at midnight, or pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s Day, or lots of football, or a skiing vacation, or just taking some quiet time off with family and friends.
In any case, for most of us, the holidays now are over. Time to pack away the Christmas decorations for another year. Maybe the Magi haven’t quite made it to Bethlehem yet, but that doesn’t change the fact that, come tomorrow morning, the kids will be back in school. At work, the pace will pick up once again. The time has come to get back to reality.
Unfortunately, reality is looking a little grim, for many of us. We begin the Year of Our Lord 2009 well aware that the economy is in turmoil, unemployment is high, credit is tight, and for many of us, our resources have dwindled. And, no matter how much we might have tried to ignore the news over the holidays, still, we know full well that wars are still raging, children are still starving, refugees are suffering, the earth is warming, terrorists are plotting, HIV and AIDS are spreading.
Of course, not all of the news is bad. Gas prices are down, at least! And there is excitement and interest, all over the world, about our new President; people are intrigued to see what sort of president Barack Obama will turn out to be. He certainly has a full agenda to contend with! The problems are enormous; but so are the opportunities: in foreign policy, in health care, education, the finance industry, the auto industry, green technologies.
There also seems to be an improved climate right now for Democrats and Republicans and to work together, with mutual respect, for the good of the country. Let’s hope it’s a good year for our government and our nation.
Indeed, I can find plenty of areas for optimism in this new year; and I bet you can, too - in our work, our personal lives, or families.
I am enthusiastic about this marvelous church of ours; I’m optimistic that DCC will continue to be a very special community of open-minded, compassionate, and joyful Christians. Our Building Project is also great cause for optimism. If all goes as planned, we will break ground this summer, and by next year, we will have beautiful new facilities, that will enhance our ministries, increase our outreach in the community, and meet the needs of this congregation for generations to come.
As we begin this new year, no doubt we all have many things about which we feel optimistic, or, not so optimistic: from personal finance to health issues to personal relationships, from gay marriage to global warming.
However, I want to remind you, that optimism is not the same thing as hope. We tend to use these two words as if they were synonymous; but they really are not the same thing at all.
German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote a marvelous book called, Theology of Hope, in which he makes a clear distinction between hope and optimism. Optimism, he says, is based on “cause and effect thinking.” In other words, we see what has happened, or seems to be happening, and we extrapolate that into the future. We make assumptions about the future, based on our experience of the past. Since “X” has happened, we predict that “Y” is likely to happen.
For example, because the Cal basketball team has already won 12 games this year, I am optimistic about that they will do well in the Pac-10. I’m not so optimistic about the Giants or the A’s next year! Perhaps things are going well for you at work, and so you are optimistic about your career and your company. Or, you feel good and you take good care of yourself; and so you are optimistic that you will continue to have good health.
The point is that well-informed, well-grounded optimism is essential to our lives. It provides energy, helps us function, and keeps us going; it keeps us leaning forward into the future. Optimism a good thing.
However, optimism is not hope.
The great contribution of Moltmann’s Theology of Hope is to insist that hope, unlike optimism, is not dependent upon the circumstances or the situation. Hope is not based on possibilities; nor is it based on reasonable, well-grounded extrapolation of what is likely to happen in the future. No.
Instead, hope is grounded in the promises of God. It is God who gives us hope. And God’s goodness and power are not bound by situation or circumstance. Hope is based on God’s promises, and not on earthly “cause and effect.” Hope is not reasonable nor calculated; instead, hope is rooted in faith and in trust.
So, I want to suggest to you today, on this 11th day of Christmas, that this is what all our Christmas celebrations are really about: that God breaks through into our lives, into the world, providing us with hope that far exceeds either our optimism, or, the lack thereof. The holy child of Bethlehem is the source of our hope, because Christ comes to us outside of earthly “cause and effect.” Jesus is a miracle beyond what we could ever expect.
Ands so, no matter what you may think about the virgin birth or the literal truth of the nativity story, I want to suggest to you that these marvelous stories are a way of expressing the holiness of Jesus, the Otherness of Christ - who is the Hope of the World, and who “dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”
Hope, you see, lies beyond reason or observation, beyond current situation or expectation. That is why hope comes, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Hope comes even in the face of cancer, or bankruptcy, or earthquake devastation, or stock market crash. Hope thrives even in the most desperate of circumstances. Even in the deepest darkness of the world, or the deep darkness of your own personal situation, still, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Old Testament is filled with this glorious hope. Isaiah boldly proclaimed that, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” - even though there was no visible light whatsoever, no reason for optimism, in the dark historical situation in which that passage was written.
Jeremiah also spoke with hope, during the time of the Babylonian exile. From Jeremiah 31, “Sing aloud with gladness.... and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD... their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.... “I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow....” says the LORD.
This, dear friends, is our heritage in the Judeo-Christian tradition: it is a heritage of hope. In today’s scripture passage, which Dave read to us from Zechariah, the prophet declares that the time is coming when everything will be made right again. And because we know this, Zechariah says, we are prisoners of hope. We are prisoners of hope.
What a wonderful metaphor. Charles Wesley, the great hymn-writer, who wrote “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” also wrote a hymn, based on this passage: “Prisoners of hope, lift up your heads.” One verse begins, “Be strong, be bold! Cast off your doubts, disdain to fear!”
A couple of years ago, David Frost interviewed Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership against apartheid in South Africa. Frost noted that South Africa still has a huge problem with poverty and inequality. Bishop Tutu responded, “Oh absolutely. It's devastating. The legacy of apartheid has been enormous.” Frost replied, “With all these problems - it's pretty hard to be optimistic. And yet, I've always thought of you as an optimist.”
Bishop Tutu shook his head. “I've never been an optimist. I am a prisoner of hope, which is quite different. I am as aware you are, of so many awful things - poverty, ethnic violence, natural disasters. The world is a mess. But it is important to keep remembering that in that mess, good things have happened. And I have no doubt myself that this is a moral universe, and goodness, love, and caring are ultimately what will prevail.”
On another occasion, Tutu said, “If it were not for faith, I would have given up long ago. I am certain lots of us would have been hate-filled and bitter. But in the middle of our faith, is the death, and the resurrection. Nothing could have been more hopeless than Good Friday - but then Easter happened, and forever, we have become prisoners of hope.”
Dear friends, we, too are prisoners of hope - you and I. That is why we are not easily defeated. That’s why are spirits are not easily broken. Even though life may not always give us cause to be “optimistic,” we remain people of faith, and people of hope.
That is why, on Christmas Eve, we light our little candles against the darkness. And that is why we gather here, Sunday after Sunday, to sing, and pray, and remember the love of Christ, and the goodness of God. Dear friends, we are prisoners of hope.
May we live in hope, this day and always. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
