You Gotta Give ‘Em Hope
May 30, 2010
Romans 1:1-5
“Hope does not disappoint.” So says Paul, who surely knew a bit about hopeless situations, being, after all, the guy who sang his way out of prison.
When I look back over just the 50 years of my own life thus far I am impressed by two completely contradictory impulses that dwell in tension in my own soul: the clear conviction that the way things are is not the way they have always been, one the one hand, and despair at ever seeing things change, on the other.
I suspect that I’m not alone dwelling in this tension, this contradiction. I wrote the first draft of this meditation while sitting in the coffee shop of the Barnes & Nobles while waiting for my car to be serviced. Think about that for a moment: I needed access to the texts for the week so I got on line on my 3-pound laptop which has more computing power than the Apollo spacecrafts that went to the moon – also in my lifetime, come to think of it. My hybrid vehicle – which syncs automatically to my cell phone so I can talk on the phone without touching anything but the steering wheel – was getting an oil change.
Meanwhile, tons of oil was – and still is – spilling into the Gulf of Mexico because corporate giants wanted to save a bit of money so they cut a few corners and created the largest environmental catastrophe in our history, and the federal government is paralyzed by its cozy relationships with those very corporate giants such that the president is loathe to act decisively and the oil just keeps flowing.
Of course, that same president is a man who would have found it difficult and dangerous to register to vote in the state of my birth at the time of my birth, and one of my fellow native-Alabamans, one who played a central role in the changes there, now serves in the Congress of that same paralyzed government. On the other hand, others of those who played central roles in those momentous changes were murdered as a result, and the country is still deeply divided by race – even though, back to the Barnes & Nobles – I can without thought sit in a public accommodation and look up to see an African-American woman being served at the counter in a room populated at the moment by people speaking several different languages and hailing from at least – at a glance – a half dozen different ethnic heritages, none of whom would have likely lived in Virginia, or anywhere else in the United States, prior to the landmark 1965 immigration reform act, and several of whom would have been legally discriminated against in the Commonwealth prior to the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
On the other hand, the Republican Party in another southern state just nominated a candidate for the United States Senate who says, in 2010, that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was a mistake.
I left the Barnes & Nobles to head to a meeting planning the NoVA Pride Interfaith Worship service. Imagine trying that 50 years ago! Or 25 years ago. Or even 15 years ago, back when don’t ask-don’t tell was inscribed into law. Oh, and the news on the morning I began writing contained the announcement that the Obama Administration had reached a compromise agreement with Congress on a gradual repeal of that odious law.
Of course, that law pertains to men and women serving in the nation’s armed forces – forces engaged in ill-advised and seemingly endless wars of choice that have droned on so long that the entire nation seems to have forgotten that they are still going on – even though 5,500 Americans have died, including 50 last month alone. When I look at those figures I am reminded that the first two names on the wall of the Vietnam memorial are men who died in an ill-advised American war of choice the year of my birth.
Later in the week I participated in a pair of conference calls with other overture advocates preparing for this summer’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) where we will press the assembly to open ordination to everyone and to change the directory of worship to make the language of marriage ceremonies inclusive of same-gender couples. Imagine trying that 50 years ago. Talk about the short trip to being defrocked!
So, I have to ask myself, when one surveys the incredible technological and social changes of the past 50 years, how can it be that I still feel an often overwhelming sense of despair at the possibility of change? How can I feel so hopeless sometimes?
It is all too easy to shrug one’s shoulders and say, “the more things change the more things stay the same.” It is easy to slip into a knowing, sophisticated cynicism. In fact, it is often considered “hip” to do so, and it is certainly fun sometimes.
It is, however, not faithful.
Cynicism is not a faithful response to the present moment and it is destructive of hope for the future – no matter how desperate the present moment feels.
After all, as Vaclav Havel put it, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Havel knew a thing or two out seemingly hopeless situations, but he also knew that freedom and democracy made sense even in – especially in – a society imprisoned by totalitarianism.
Martin Luther King knew a bit about the soul-killing oppression of segregation, but he also knew that freedom and equality make sense.
We know a bit about the pain of our own denomination’s homophobic rules, but we know that the love of God knows no bounds and that radical hospitality and welcome make sense.
Some of us know the self-defeating suffering of addictions, but we know that sobriety makes sense so we take the steps to wholeness. Others of us know the depressing reality of unemployment, but we know that a job makes sense so we keep on keeping on in the search for work. We all know, from time to time, the great weight of grief, but we know that life itself makes sense so we walk into another day trusting that God will turn our mourning into dancing.
This is the nature and substance of hope: whether we are considering the broad social realm, the sphere of the church, or our own lives, we stride forth confident that the love and justice and compassion of God will be with us no matter how the future “turns out.”
So, this fine June morning, what is the content of your own hope?
Romans 1:1-5
“Hope does not disappoint.” So says Paul, who surely knew a bit about hopeless situations, being, after all, the guy who sang his way out of prison.
When I look back over just the 50 years of my own life thus far I am impressed by two completely contradictory impulses that dwell in tension in my own soul: the clear conviction that the way things are is not the way they have always been, one the one hand, and despair at ever seeing things change, on the other.
I suspect that I’m not alone dwelling in this tension, this contradiction. I wrote the first draft of this meditation while sitting in the coffee shop of the Barnes & Nobles while waiting for my car to be serviced. Think about that for a moment: I needed access to the texts for the week so I got on line on my 3-pound laptop which has more computing power than the Apollo spacecrafts that went to the moon – also in my lifetime, come to think of it. My hybrid vehicle – which syncs automatically to my cell phone so I can talk on the phone without touching anything but the steering wheel – was getting an oil change.
Meanwhile, tons of oil was – and still is – spilling into the Gulf of Mexico because corporate giants wanted to save a bit of money so they cut a few corners and created the largest environmental catastrophe in our history, and the federal government is paralyzed by its cozy relationships with those very corporate giants such that the president is loathe to act decisively and the oil just keeps flowing.
Of course, that same president is a man who would have found it difficult and dangerous to register to vote in the state of my birth at the time of my birth, and one of my fellow native-Alabamans, one who played a central role in the changes there, now serves in the Congress of that same paralyzed government. On the other hand, others of those who played central roles in those momentous changes were murdered as a result, and the country is still deeply divided by race – even though, back to the Barnes & Nobles – I can without thought sit in a public accommodation and look up to see an African-American woman being served at the counter in a room populated at the moment by people speaking several different languages and hailing from at least – at a glance – a half dozen different ethnic heritages, none of whom would have likely lived in Virginia, or anywhere else in the United States, prior to the landmark 1965 immigration reform act, and several of whom would have been legally discriminated against in the Commonwealth prior to the 1965 Civil Rights Act.
On the other hand, the Republican Party in another southern state just nominated a candidate for the United States Senate who says, in 2010, that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was a mistake.
I left the Barnes & Nobles to head to a meeting planning the NoVA Pride Interfaith Worship service. Imagine trying that 50 years ago! Or 25 years ago. Or even 15 years ago, back when don’t ask-don’t tell was inscribed into law. Oh, and the news on the morning I began writing contained the announcement that the Obama Administration had reached a compromise agreement with Congress on a gradual repeal of that odious law.
Of course, that law pertains to men and women serving in the nation’s armed forces – forces engaged in ill-advised and seemingly endless wars of choice that have droned on so long that the entire nation seems to have forgotten that they are still going on – even though 5,500 Americans have died, including 50 last month alone. When I look at those figures I am reminded that the first two names on the wall of the Vietnam memorial are men who died in an ill-advised American war of choice the year of my birth.
Later in the week I participated in a pair of conference calls with other overture advocates preparing for this summer’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) where we will press the assembly to open ordination to everyone and to change the directory of worship to make the language of marriage ceremonies inclusive of same-gender couples. Imagine trying that 50 years ago. Talk about the short trip to being defrocked!
So, I have to ask myself, when one surveys the incredible technological and social changes of the past 50 years, how can it be that I still feel an often overwhelming sense of despair at the possibility of change? How can I feel so hopeless sometimes?
It is all too easy to shrug one’s shoulders and say, “the more things change the more things stay the same.” It is easy to slip into a knowing, sophisticated cynicism. In fact, it is often considered “hip” to do so, and it is certainly fun sometimes.
It is, however, not faithful.
Cynicism is not a faithful response to the present moment and it is destructive of hope for the future – no matter how desperate the present moment feels.
After all, as Vaclav Havel put it, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” Havel knew a thing or two out seemingly hopeless situations, but he also knew that freedom and democracy made sense even in – especially in – a society imprisoned by totalitarianism.
Martin Luther King knew a bit about the soul-killing oppression of segregation, but he also knew that freedom and equality make sense.
We know a bit about the pain of our own denomination’s homophobic rules, but we know that the love of God knows no bounds and that radical hospitality and welcome make sense.
Some of us know the self-defeating suffering of addictions, but we know that sobriety makes sense so we take the steps to wholeness. Others of us know the depressing reality of unemployment, but we know that a job makes sense so we keep on keeping on in the search for work. We all know, from time to time, the great weight of grief, but we know that life itself makes sense so we walk into another day trusting that God will turn our mourning into dancing.
This is the nature and substance of hope: whether we are considering the broad social realm, the sphere of the church, or our own lives, we stride forth confident that the love and justice and compassion of God will be with us no matter how the future “turns out.”
So, this fine June morning, what is the content of your own hope?
posted by David Ensign at
11:14 AM
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