Table of Hope

Acts 1:6-14

June 1, 2014

This is not a partisan comment, and certainly not an endorsement, but I’ve gotta say I am really enjoying driving around town these days and seeing all the signs that say “Hope for Congress.”

I just kinda like the idea of hope for such a dysfunctional body.

As Harvey Milk reminded us, “you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”

So, yeah, there are way worse things to hope for than hope for congress.

It may seem a bit anachronistic to think about hope in the midst of this season of recalling our past. After all, hope is always about the future.

Times of remembering almost always yield, at least a bit, to the temptation of nostalgia and even sentimentality. We tend to remember the distant past as rosier, simpler, and better than the present moment, and given the past decade or so of our history we can certainly be forgiven for imagining that the past was better than the present and, surely, more glorious than will be the future.

On the other hand, when we think back to the founding of this congregation we are thinking back to a world still recovering from the first world war, sitting on the brink of a global financial depression, and soon to enter the horrors of holocaust and World War II. Jim Crow still reigned throughout the American South. Women had had the vote for all of four years.

It may well have felt like “the roaring 20s” to those who founded this congregation, but surely they knew – or would know so very soon – that it can all turn to dust in a moment’s notice.

I wouldn’t trade places with them even if I could.

And, of course, I cannot and neither can you. If we are to have hope, it will be hope for a future otherwise.

We certainly know that it can all turn to dust in the blink of an eye. The news of the week – whether it’s the death of a beloved poet, the latest mass shooting, or weather-related devastation – reminds us of that. Indeed, the news of any week would suffice. Closer to home, the news of our own lives and families and communities will remind us as well of the incredible fragility of life.

When it can all turn to dust so quickly how do we hold on to hope?

We may be among the first generations to know fully that it could literally all turn to dust in the flash of nuclear bomb, but we’re certainly far from the first to understand how quickly life can become undone.

Jesus’ followers understood. The early church understood. Their story, in the book of Acts, begins in fear and trembling. Death is very close. Grief is still raw. Sorrow and confusion reign.

So what do they do? They gather together. They share their grief in prayerful conversations. They sit around tables and break bread, and very soon they begin to serve those around them.

They understood that the best way out of their own sorrow and pain would be found going into the pain and sorrow of others.

And that journey of compassion began at the table of hope.

That’s where church begins, because church is, first and foremost, a complex web of human relationships and relationships are born and nourished when we break bread together.

Church does not remain, always, fixed and frozen at table. We are gathered and sent. But we return, over and over, to this place because we need to be nourished every day. We need to be filled once again with hope, because we live in a world starving for it, and that world will empty us out.

We need to be filled with the spirit of hope, because standing in solidarity with the hopeless is wearying. We need to be filled, because working for equality in a world marred by sexism, racism and homophobia is draining. We need to be filled, because making peace in a world addicted to violence is just plain hard.

So, come, you who are weary, you who are sick, you who are hungry. At this table you will find rest for your weariness, balm for your soul, nourishment for every empty place within you.

You will also find your sisters and brothers; we who share this human condition and this divine hope. At this table, joined in a spirit of hope, we become once again the body of Christ for the world. Let us break bread together. Amen.