Hope Calls us Forward

First Congregational Church UCC of Auburn, Massachusetts, November 5, 2023

Psalm 34 — I will extol the Lord at all times.

1 John 3:1-3 — See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Andover Newton Seminary founding dean, Sarah Drummond, wrote in her blog this week: . . . how are we supposed to respond to the violence that rained down from Gaza and is now raining down upon it? How are we supposed to survive spiritually amidst all the unchecked and unrestrained hatred our siblings are directing at one another without falling into despair? 

. . . Christianity makes no room for hate. As I said at the outset, I have been hated, and let me tell you: it feels dreadful. Most of those who have expressed they hate me did so based on a decision I made, or that they thought I’d made, or that my institution had made. Whatever action led them to hate me had something to do with them feeling I’d taken something important from them. I’ve been a dean of some kind, after all, for 25 or-so years. Deans suspend and expel students. They make institutional changes that require sacrifices. They lay people off. It’s easier for some to hate me than to hate the nebulous but nonetheless painful losses associated with inevitable consequences or unavoidable change.

The hate I’ve experienced toward others has felt even worse than hatred I have received. In almost every case, it has emerged from a stew of love and fear and devotion. My count-on-one-hand hate-filled moments all resulted from rage toward someone who had hurt someone I care about. I remember the first time one of my daughter’s friends did her wrong, and I was startled by the intensity of my emotions; I’d never before felt such burning.

Jesus knew all about loving people and communities, so he probably understood rage. He never, however, justified hateful action. . . . Impulses to act in hate when filled with rage make sense to me, but as a Christian, I understand acting on those impulses to be morally wrong.

The Christian tradition gives us tools for examining hate, much like engineers give us tools for looking into the sun. Hate is too horrible to regard for long periods of time, like staring into the sun with the naked eye. Jesus told us not to hate. He told us to love everyone, even our enemies. The message can’t get any simpler, and yet loving when a cauldron of rage boils within us might be the hardest thing we’ve ever been asked to do. Good thing Jesus didn’t ask. He simply said, “Follow me.”

We live in a hate-filled, hateful time.  It’s a time that is filled with pain, anger, sorrow.  It’s not just in our political life, though that’s pretty nasty.  Whether at work, or home, or even here at church, we find it harder and harder to take in differing opinions, even when they’re about chunky or plain peanut butter.

That’s what happens when you’re in a time where everything we’ve depended on has changed, and not for the better.  I’m not going to spend a lot of time listing everything that’s changed, but I invite you to make a mental list of the things you’ve noticed…. And then to think about how the changes make existing in our world less sure… and when we’re not sure of the future, when our hope is damaged, then, well our anger seeps out into all our world.  

But here in this place we gather to remind ourselves that our Christian faith, our way of living, is an antidote to the anger of our world.  I don’t mean that here we pretend there is no global warming, no war, no political dissention, no book banning, no…. fill in the blank.  No, we must admit all those things are real, are happening.  But what we have is a way of life which calls us to recognize, share and nurture love wherever we go.

Daily reminders that it is love, not anger, that rules our lives, will help us deal with the world we meet.  

Today is both our Memorial Sunday and a Communion Sunday.  It’s both a time to remember the power of the love which is the best of our personal relationships, and the love marked by the gift of bread and cup.

On this day, I remember the love my grandparents had for their family and their home.  I remember the love I felt as a child whenever my parents and I came to visit, how their home was, in some mysterious way, also my home.  I remember the love my fellow Marines had for their country and their willingness to put their bodies on the line for all of us  I remember the love my pastor had for his family, our church, and God, and how that love changed so many lives.  I remember the love John Lewis had for all humanity and how his love changed the way Black and white live together in our land.

The loves we remember may be as personal as my grandparents, or as far away as the actions of someone you never met.  On this Memorial Sunday we remember those loves, the best that they give.

And on this Sunday we join together in sharing this memory meal, a meal which, through the symbols of bread and cup, ties us together in a web of love which not only bind us together here and now, but is a sign of the love which binds us across the centuries.  When we share in the tokens, eat the bread, drink the juice, we’re sharing in a practice that has taken place for all the centuries since Jesus’ time.  It is as if I am eating with my grandparents, my parents, all who know and followed the love Jesus taught.

And over all, this meal is a sign of our hope, that love will yet still bring us to a new and better place.  Our hope is that we will be blessings to our worlds… to our families, our work, our friends, our communities.

Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston once wrote:

Now is the moment for which a lifetime of faith has prepared you. All of those years of prayer and study, all of the worship services, all of the time devoted to a community of faith: it all comes down to this, this sorrowful moment when life seems chaotic and the anarchy of fear haunts the thin borders of reason. Your faith has prepared you for this. It has given you the tools you need to respond: to proclaim justice while standing for peace. Long ago the Spirit called you to commit your life to faith. Now you know why. You are a source of strength for those who have lost hope. You are a voice of calm in the midst of chaos. You are a steady light in days of darkness. The time has come to be what you believe.

His words are as true today as they were when he wrote them in 2020.  Let us go forth with courage, with hope, with love, today and always.

Amen.

© 2023, Virginia H. Child