The Foundation of Hope

The scriptures referred to are Romans 8:12-25 and Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

“There is no god besides you, whose care is for all people, to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly...For your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power, and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it. Although you are sovereign in strength you judge with mildness and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have the power to act whenever you choose. Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have fill your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.” Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19

I'm not into sports but one of the best films I've ever seen was 2005's Murderball. It looks at the brutal sport called quad rugby, that is, rugby played by quadriplegics in armored wheelchairs. If that sounds confusing it's because most of us think of quadriplegics as people totally paralyzed from the neck down. But technically it just means the person has limited function in all four limbs due to paralysis. So they might be able to move their arms but not use their fingers. The star of the documentary is Mark Zupan of Team USA. He was paralyzed when he fell asleep in the back of a buddy's pickup after a night of drinking. His friend lost control of the truck and Mark was thrown into a canal. He awoke and was shocked to find he could not move his legs. It was all he could do to hang onto a branch with one hand and keep his nose above water. He clung to that branch for 13 ½ hours, enduring rain and red ants. Why did he hang on? After all, he knew he was in real bad shape. He couldn't pull himself out of the water. Most of his body was deadweight, not responding to his thoughts. Not only didn't he have any idea how long it would be until he got discovered, he had no idea if he would ever be discovered. So why didn't he give up? Because he didn't let himself think of his current predicament as permanent. He had hope that something better was coming along. He had hope that someone would rescue him.

In today's passage from Romans, Paul writes of how we suffer at the present. We are buffeted by a flood of troubles. We feel abandoned by others. Our bodies betray us with weakness and pain. Political and financial circumstances beyond our control threaten the stability of the world. We lose our loved ones. We fear for our children. All of these things weigh on us. We move through life as if our parking brake was always on. Why don't we give up? Because of the hope of something better.

But why do we hope? The author of the deuterocanonical book of the Wisdom of Solomon starts with the fact that there is one God. Now why should that be a cause for hope? All of the polytheistic religions imagine a group of quarreling gods. They attribute much of the world's griefs to the jealousies and rivalries of the gods. They could not imagine a bunch of superpowerful beings getting along without their egos clashing. After all, they saw this in their kings and emperors, whose life and death power over their subjects was so absolute that most of them declared themselves to be gods or to be descended from the gods. So when kings warred, people thought the gods took sides.

But Yahweh revealed himself to the Israelites as one God. The problem wasn't that the people of earth mirrored the cosmic clashes of fractious gods but that humans failed to reflect the unity of God. The truth of this deepened when Christians realized that God is Triune, 3 divine persons acting in such unison that we can say they are one and that God is love, not metaphorically but literally. (1 John 4:8) God is a love relationship, the original love relationship: the Father loving the Son loving the Father for eternity in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And if God is love, there is hope.

The second thing that gives us hope is that God cares for all people. Once again, throughout the period when the Bible was written, people thought the gods played favorites among the nations. Even the Israelites came to believe this. They were God's chosen people. So God had to remind them that they were chosen but for a mission: to show the world what kind of God he was. (Deuteronomy 4:7; Exodus 19:5-6) They were chosen because as Abraham's descendants they were to be a blessing to the world. (Genesis 12:2-3) They weren't chosen because they were powerful or inherently important. (Deuteronomy 7:7) They were chosen in spite of the fact that they were nomadic sheepherders, prone to wander from the path of God. Stronger peoples claim God was on their side. And yet God didn't choose the Egyptian empire or the Babylonian empire or the Assyrians or the Greeks or the Romans. He chose Israel, a nation of slaves, to show that he is a God of liberation and justice and mercy. And through the story of Jonah and the prophesies of Isaiah, he reminds them that he made all people and cares for all people. And if God cares for all, there is hope.

The next thing that gives us hope is that God is strong. That might seem like an obvious statement. But there is an idea today that maybe God isn't strong. Maybe the reason that there is evil in the world is that God can't stop it. It all goes back to the philosophical problem that if God is both all-good and all-powerful, evil shouldn't exist. Since it does exist, either God isn't all-good or else he must not be all-powerful. And some people have opted for a well-meaning but ineffectual God.

But in today's gospel Jesus offers a parable on the problem of rooting out all evil. He focuses on a common weed called the tare or the bearded darnel. In the early stages of its growth it resembles wheat. Only once its head develops can it be differentiated from wheat. But by then its roots have become entangled with the roots of the wheat. So pulling out the darnel will also pull out some of the wheat. The farmer in the parable chooses to wait until harvest time. Only after they both are harvested can the wheat and the weeds be safely separated.

People tend to think of evil as some separate, outside entity but it is actually a quality found in everyone. Evil is not so much the opposite of good as the corruption of it, the misuse, abuse or neglect of the good gifts God has created and given us. So while a person is still developing it can be hard to decide whether he will turn out to act in evil ways. Is the person being persistent or just pigheaded? Is he being foolhardy or brave? Is she being persuasive or manipulative? Is he being loyal or close-minded? Is she being forgiving or an enabler? Jesus says that only after our life has taken its final form can it be evaluated.

Meanwhile to prematurely and ruthlessly remove evil people from our midst would tear apart the fabric of our lives. Should God strike dead every adulterer? What about their children, like Solomon, the second child of David and Bathsheba, whose relationship began as adultery. Should God kill every killer? What about Moses who killed an Egyptian slavemaster? (Exodus 2:11-12) Should God eliminate those who merely incite or encourage others to kill? What then happens to Saul, who approved of the stoning of Stephen, only to later become the apostle Paul? Should God smite every liar? Who would survive? The writer of the Wisdom of Solomon rightly praises God for sparing all. And if God is not only strong but merciful, there is hope.

The writer of Wisdom says “For your strength is the source of righteousness.” That doesn't seem to follow. We see that when someone is too strong he tends to become unjust. But that's because all humans start out powerless. We realize that when we are quite young and we all grow up wanting to be in control. We try to achieve control over the important aspects of our lives and we work to keep it. It's our underlying insecurity over the situation, our uneasy knowledge that we are never and can never really be totally in control, that makes us abuse what power we have. We use our God-given gifts of intelligence or empathy or speaking or good looks or physical strength or artistic talent or common sense to dominate or manipulate instead of using them to serve others. God, however, is in control and always has been in control and need not worry about losing control. His undisputed power lets him be truly impartial and just and righteous. And if God is fair, there is hope.

Finally the writer of Wisdom says, “You have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.” Notice that we are not talking here about God's forgiveness but about our repentance. We have already talked about God's mercy. But mercy can be wasted on people who refuse to repent. Some even take advantage of the forgiving nature of others. So our hope like not simply in God's nature but also in the ability he has given us to repent. And by repent I don't just mean to feel bad when we do bad things but to change our behavior. That is true repentance. A dog who steals food from the table may know he's doing wrong but he will never spontaneously change his mind and turn around and bring back what he's taken. Repentance is all about changing your mind and your life.

Evil, as we said, is not something that exists apart from people. Neither is it merely a superficial or trivial characteristic of human beings. Thieves do not steal simply because they can't budget their money. Most people who lie constantly aren't simply unaware of the truth. The majority of killers are not driven to the act by necessity or self-defense. When Scott Petersen's adultery was discovered, he had a lot of other options besides killing his wife and unborn child. He chose to end theirs rather than face the music. Evil, as Jesus tells us, comes from within. (Mark 7:21-23) So it must be dealt with internally. When we open our hearts to God's Spirit, he starts the work of repentance and change within us.

Parables and analogies have their limits. Weeds cannot change their nature. People can. And Jesus knew that, as evident in the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32) Repentance is like having your spiritual DNA changed. It means your future is not determined by your past. It means your destiny is not determined by your deficits. It means your salvation is not determined by your sins but by your response to God's work in you. And if God can transform us, there's hope.

Mark Zupin's hope would have been in vain had not someone found him clinging to that branch. He could not help himself. And our hope is in vain if we put it in anything or anyone other than the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ. We cannot save ourselves. We do not always obey our own better thoughts and impulses. Our desires and fears can drag us down and drown us. But our strong, caring, just, merciful and transforming God can save us. And so, as Paul says, we join with creation in eager longing for our adoption as his spiritual offspring, for our redemption, and for the completion of the good work God has begun in us. We await with expectation the revealing of the children of God, when those he makes righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.