Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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In the midst of disconsolation and suffering comes a promise - like Christmas. Into a dismal world comes a glimmer of hope. (We human beings can endure a great deal of darkness, it seems, if that darkness is not unmitigated, if we can see even a tiny gleam of light -- if we can find some reason, even a small reason, to hope.) In this passage from Isaiah, God gives hope to his people. He lights a candle in the darkness of exile, and tells them what good things are in store for them. They will actually live in the houses they build, and eat from the fields they plant (instead of being uprooted all the time by conquering armies). God describes a world where the wolf and the lamb will not only co-exist but will share food, where lions become vegetarians. Centuries later, in the Book of Revelation, God will address Christians, who are enduring cruel persecution for their faith, and who are struggling to maintain their hope, and he will use some of the same words with them that he used in Isaiah's time. He will promise them "a new heaven and a new earth." Right in the middle of Isaiah's words, sometimes lost among all the other promises, comes one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. God says, "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear." In other words, God promises, "I'm going to be ahead of the curve. I'm going to be so attentive to my people's needs that I will anticipate their prayers. I'll be a proactive God. I won't wait for that lost sheep to find its way home, but will go out on the mountain and look for it, and carry it back on my shoulders. I won't forget my ungrateful, prodigal boy, but will stand every day on the road, tears in my eyes, watching for him - and throw a party when he returns. Sure, sparrows are only two-a-penny, but I know when each one falls. I take care of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, they don't have to ask. And I will care for you, oh Israel. ("He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.") And, if you can't come to me, God says, I will come to you, and bring you to a better place. It's a major theme in the Bible. Theologians call it "prevenient grace," God's love that "comes before," that is there for us even when we don't know it, even when we reject it, even when we don't care. God's love that is able to rescue us when we are not able to rescue ourselves. "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear."

Hope is a precious thing, and it is more difficult now than it was a few weeks ago. Hope is based on the belief that God will deliver on his promises. So many things in our lives depend on hope. In fact we can't function without it. We used to board an airplane and never think twice. We may not have articulated the beliefs that lay behind such confidence and courage, may not even have formulated them in our own minds, but (at some basic level) we believed God would take care of us - as he promised - had to believe it. We used to open our mail, go up in skyscrapers, ride the subways without fear. Now it's darker out there, and it harder to see that gleam of light. Hard to find hope, and therefore hard to find courage.

A plane goes down in the Rockaways, on Long Island. Near the crash is a parochial school. The kids are safe, but in that school, in every classroom, there is at least one child who has lost a father, or a mother in the World Trade Center disaster. What must they feel when they hear that crash? Will they ever be able to find the kind of courage and hope that it takes to make a good life? And, if not, what will become of them?

The church, and the Gospel the church proclaims, are beacons of hope in a world that doesn't see much reason to hope. Every single Christian must let his light shine, especially now, when hope is scarce. We have a story to tell. It is a story about past promises that God made, and kept, a story about the promises God has made to us (and will keep). As the world grows darker, our beacon of hope must shine brighter. You see, we have read the end of this book. We know about the resurrection. We know the risen Christ will come to us riding on the clouds. There were the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was the cloud of smoke over ground zero in New York City. But there is another cloud, one that is to come, one our neighbors do not know about. They are reading the chapters of this book as they occur, and find not much hope. But we know. And we must show that we know. A church, a Christian, must be a light in the darkness, a source of courage. We can't live in the basement. Not we who know Christ. Not now. At Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, in San Francisco, they sing a hymn that goes like this: "Don't wait 'till the battle's over. Shout now. You know you're going to win." A beacon of hope in a world that doesn't see much reason to hope.

In the next couple of weeks we're going to be talking about Christian stewardship and, specifically, about giving. (I know that thrills you.) I hope this year it won't be a mundane discussion, you know what I mean? When we make pledges and give tithes and offerings to a church, what are we really funding? Salaries, and heat, and light, to be sure. And the mortgage - don't forget the mortgage. But what we are really funding is that beacon. When we give we are saying, "We think it's important - so important that we are willing to make a sacrifice -- for the message of hope, the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to be proclaimed - in this community and everywhere. For we can't exist (not decently, certainly not abundantly) without hope. We think it's important - and we're willing to make a sacrifice for it -- that all people everywhere should hear about the God who answers before we call and hears before we speak. We think it's important - and we're willing to sacrifice to make it happen -- to tell the stories of Jesus, and all the other stories of the Bible, for these are the ground of our hope. In these stories we see that God's not a welcher, that he keeps his promises.

High above our church is a cross, symbol of suffering and defeat. Ironic that the cross should be our chief symbol, but correct, nevertheless Should we put a bowl of cherries up there and preach the syrupy sweet religion so many crave? ("Christ you know I love you. Did you see I waved? I believe in you and God, so tell me that I'm saved.") Shall we put a law book up there and whip ourselves with guilt each Sunday over our fallings short? (Some people like that, too.) Maybe a rooster would be o.k. up there, like the one atop the church in Jerusalem, built on the spot where Peter messed up and then saw himself true - for the first time -- in the crowing of a cock. That's better. For Peter was horrified by the reality of himself, but still managed to find hope (not in himself, this time, but in God's amazing grace), and Peter goes on to be the head of the church and a great saint. That's more like it. A rooster would be o.k.

It is in the terrible story of that last week, with Peter and all the others defecting, that we see God's love in stark relief. We see a God who overcomes the worst the world can dish out. We see the God who answers before we call and hears before we speak. Superstar captures the reality, the horrible, gritty reality of those last hours. Jesus has just told Judas to go and do what he has to do, and he turns back to the table and says, "The end…Is just a little harder when brought about by friends. For all you care, this wine could be my blood. For all you care, this bread could be my body. The end! This is my blood you drink. This is my body you eat. If you would remember me when you eat and drink." And then, he sings to himself, "I must be mad thinking I'll be remembered. Yes, I must be out of my head. Look at your blank faces. My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I'm dead." And in the garden he prays, "Take this cup away from me, for I don't want to taste its poison. Feel it burn me. I have changed. I'm not as sure as when we started. Then I was inspired. Now I'm sad and tired. Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations. Tried for three years, seems like thirty. Could you ask as much from any other man?" These are the sad realities, the cruelties of life. We do not hide from them. That's why the cross is our symbol. It says, "earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." The story goes on from Calvary, but somehow we never get far from Jerusalem. For somewhere, in that awful story, hope is found, and now (because reality has been faced down) it's not a false hope, based on wishing and dreaming. Now it's a strong and confident hope, based on the actual promises and deeds of God. Now it is a hope that will change the world.