Hope has Substance

Today, waiting at the train station, I saw a bird perched on a wire, its wings flapping and beak open in song.  Spring is clearly here, and with it all the hope and promise of the season.  And it reminded me of those oft-quoted words of Emily Dickinson, “Hope is a thing with feathers.”

Contrast that with the photo that I took last Fall, of birds once again perched on a wire.  But this was no train station; instead, it was the barbed wire looped along the top of a wall that divides the West Bank from Israel.  Turn the other way, and you see a pile of rubble where a house was recently bulldozed, evidence of continuing political conflict.  This is Bethany - the place where Jesus raised Lazarus, and where Mary anointed his head with oil in preparation for his death.

Hope in such a place has substance.  It is not so much the feathers that matter so much as the strength of those small claws, gripping the wire between the barbs.  These birds are tenacious; they demonstrate a talent for survival.

Hope is one of those words that has many meanings.  Sometimes it simply means wishful thinking; other times a kind of optimistic outlook on life.  But as Christians, our hope has substance. We hope in Christ.

Our hope in Christ is rooted in the events we have just celebrated - those three terrible, joyful days when our Savior died on the cross, lay in the grave, and then, unbelievably, rose again. And somehow in the midst of that terror and joy, Christ brought about our forgiveness, our freedom, our reconciliation with God, and our risen life.

We forget what momentous news that is.  A couple of weeks ago,I spoke with a six-year-old who had heard the Easter story for the first time.  “But you can’t live when you have died,” he said.  No, you can’t.  But Christ did.  And because he did, we will too! 

That is hope, that promise of forgiveness and freedom and reconciliation and risen life.  And when you have that promise, that certainty, life here and now looks different; life is different.

Because in Christ, we are transformed, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Christianity is not just about eternal life when we die.  It is about the transformation and renewal of all things in Christ, now and in eternity.  That is our hope.

And that hope is at the core of our mission as Christians.  We proclaim the transformative hope of Christ, and we demonstrate it in our lives.  Being “in Christ,” as the apostle Paul puts it, allows us to let go of our own self-obsessions and open our lives to others, reaching out to them with the love and hope of Christ.  

And that’s where mission becomes tangible.  Those words of Christ, in which he identifies himself as the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s words to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19), give us a hint of what a world transformed might look like.  And when we feed the hungry, and provide shelter, and comfort the broken-hearted, we offer a foretaste of that new creation, a world in which no one goes hungry, and everyone has shelter, where the broken hearted will be healed, and every tear will be wiped away. A world where we no longer need our claws to hold tight in safety and the barbed wire is rolled away.

Invitation to Love

The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho was not an easy one. Eighteen miles long with a 4000 foot drop, it began in the Old City, secure inside its sandstone walls, skirted the Mount of Olives, and headed east. At first the landscape was relatively domesticated, rolling hills scattered with villages and olive groves. But as you travelled south, the terrain became mountainous, bare, rocky slopes strewn with dry desert foliage, the occasional nomads’ camp, and the canyon of Wadi Qelt carving its way through to the Great Rift Valley that runs from Syria to Mozambique. Jericho is there, at the intersection of the wadi and the valley, an oasis of life.

There are all sorts of theories about where the robbers may have lain in wait. Behind the huge boulder that marks the halfway point; in one of the caves or crevices of the wadi. Where it was makes no difference. All that matters is to know what Jesus’ hearers would have known so well; this road was a dangerous one. There was no shelter, no water, no one to call if you got in trouble. You carried everything you needed, avoided traveling alone, and prayed that you would arrive safely.

Which is why no one would be surprised if Jesus’ story had ended with the man left for dead. A moral tale of the dangers of traveling unprepared.

And no one would have been too surprised if neither a priest nor a Levite stopped. Why endanger yourself for someone who had been foolish, or at the very least, unlucky?

But when the Samaritan stopped, that was altogether more uncomfortable. Because it was just a few days earlier, the way the gospel of Luke tells it, that Jesus himself had travelled through a Samaritan village, on the early stages of his journey to Jerusalem. And there, Scripture tells us, the people turned their faces against him. He was going the wrong way, to Jerusalem, the holy city that rejected them as infidels. “Shall we ask God to bring down fire on them?” his disciples asked. “No.” And Jesus turned, instead, rebuked the disciples.

So you would expect the Samaritan to behave just like the priest and Levite. Or perhaps even to give the man a couple of extra kicks for good measure. Instead...well, you know the rest of the story.

Now remember what provoked this story. A lawyer wanted to know what to do to inherit eternal life. And when Jesus asked him what the law said, he answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” But the lawyer wanted more. “Who is my neighbor?”

At the end of the story, Jesus asked him, “So, you tell me, which one of these was a neighbor to the man who had been robbed?” The answer looks easy. The Samaritan, of course. Except, it’s not. Because in the original question, the neighbor wasn’t the one doing good; the neighbor was the one you were to love.

Love the Samaritan. The one who just a few days earlier had turned his face against you as you passed through his village, the one who you couldn’t trust, and vice versa. Love the one who has mercy on you. Love him.

But then Jesus twists it again. Do likewise. Be like the Samaritan. Be the one who has mercy.

Give mercy. Receive mercy. Love. Forgive.

I remember hearing a sermon at General Convention many years ago. I was sitting at a table of people who were staying in hotels and eating at restaurants. I was staying in a twelve bed room with no air-conditioning in ninety degree heat, and eating whatever was being offered at exhibition booths - the popcorn was a definite bonus! The preacher asked us to be more generous, to give more. I began to cry.

My table companions were generous. They quietly took up a collection and sent me a check to help with expenses. I was grateful, but also ashamed. I didn’t belong.

Sometimes, as Episcopalians, we assume that we are all on the side of the powerful and the wealthy. We forget that numbered among us, brothers and sisters in Christ, are both rich and poor, people who have money left over at the end of the month and people who can’t pay their mortgage, people who make decisions and people who are trapped in a web of impossible decisions. Some of us are in the position of the Samaritan. Some of us are in the position of the man who was robbed. Often times, we switch between one and the other.

But the key to it all is love. Because I don’t think Jesus’ intention was to send us all out to look for people who were robbed and take them to an inn and pay for their recuperation - though that wouldn't be a bad start. No, it was to invite us to love. To make love the foundation of all our relationships. Love your neighbor. Love the person who helps you and the person whom you help. Love a stranger and love your enemy, love the person who rejects you and the person who welcomes you. Love them gently, and quietly, love them by asking what they need and what they dream of. Love them gratefully and graciously. Love them with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, just as you love God.