St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Eighth Sunday After Pentecost (July 6, 2008)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
Prisoners of Hope
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Is it just my impression, or is the world going crazy in search of the perfect woman or the perfect man? Movie after movie seems obsessed with the pursuit. Magazines provide advice to make one thoroughly ill. The internet offers thousands of chat-rooms and dating services. And I'm really tired of those harmony.com commercials.
In the face of this, we are confronted with statistics that cause concern over the state of marriage. While divorce has leveled off, the number of marriages is in decline. People express increasing lack of faith in the institution—though there may be a bright side in what could be a reluctance to enter into marriage as lightly as have some in the past.
The world may again be experiencing a form of what Zechariah diagnosed upon the return of the people of Israel to their homeland after having been held in slavery for over forty years in Babylon. People look to be "prisoners of hope."
I was intrigued by that phrase. Prisoners of hope. What does Zechariah mean by this? Does it refer to people who are bound in some way, enslaved somehow, to hope? Is being a prisoner of hope good or bad, positive or detrimental?
At first reading it sounds like something positive. Certainly "hope" is a spiritual attribute that is offered in abundance through the Word of God.
Interestingly, the four gospels use the word "hope" or its variations only five times. It never occurs in Mark. "Faith" is the byword there.
In the epistles, words of hope abound. Here are a few of the more powerful references:
Romans 5:2-5 - We boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 12:12 - Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
1 Cor. 15:19 - If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Ephesians 4:4 - There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling.
1 Peter 1:3 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
We live in the "comfort of a holy certain hope, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life" with God and those we love who have gone before us. So speaks our funeral liturgy.
And then there is this fascinating comparison that Paul makes among spiritual gifts:And then there is this fascinating comparison that Paul makes among spiritual gifts:
"And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." (1 Cor. 13:13)
Why is this? What makes hope a lesser attribute?
Perhaps it is because hope is not the fulfillment of anything. It is the anticipation, the spiritual certainty, the stretching towards the future that is of comfort. But it only points to, leads to, yearns for, the salvation that comes in God's good time.
The people of Israel were tired of living on hope. They had done so for nearly half a century. It was time for fulfillment, and they were profoundly disappointed with what happened. Or, rather, what failed to happen. The city was not being rebuilt, the people were not yet living again in a land filled with the abundance of milk and honey that their parents and grandparents had known. There was a lot of work to be done, and their spirits were broken.
One thinks of the famous poem by Langston Hughes, "Dream Deferred."
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
The life-span of hope is limited. Eventually, the spirit dries and sags.
We see it all the time. "Casey Stengel, the former baseball manager, said, 'There are two kinds of baseball managers; managers who have been fired, and managers that will be fired.'" There are also two kinds of Christians: "those who have lost their passion for the Lord, and those who will. We all suffer some periods of spiritual dryness." (Bishop Robert Spain, "Getting Ready to Preach", Abingdon, 1995, 28)
There is no escape from the occasional tugs of such emptiness. We all feel it at times. The examples with which I began witness to the prevalence of the spiritual dryness of hope without fulfillment. It is a kind of slavery to hope, associated perhaps with a limited willingness to engage the very hard work that can lead to fulfillment.
Then, again, such abuse of hope can be expressed in a knee-jerk reaction to bad news. Though I hesitate to quote him, I like this bit from the Archie Bunker of recent decades, Homer Simpson:
Hearing that a comet is bearing down on Springfield, Homer reflects: "It's times like this that I wish I were a religious man." At that moment Reverend Lovejoy is seen running down the street, crazed, yelling, "It's all over, people! We don't have a prayer!"
Unfulfilled hope, even unexpected trouble, can lead to hopelessness, the flip side of hope's idolatry.
And it is very apparent from Zechariah's phrase that hope can be an idol too. It can become an excuse, a diversion from God, a burden. Hope is not all good, especially when we cling to it, or when we use it as a way to avoid grasping the reality of God's goodness and grace. We need not get lost in and bound by hope, when in Jesus Christ we can know the fulfillment of hope.
Zechariah declares to a troubled people:
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
The deliverance was already a reality. All the people had to do was reach out and claim it.
The people had been bound to hope. What they needed was to return to the stronghold of faith and be bound by faith to God.
The gospel this morning provides a powerful image for what Zechariah invites. Jesus ventures to suggest a new way, an easy way, of being a prisoner.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (11:29-30)
You may know that the word "religion" means "to bind again". That is exactly what Jesus wants. This is the only way to find freedom from idolatry of any kind, for in binding ourselves to Jesus, in becoming prisoners not of hope but of a resurrection faith, we travel the road in the way that our Lord leads.
We have largely forgotten the meaning of this image. Yokes were fashioned by special carpenters who custom crafted them so as to arrange the carrying of the burden in proportion to the strength of the two specific animals. Stronger animals pulled larger parts of the load. Yet each pulled as they were able. Only then could the cart or wagon go in a straight line.
"Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds", Jesus tell us. When we are yoked to Jesus and to grace, we move along the way of the Lord. When we lay down the burden of self-righteousness and trying to define for God what is sufficient evidence of grace, we ally ourselves, yoke ourselves, to the way, the truth, the life.
We have a choice. It is not whether, but to what or whom we will be yoked. Will we be prisoners of an idol, or yoked to our Lord. In Christ alone are our hopes fulfilled. In grace, our spirits come alive.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. Amen.
