by Rev. Dr John Evans
“Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”
1 Peter 3:15
‘The hope that is within you.’ Hope. What is the hope that is within us?
Hope provides for us our reason for living. It is the vision our there in the future drawing us forward. It is the goal of living. As a child it is being in the next grade at school and soon being like the big kids; then it might be something to do with gaining an education and a job which is fulfilling and rewarding; hope draws us forward in all stages of our life. It forces us to contemplate our own death. Are these millions of cells which are wondrously knit together and known as me – all that there is when it comes to me? Is there a hope that ties in the past, the present and the future – and extends beyond even my earthly life … for me and for those who are dear and near to me?
A hope keeps us going. If we are without hope; why bother – why do anything, begin a journey – if we do not know where we are heading; start a project if we don’t quite know what it is or will turn out to be; marry and have a family … or get out of bed in the morning? To be hopeless, is a pitiable state.
It is not surprising that there is a strong emphasis on hope within the first letter of Peter. Christians, it would seem, at the time of writing of this letter were doing it tough. They were not yet an outlawed sect for their opposition to emperor worship or the place of the empire generally. However, throughout Asia Minor Christians were experiencing local harassment. There was not yet systematic persecution which came later and would seem to be the setting for the book of Revelation, but all the same our author says the recipients of this letter are aliens and exiles. . . . and they might as a result face suffering. So our passage we heard today addresses such a possibility.
So,
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right you are blessed.
If you suffer – say, because of persecution for your beliefs – what would keep you going. I would suggest hope; hope in a better future, hope in the assurance you are doing a right and proper thing. Why do people protest or perhaps resist change? They have a hope in a future and so undertake that action. This letter, at least at this point, is about encouraging people in their hope. Indeed more than just encouraging them – I Peter requires them to be clear, being able to offer a defence, if they are called to account about the hope that is within them. And what is this hope?
It is clearly set out in the opening verses of the letter. It is indeed the hope we read on Thursday at Doug’s funeral - 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 into an inheritance that is imperishable and unfading kept in heaven for you.
We have a living hope because of Easter. A living hope – not just a hope out there in the future; but a living hope now; a hope that determines how we live now. This is the hope that is within us and for which we are to make account. A hope because we believe in Jesus.
More than ever we need to be able understand the hope that is within us. . . for our own sakes and for the world that is around us. Of the three great theological virtues – remember Paul “now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love” - hope tends to become the poor cousin in relation to the other two. We consider our ethics and what we must do as a Christian – love; we ponder the importance of knowing and belief, and what we can know and believe and issues of truth – faith; but why we should be anyone, or do anything in the first place, hope – often gets forgotten.
Doug’s death, and his choice of that first hymn in last week’s service – All my Hope on God is Founded — challenges but also inspires us. Death, and particularly the death of a dear friend, naturally causes us to ponder our own life – but Doug’s passing also, may I suggest, causes us to think about the church, and specifically this church’s future.
Al Macrae, principal of the Centre for Theology and Ministry and the president elect of the Uniting Church in Australia, in a paper given a couple of years ago on Hope at a conference up the hill on that topic says –
The church in the West is in deep crisis. At heart it is a crisis of hope occasioned, at one level by the collapse of Christendom.
He goes on to observe regardless of whether Christendom was good or bad thing, today churches just are flummoxed as to who they are and what they should be doing. It hardly seems like hope, Christian hope, doing nothing or wanting to work towards a goal of reinstating what used to be in the past.
Doug up until his death would dream and then encourage us to be and do things differently – because of the hope that was in him. He would welcome you, see possibilities of service, question our the direction and structure of our budget. What perhaps best summed up this attitude was that he had planned for 2008 a full year’s program for his beloved group of retired ministers, even though he knew he would not in all probability be himself a part of that program as the year unfolded. He confided in me, in a Doug joking sort of way, it did seem strange in doing that. But why would one do that? Many – perhaps most, wouldn’t. Because he passionately was concerned not just for the here and now; he was concerned for the future, a future which he felt confident about and he would do his part towards that future. He lived out that great John Wesley aphorism – the best is yet to be. He had a living hope.
For us here we need that hope – for how me may serve this community and be the Church here in Carlton. We need to be clear that we do have a vision for the future . . and we don’t just drift an need to have a process to address that. .
Which is a useful segue into reflecting on last weekend’s 2020 Summit.
On the whole I think it was a good event and a thing that is worth doing. Here was an event that purported to imagine what Australia in 2020 should be like. What did people hope our nation would look like in 12 years time? Lots of “hope” questions arose. However, is our hope as Christians the same as having an aspiration; perhaps even a wish list. In the plenary session from each of the groups, again and again they said when they reported back “they were optimistic” about this or that. Is optimism the same as hope? What about the tension that arose, at least according to newspaper reports, between those who wished to focus on and have clarity about these aspirational statements for Australia in 2020 – and those who just wanted the big ideas which could be implemented, well, tomorrow. A tension between imagination and dreaming and the hard current practical realities of now.
Our hope is founded on what has happened in the past: in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It revealed God’s love, that God’s nature is love – and that despite everything we see that we humans can do – to destroy each other, over consume and degrade this planet – God still is love and wills that we know a full life and live in peace and that in Christ we can be a new creation.
I would contend having such hope is so critical for us today if we are to contend with the prevailing culture of despair, or worse, that of fear. At the moment we are currently despairing at the state of the environment (perhaps we are in denial); we despair the state of international relations; of the tensions between religious groups, of gaps all around –gaps between rich and poor, gaps over access to health, gaps between indigenous life expectancy and our own. It is all too much. Even progress and the onward and relentless march of human achievement is being questioned. Such progress rode roughshod over minorities and the dispossessed; it has depleted our natural resources and we are left pondering our planets tenuous future. Worse than despairing, we have become fearful. Fearful of people who are different to us. Fearful of other religions.
Perhaps some of us are just hard wired to be nay-sayers and naturally gloomy; while others are joyous, sunny and tend to be Pollyanna – always seeing the positive and a bright future. Indeed perhaps we a less cheerful than we might think. I read this interesting introduction to Alain de Botton’s book How Proust can Change your Life last week:
There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would be good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task. Reason to be inconsolable abound: the frailty of out bodies, the fickleness of love, the insincerities of social life the compromises of friendship and the deadening effects of habit.
Is that us? I hope not – but are we able to account for the hope that is within us.
Jesus, as we have in our passage from John, also encountered gloomy and troubled followers. What he offers them today “is another counselor, comforter – the paraclete” – none other than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Literally, Jesus says let me inspire you, be an inspiration for you – let my spirit be with you. This will assure you of your future and be a living hope. The spirit of Christ will lead us into all truth. Even as we travel on the path to the promised goal – God will be with us, sustaining and providing food for the journey.
We have a hope.
We have a reminder of that hope in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
May we also be able to account for that hope when challenged – like our friend Doug.
