Sermon for March 17th, 2013

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Romans 8:18-25

18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Psalm 126

1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
   we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
   ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’
3 The Lord has done great things for us,
   and we rejoiced.

4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
   like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5 May those who sow in tears
   reap with shouts of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping,
   bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
   carrying their sheaves.

Psalm 126: Growing Hope

Everything I know about hope I learned from my three children. My oldest son, Grady, came home one day a few months ago and said, "Dad, I'm going to Washington DC!" "Really? How's that going to happen?" "Well, my class at school is having a spelling bee. If I win the spelling be in my class, I get to compete in the school spelling be, and if I win that, I get to compete in the El Paso spelling bee, then if I win that I get to compete in the Texas spelling bee, and if I win that, I get to go to Washington DC and compete in the national spelling bee. So I'm going to Washington DC!"

My daughter Abby was at her grandparents' house a few weeks ago and decided to gather some sticks and grass together and make a birds' nest in their backyard...so yesterday when she saw her grandparents, she of course wanted to know if any birds had moved into it yet, and how they were getting along, if any improvements needed to be made, (I think she might also have been considering raising their rent...)

And my youngest son Jonah is convinced that the only legitimate reason anyone could possibly have for walking into a room where he is present, is to pick him up. If you leave this hope unfulfilled, he makes sure you know about it.

There is, of course, a difference between hope and unrealistic expectations. But it's a very fine line, I think. When we put our hope in something, it almost has to be just a little bit unrealistic. Not many people spend their time hoping fervently that the sun will rise in the morning, or that 2+2 will equal 4, or that April will come after March. Even those who hope for seemingly ordinary things, like a long and healthy life, do so because they know we have no guarantees of these things, it is unrealistic to expect them with complete confidence...so instead, we hope.

In a game of poker, if you have a Royal Flush, you do not "hope" you are going to win. You know you are going to win. Hope is for those of us with lesser hands--it fills the gap where things are beyond our control. I don't know that I will win...but I hope I will win. Robert Browning, one of my favorite poets, put it this way: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" Put simply, hope is where our work ends, and where God's work begins.

For the past three weeks, we've been exploring the ideas of Faith, Hope, and Love through the lens of the Psalms, which offer us models and examples of how to live, how to grow in these areas, in our relationships with God and with each other. Today, we turn to Psalm 126, to see what it has to teach us about growing hope.

The word "hope" doesn't actually appear anywhere in this psalm, and yet I think the idea of hope is dripping from every verse. This is a later psalm, not written during the time of David or Solomon, but probably over 500 years later--after Jerusalem was sacked, the people of Israel carried off to exile in Babylon for several generations, and finally allowed to return to their ancestral home. I think this is hard for us to understand; we really don't have anything to compare it to. Imagine if the United States of America were invaded by a foreign power, utterly defeated, destroyed, and then abandoned. Imagine your great, great, grandchildren someday returning here to rebuild a land they only knew from stories and faded memories. Like I said, it's hard for us to imagine.

But this is the place where the writer of Psalm 126 finds himself in the first three verses: "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced."

I said it was hard for us to imagine...as a country. But maybe not so hard for us to imagine...as a church? Those who have been members here for many generations remember a time, many years ago, when these pews were filled to the brim with hundreds upon hundreds of people. At time when the message and the ministry of First Presbyterian Church was known throughout the city, when through her influence hospitals and schools and orphanages and churches were raised up in El Paso, in Juarez, and beyond.

And then there were years of trouble and strife. For two decades, we watched as members left--some for other, newer churches, some for other denominations, while some just dropped out and left church altogether.

More recently, I have heard the stirrings of hope in this place, as some long absent have begun to return. Sometimes its the children of long-departed members who come back, looking for a place to raise their own children in the Christian faith, as they were raised. Sometimes it is people entirely new to First Presbyterian Church who wander through our doors seeking a message of faith, hope, or love. But even they eventually hear the old stories about the church we used to be. Vicariously through the memories of others, they too relive our past and participate in the hope that, like Zion, the Lord may restore our fortunes so that all the nations (or at least all the other churches) will say "The Lord has done great things for them."


4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

  like the watercourses in the Negeb. 

5 May those who sow in tears

  reap with shouts of joy. 

6 Those who go out weeping,

  bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

  carrying their sheaves.