One of the most recognized and most quoted verses from the Bible is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (13 verse 13) “And now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Look at our three chancel windows we see the symbols for faith, hope, and love. Love’s window is higher than the other two windows, but all three essential components of a life well-lived in the teachings of Jesus.
The anchor, symbol for hope was an early Christian symbol commonly found in the Roman catacombs. Scholars believe it was a symbol of the early Christians’ hope in their risen Christ and was inspired by the New Testament letter to the Hebrews Chapter 6, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”
When I first came to Universalist National I thought the anchor in the window and the name of our newsletter The Anchor had something to do with John Murray, the “Father of Universalism” in America who sailed to the United States in July 1770. It was at the darkest, most challenging time of his life. His only son, his mother, a brother, and three of his sisters had recently died. Added to sorrow over these deaths, Murray had serious disagreements with friends and two brother-in-laws. The financial burdens of his wife’s illness, other debts, and his own declining health, including serious problems with his eyesight, brought Murray to the tragic condition of considering suicide.
We cannot live well without hope.
Fortunately for the world, he heard stories of the new world. So, instead of ending his life, he thought he could “bury himself in the wilderness across the Atlantic.” [Russell E. Miller, The Larger Hope] His ship was stranded off the southern coast of New Jersey. Murray went ashore seeking provisions for the ship and knocked on the door of a Mary and Thomas Potter. They were Baptists with universalist leanings. The Potters had built a church on their land and they asked Murray to preach there. At first he declined, reluctant to preach publicly the hopeful story of universalism. But the story is told that Potter said God would not let the wind pick up until Murray preached a universalist sermon for them. Potter did and the next day the wind picked up and the ship sailed to New York.
John Murray preached his first sermon on universalism and changed our religious story. In the darkest hours of his life, he preached “Give Them Hope, Not Hell,” and changed his life. It is not so far fetched to associate the anchor with the stranded boat that led to Murray’s first sermon on this soil. Considering his emotional and spiritual condition of the time, it certainly demonstrates the power of hope in a person’s life.
Hope is one of those words, like grace, that is a concept, and which has no concrete object to which we can point and say that is hope. It has meaning for everyone, and while everyone may not always recognize when they are hopeful; almost everyone can tell you if they have “lost hope.”
Hope is different from “faith.” We develop our faith as we grow up, become young adults, and then mature into our adult lives. Renowned theologian James Fowler, in his book Stages of Faith tells us that faith is as much about our understanding of our selves, our relationships with others and God, as it is about religion. Faith is not our belief system, it is developed along side our belief system.
Hope is not “developed,” it is in our subconscious. Philosophers and psychologists, as well as other professions, have been studying hope for as long as there have been philosopher and psychologists. For our exploration today, let us see hope as connected to what we believe is “meaning” in our lives. We could turn to any number of great philosophers for a discussion of “hope,” but I happen to like Curly’s explanation. You may remember Curly, he was the mysterious, mythic cowboy in Billy Crystal’s hilarious comedy “City Slickers.” Billy Crystal turns forty and finds him self depressed and feeling hopeless. He gets two guy friends to go out west with him to a cattle ranch where the owners of the ranch use city slickers looking for adventure to drive their cattle from one range to another range. Billy believes this real cattle drive, the adventure, and the danger, will help him find a meaning to his life, and thus help him regain his hopefulness.
We cannot live well without hope.
Curly, the archetype cowboy, takes a disliking to Crystal and makes his life especially challenging on this cattle drive. Of course, events happen so that Curly and Crystal bond and Crystal asks Curly, “What is the meaning of life,” because he has come to believe that Curly has the secret to a well-lived life.
Curly holds up his hand and raises one finger. One, that’s it, one. Then, he dies. Crystal decides that what Curly meant is that each person has to discover for themselves what life means. And when they do, they also find their hope.
We find hope moving within our selves in many ways and forms; it is not static; it is a fluid, spiritual response to our environment and life’s circumstances.
Maya Angelou wrote about hope as a yearning for something unknown in her poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,”
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
John Fountain wrote about hope in This I Believe [The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, “The God Who Embraced Me.” edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman] He said his hope was a wish for something missing in his life,
I always envied boys I saw walking hand-in-hand with their fathers. I thirsted for the conversations fathers and sons have … As a boy, I used to sit on the front porch watching the cars roll by, [hoping] … that one day one would park and the man getting out would be my daddy.
For the prophet Isaiah, hope was a desire for something that could be,
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more
Ida Folsom, in our reading this morning wrote, hope can be a source of our strength
“Unless we have a hope, how can we find courage for the road…”
In a poem by a little known poet Neils Christiansen, hope is powerful and powerless at the same time ["Many Are the Acts of Bravery"],
Many are the seeds of hope
That in the end have no fruit to bear
What is hopeful for one person, can seem hopeless for another. After the attacks on 9/11, I experienced a hopelessness in my life that I had not known for many years. I was devastated. Some of my response was the feelings that humankind would lead itself to the death of humanity. Some hopelessness was imbedded in our inability to achieve world peace, and the pride-filled arrogance of world leaders affected me. There was also the destructive customs of tribal cultures, and many other concerns that I can’t even go into now. It was depression fueled by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
On the other hand, a friend of mine told me, that after the attacks, when other nations around the world responded to our tragedy, helping us, offering support and money, and reaching out to us in our pain, well, she said, it made her hopeful for humankind and the world.
Our ability to be hopeful is unique to each and every person.
I don’t want to be remiss and not address the hopelessness that comes with organic, chronic depression. We need to express our empathy and love to those for whom the only help is through psychiatry and medicine. I learned, just last year when I moved here, that one of my colleagues, a young woman I went to Meadville Lombard with, is suffering from chronic depression and loss of hope. It is so severe she can no longer be a minister. You know, I’ve talked about her before when I said she was the wise one—the one to whom others, including myself, turned to for pastoral care. One never knows what will happen; we need to be aware that our bodies and life’s events can bring loss of hope and depression at any time.
What do we do when life brings about those dark times? When, as Folsom wrote,
The waters of life never run smoothly... There are always unfulfilled promises, hopes that fade into the mists of years, … It is in moments like these when we feel the futility of dreams, the cruelty of promise and the wastefulness of hope …
She said we, need “… dreams with purpose, hopes with purpose, aspirations with purpose …”, and they will provide the ‘“everlasting arms’” that will hold us, “bear us up.” Purpose—isn’t that what we need to make meaning in our lives? And isn’t it meaning that gives us hope?
But sitting down and establishing a “purpose” for our lives isn’t always enough. For the kind of hope that sustains us through all the darkest of times, we have to turn to our God. The Bible says in more than one place, but it is in the Old Testament in the Book of Nahum, Chapter 1, verse 7 that gives us the formula to regain hopefulness: God is … a refuge in times of trouble. God cares for those who trust in him…,
Trust
Trust is a profoundly powerful, life-changing decision.
Isn’t trust the most important characteristic of a relationship?
Some of you may remember from my sermon “Cost of Relationship” that when I left the Baptist church at seventeen, I had an extremely hard time dealing with the loss. I had lost my church home, friends, the connection to the greater community, a sense of myself as a religious person, a sense of my self-worth, it was the darkest night of my soul. I had lost almost everything and I had lost hope.
And in all that, I had a mystical experience. I was driving my car down a highway where on both sides was rice fields and open spaces. All of a sudden, all I could see was fog. Only it wasn’t on the road, it was around me. I pulled over and sat there, and a voice from within said, “Lillie, God is love, God is like that setting sun over there, always with you, all-powerful, and all loving. If you will but only trust that everything will be all right, it will be.”
If I will only trust that everything will be all right, it will be. And my hope returned.
And it has been with me ever since, because I believed that voice, and I have trusted in God every since.
Except something happened at 9/11… It was the first time in thirty-five years where I lost hope. And it took me several months, and lots of prayer and a renewal of trust, but finally, my persistent hope in life and the meaning of life returned, and I have been in a good place with God ever since.
“God is … a refuge in times of trouble. God cares for those who trust in him…,”
The birth of Jesus is a symbol of hope. We celebrate the life of that babe in the manger because we cannot live well without hope. To have hope we have to have a purpose, and to have a purpose we have to believe there is meaning to our lives. And that meaning has to include God. And to have the kind of relationship we need to have with God, we have to completely and absolutely trust God.
It is when we completely and absolutely trust that we have the kind of hope that sustains us in the darkest hours of our lives. My prayer for us today is that whenever we have those dark times we never forget to trust.
The Readings
Reading I
Isaiah 2:1-5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.'
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!
Reading II
The Waters of Life by Ida M. Folsom from To Meet the Asking Years edited by Gordon B. McKeeman. Ida Folsom is a long-time Universalist who was on the Universalist Church of American Extension Board from 1946-48.
“The Waters of Life”
There are times in the lives of all of us when the greatest and most imperative need is for a sense of security and confidence that cannot be shaken by the winds of chance.
The waters of life never run smoothly. Every day has its darkness and its light, its bitter and its sweet, its pleasure and its pain. There are always unfulfilled promises, hopes that fade into the mists of years, the dreams from which we rudely awaken. It is in moments like these when we feel the futility of dreams, the cruelty of promise and the wastefulness of hope.
One of the great song writers, who understood life, challenges us with these words: “Unless you have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?” and we might follow his thought by asking: “Unless we have a hope, how can we find courage for the road, and unless we have a goal, how shall we know when we have arrived?” Dreams with purposes, hopes with purpose, aspirations with purpose, are the “everlasting arms” that bear us up and make sure our confidence in ourselves when the current seems to be running against us.
I will say to my soul: “Thou shall not be shaken by the exigencies of life, for all experiences are necessary to thy shaping,” and I will look hard at the hammer and anvil that shape them.
Posted by UNMC Office at December 2, 2007 11:00 AM