A FUTURE WITH HOPE
Jeremiah 29:4-13 John 14: 1-5
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(Once again, dear friends, the written text is different from the preached....)
Has anyone heard of the “EcoMom Alliance?” There is a wave of “EcoMom parties” moving across the country. The EcoMom Alliance hosts home parties to help bring and sustain positive change in every aspect of daily living. While these “home parties” look a little like Tupperware parties or book groups, they are, in fact, environmental self-help awareness and action empowerment groups.
“I used to feel anxiety,” said Kathy Miller, an alliance member, recalling life before she started investigating weather-sensitive irrigation controls for her garden with nine growing zones. “Now I feel like I’m doing something.” (NYT, February 16, 2008, p. A10)
Linda Buzzell, publisher of the quarterly EcoTherapy News writes, “Activism can help counteract depression. But if we get caught up in trying to save the world single-handedly, we’re just going to burn out.”
It is easy to despair of the possibilities for change ... to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenges that face us ... globally and locally. Next Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Sharon Delgado will visit Epworth to be in conversation about her new book: Shaking the Gates of Hell: Faith led Resistance to Corporate Globalization. I commend her to you and to the intersection of faith and global responsibility.
We long for a future with hope. But where is the hope?
General Conference begins this week. General Conference is the highest legislative body in the United Methodist Church. This two week long meeting of nearly one thousand elected delegates – half laity and half clergy, takes place every four years to set direction for the worldwide church. (Randy and I) (Karin) (dozen Epworth) Fort Worth ... The theme of this year’s General Conference is… “A future with hope.”
As I prepare for General Conference, I’d like to be able to say I am confident that there will be great change in the church for good and that the vision of God’s Beloved Community will be made plain in the decisions made there. I would like to say it, but cannot say that I am confident.
I’d like to say I’m optimistic that we will prevail in advocating for a fully inclusive church with truly open hearts, minds and doors for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender brothers and sisters. I would like to say it, but I cannot say I am optimistic.
I may not be confident or optimistic, but I am hopeful.
I hope...because I know that God works in us, through us, and despite us. I hope... because I know that God is not finished with us yet. I hope because I know that people of good will will show up and act faithfully for a future with hope.
When I return, on Sunday, May 4th, I expect to share with you good news. It may be found in glimpses of glory and in moments of gut-wrenching sorrow, surprises of the Holy Spirit.
Our text this morning is part of a letter that the prophet Jeremiah wrote to a people in exile. They had been driven from their homes in Jerusalem … and even from their homeland … and forced to live in exile in Babylon.
The people of Israel were in a place they didn’t want to be … dominated by a power they feared and despised … yet Jeremiah challenges them to hope in the midst of exile, to hope rather than succumb to bitterness, resignation, or despair. Jeremiah also challenges false prophets who told the people what they wanted to hear. Prophets who made attractive promises that justice would be swift, and that they would return to their homeland within two years.
Instead, in this letter Jeremiah wrote to the people, saying, … Here’s what the Lord says for you to do now: In this unwanted place, with this gravely flawed future … build homes … plant gardens … raise families … and seek the welfare of the city in which you find yourselves exiled.
Jeremiah assures them that no matter how bleak it looks in the moment … God has “plans for your welfare and not harm” … that no matter how hard the situation, Babylonian exile, or even when your homeland (or home church) is exile, God is with us there. God has in mind for you “a future with hope.” The way to that future, Jeremiah tells them, is to resist exile while in exile, to build a life, to be fully who they are, build homes and plant gardens. Do not only wait or wallow in exile... but flourish! ... as an act of resistance and renewal.
We are called to be leaven, to be salt, to sow seeds for the sake of the world that God so loves. We are called to tend to the mending of creation right here and now. We are called to keep hope alive.
This morning we presented Bible’s to some of our children. Someone once called the Bible “the most owned and least read book in the world.” Owning a Bible doesn’t mean much unless we read it … and reading it doesn’t mean much unless we struggle with it ... in community … engage texts of challenge and promise and responsibility and release … take into our hearts the promise of God’s inexhaustible acceptance and the requirements of God’s unbounded compassion.
We are called to be leaven, to be salt, to sow seeds for the sake of the world that God so loves. We are called to tend to the mending of creation right here and now. We are called to keep hope alive.
This week we observe Earth Day … and remember our daily, hourly, constant dependence on this natural world of which we are a part. This morning I presented children pots and seeds … with responsibility and hope … to help nourish all life and growth.
At an Earth Day event a group of children were talking about Global Warming. When the teacher asked if global warming could be stopped, one little boy raised his hand. “Global warming will stop because we recycle, and my dad is going to stop it!”
A future with hope is a divine promise … it also is a group participation exercise. Whatever we are given … it is up to us to show up, resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, to work for good, for growth, and for promise.
In writing of relationships, the psychologist M. Scott Peck observed that love is not a feeling … it is an act of will. We choose to will, and to work for, the well-being of others as well as ourselves. We choose to operate in the world on the basis of hope-filled commitment rather than despair-driven resignation. Hope is not a feeling, it is a choice sustained by grace.
Michelle Diaz-Garza and Rosa Baum were 9 year-old classmates in a Watsonville Elementary school when they wrote ... in English and Spanish the poem “There is a dark river ... “Hay un río oscuro”
There is a dark river
In the gutter of the street
In front of my school.
It was born in the rain
And isn’t flowing anymore.
It’s sort of sad
With drops of gasoline
And a red wrapper
Some kid tossed
After eating a candy.
But although it’s sad and filthy
It carries the shadow of my face
The tattered clouds
And in white and black
The whole sky.
We choose what we see. We choose what we do. We choose to claim the strength of love and the power of hope.
We are called to be leaven, to be salt, to sow seeds for the sake of the world that God so loves. We are called to tend to the mending of creation right here and now. We are given a future with hope. Thanks be to God.
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