Sermon: Hope that doesn't die (November 9, 2014)

Pentecost 22/Lectionary 32

November 9, 2014

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

            Each October, the Rochester Landmark Society puts on a “Ghost Walk.” Participants walk through an historic neighborhood off East Ave. and encounter various “ghosts” who tell you different stories, some sordid, some fantastical, some creepy or scary, all from Rochester’s history. One of the stories this year’s walkers heard was about the Millerites in October, 1844. The Millerites were a Christian sect particularly prominent in western NY, followers of Rev. William Miller, who believed that he had cracked the biblical code and knew the precise time Jesus would return. He described the end as something like what we heard a moment ago in our reading from 1 Thessalonians, with Jesus coming down on a cloud, and the sound of a trumpet, but then followed by fire burning up the earth to cleanse it of all evil. People gathered together en masse to await the sound of that trumpet and the

coming of Jesus.

The skit at the Ghost Walk was about a woman who was eagerly waiting and watching the sky, and her sister who didn’t believe a word of it. As they argue, a man comes up and says, “Well, if Jesus is coming tonight, perhaps you’d like to sell me that pretty gold necklace!” And of course the woman, so certain that gold, even gold that belonged to her mother, would be of no use to her once Jesus came, gives it willingly to the man – to her sister’s horror! All throughout the skit, the woman, who has totally disconnected from her earthly life, is checking the sky for clouds coming down, and listening for that trumpet.

            Of course, if you know your American religious history, you know that the next thing that happened was known as the Great Disappointment. Spoiler alert: Jesus didn’t come – at least not in the way that Rev. Miller had predicted. Imagine the disappointment and the shame and even the grief of all involved. They had waited and anticipated this great event, but all for naught. Waiting is always hard, but I think the worst sort of waiting is the kind where you think you know how something will turn out, and you’re excited about it, but then it turns out differently than you expected, and not for the better.

Of course, that’s also what happened to the early Christians, who expected Jesus to return imminently, but never did see that day. And this is the context of both our Thessalonians text and the parable of the bridesmaids that Jesus tells. First, the parable: Matthew wrote his gospel about 50 years after Jesus’ resurrection, so the community for which he is writing has been waiting around quite a while for Christ to return. In the meantime, the Jerusalem Temple has been destroyed (that happened in the year 70), adding to their despair, discouragement, and loss of hope.

And so here comes this parable: Ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom to come. They have come prepared with enough lamp oil for everything to run smoothly, for what they expect

to happen… but only half brought enough to account for a delay. And so when the bridegroom comes later than expected, half of the bridesmaids have run out of oil. They expected this night to go one way, but it didn’t, and so they get left out of the party because they were not prepared for the outcome they got. It is a story about expectations, about waiting, about things not going as planned, and about the devastation that often follows such disappointment.

Then we have this letter to the Thessalonians. This is likely the earliest letter of Paul’s that we have, written only about 20 years after Jesus’ resurrection. The Thessalonians, like Matthew’s audience, believed that Jesus’ return would be imminent. But as the years passed, and their loved ones were dying without ever seeing Jesus again, they increasingly became a community living in grief. Their hope was being dashed. They feared for their loved ones who had died. Whatever hope Jesus’ life, death and resurrection had brought to them was being diminished by their discouragement in each passing day without Christ’s return.

These are the two scriptural texts we are presented with today about waiting, about unfulfilled hopes, about expecting a certain outcome only to be blindsided by a very different and unwelcome one. But of course we also each bring to worship this morning the text of our lives: our own waiting and expectations, our own unfulfilled hopes and disappointments, our own discouragement. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to Christian history; it is something we all live with every day. And when faced with such disappointment and discouragement, some of us cling to our hope, diminishing though it may be, and some of us find it is easier and less painful simply to let that hope slip away.

The text of my life that I bring this Sunday is the story of my dear friend and colleague Becca, who last week gave birth to a baby with no heartbeat. A perfect pregnancy all the way through, the baby’s heartbeat dropped rapidly as she was preparing for labor, and they couldn’t get him out fast enough to revive him. At Baby Gideon’s funeral this past week, someone read a reflection Becca and her husband Will wrote. It was based on the Road to Emmaus text, in which some disciples are walking along who have seen Jesus’ crucified, but have not yet seen him raised. They say, “We had hoped he would be the Messiah.” Will and Becca wrote, “To us, ‘we had hoped’ are the saddest words in the Bible,” and went on to reflect on the hopes they had for their son that would never be fulfilled. Disappointment, discouragement, and grief.

But a couple days after this tragedy, Will started posting scripture passages on Facebook, passages full of hope and comfort in grief, of the promises that God has made to us in the moments when we feel the most lost, the most discouraged, the most hopeless. These passages have been a window into Becca and Will’s experience, but also incredibly nourishing for those of us who are grieving with them from far away. Today’s text from Thessalonians was one that he posted. Let me read it for you again: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”

These are such powerful and pastoral words that Paul speaks to a community that is grieving.

He tells them first of all that it is okay to grieve – grief is a part of loss, a part of expectations not being met. But those who believe in Christ do not grieve as people who have no hope, but rather as people who absolutely do still have the hope that is in Christ. For those who believe in the resurrection, hope can never die. Because we believe in the resurrection, we believe Paul’s words that at the end of the day, whenever that day comes, we all will be raised, and we all “will be with the Lord forever.”

It is this belief that is the reason we come to worship week after week. In particular it is Paul’s words at the very end of this passage: “Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” We come together to remind each other of the promises of Christ, to say together the words of our faith, the words of the Creed, trusting that even when our hope falters and we aren’t sure we can believe it, our brothers and sisters around us can believe it for us. We can hold one another up in prayer – even and especially if someone isn’t feeling much like praying that day, the community can do it on that person’s behalf. It is so easy to be discouraged by the disappointments and unfulfilled hopes of this world. But thanks be to God that, together in Christian community, we are able to encourage one another in the hope that is in Christ.

Let us pray… God of resurrection, so often we hope for things to go a certain way, only to find that our expectations are not met, and we are left disappointed, discouraged, or downright depressed. Help us, when life has not gone as planned, not to look to faulty worldly things for comfort, but to put our hope in you, and in the promise of resurrection. In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Sprit. Amen.