The Rev. Carol S. Wedell
November 18, 2007

One of my very favorite children's books is one that I received in college:  Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  Ever have one of those days?  From the moment he wakes up with gum in his hair, things simply do not go Alexander's way.  His brothers both find fun prizes in their breakfast cereal boxes.  Alexander?  You guessed it.  In his cereal box, all he finds is - cereal.  Things go from bad to worse at school.  And so his day continues - complete with a dentist appointment and new shoes that aren't the ones he wants.  "It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."  Alexander's solution?  "I think I'll move to Australia."  Since everything there would be upside down, perhaps even this rotten day can be turned around.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is a best seller for many reasons - but primarily, I believe, because it speaks so strongly to the human experience.  From young children to older adults, we all have had those kinds of days when things just don't seem to go our way.

Then there are the bigger life issues which push us beyond the framework of simply "a bad day."  During the past couple weeks, I've heard of job tension and unemployment, major health concerns - both mental and physical, family and relational stress, and pressure at school. For many of us who gather here each Sunday, life is challenging.

Even if our own lives are moving along smoothly, all we need to do is open the newspaper or turn on the television or radio to be reminded that all is not right with the world.  Schools aren't always safe.  Soldiers and civilians alike die too often.  People struggle with hunger and poverty both in our city and around the world.  How are people of faith supposed to respond, given the sometimes harsh realities of the world in which we live? 

Our readings this morning offer us two very different pictures.  Contrary to what we often expect, it is our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures that lifts up good news:  hope for the kind of world that God intends - where the sound of weeping is never heard, where premature death is a thing of the past, where justice and fairness will be the rule. 

Spoken to the Hebrew people following their return from exile, when Jerusalem is still in ruins, Isaiah offers an expansive vision of hope. The time of celebration may not be here yet, but it is just around the corner. The prophet tells of something brand new that God will bring about.  In wonderful, poetic language, the people who have endured great hardship are given the assurance of God's presence and more - an idyllic new and better world created by God's hand.  "I am about to create new heavens and a new earth."

By contrast, the picture painted in the gospel of Luke is harsh.  War, persecution, indeed even the destruction of the Temple are presented as a part of the reality that the followers of Jesus should expect.  Being a disciple of Jesus will be a costly venture and will likely include suffering.  Yet while this vision is disturbing, the gospel writer is very clear.  Even when things are not looking so great, God is still very much present.

These two passages hold up two paradoxical truths:  with faithfulness there is enormous joy.  And with faithfulness there is also the likelihood of pain.  The Bible challenges us to see both sides of the coin - which is sometimes difficult to do.  We tend to flip to one side or the other. 

For most North American Christians, the tendency is to run toward the joy and away from the pain.   Graham Standish, a Presbyterian pastor and author from Pennsylvania, tells of a speaking with a group of pastors in Africa.  He writes: When I was studying for my doctorate, I had the privilege of studying with several Roman Catholic priests from Africa. One day over lunch we had a discussion about worship and Easter. One of us, an American Protestant pastor, said, "It's kind of frustrating that our churches are overflowing on Easter Sunday, but virtually empty on Good Friday. People don't want to deal with suffering." The African priests looked at each other with puzzled looks. Finally, one said, "You get people in your churches on Easter? We can't get our members to come on Easter, but we can't find enough seats for them on Good Friday. That's when they fill our churches. They know suffering, but they have a hard time believing in the hope of Easter." We Americans want joy without suffering, but many in the world suffer and don't believe in the possibility of joy. (as quoted in Lectionary Homiletics).

As Christians, we must acknowledge the current reality - which may well include pain.  Yet even and perhaps especially, in the midst of that pain, we are given a vision of hope.  God will be with us and calls us to live into a future that looks very different than the current reality. 

Can we claim that vision of hope as our own - or do we discount it as totally unrealistic?  Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann suggests that "the new world of God is beyond our capacity and even beyond our imagination.   In our fatigue, our self sufficiency, and our cynicism, we deeply believe that such promises could not happen here. The outrageousness of this text sits in our inability to imagine beyond our present reality, in our seduction by the status quo and in our deep commitment to the known." (As quoted in Lectionary Homiletics).

Are we willing to look beyond the status quo and what we've always known and begin to live toward this new world that God is creating?  Are we willing to live into that future even when it seems unrealistic?  Are we willing to take risks, to step out boldly in faith and anticipate where God may be at work?

It is tempting to read Isaiah, written 2500 years ago as merely wishful thinking. Eugene Peterson points out the difference between hoping and wishing - and reminds us that they are not the same thing.  "Wishing is something all of us do. It projects what we want or think we need into the future.  Just because we wish for something good or holy we think it qualifies as hope.  It does not.  Wishing extends our egos into the future; hope grows out of our faith.  Hope is oriented toward what God is doing; wishing is oriented toward what we are doing.   Wishing has to do with what I want in things or people or God; hope has to do with what God wants in me and in the world of things and people beyond me.

Wishing is our will projected into the future, and hope is God's will coming out of the future.  Picture it in your mind:  wishing is a line that comes out of me, with an arrow pointing into the future.  Hoping is a line that comes out of God from the future, with an arrow pointing toward me.

Hope means being surprised, because we don't know what is best for us or how our lives are going to be completed.  To cultivate hope is to suppress wishing - to refuse to fantasize about what we want, but live in anticipation of what God is going to do next" (as quoted in Lectionary Preaching Workbook, Year C, by Carlos Wilton).

We are given a vision of hope for the future - but the details are not all spelled out!  We are invited to participate with God in helping make that vision a reality.  The prophet understood that God's people had to be part of the equation.

To live into that future, to claim that reality here and now will include being willing to let go of our tight grip on what we know and like.  It will also mean discerning where that line from God is pulling us toward a new world that is beyond our imagination.

As many of you know, our congregation has supported the ministry of New Life Community for some time.  New Life provides transitional housing for homeless families, as well as training in a wide variety of life skills, so that those who move on from there are likely to be able to support themselves and their families. It is truly a transformational program.

 In recent weeks, I've learned more about how New Life began. A faithful church person, Tom Uhle awoke one night with a dream - a vision, if you will, of a place that would not only provide housing for the burgeoning population of homeless families, but that would enable them to move on to an independent, productive life.  From my perspective, he caught a vision of God's future, which pulled him in.

To test that his dream was truly what God had in mind, Tom contacted a wide variety of folks he thought might support the concept, and approximately 20 of them showed up - and began praying about it.  I find it enlightening that they did not rush in immediately, but instead, were very intentional in seeking God's direction.

That mission group continued to pray until they were clear about what they believed God was calling them to do.  New Life Community was born.  That mission group still meets weekly to pray for God's guidance and participation in the important work that New Life is doing.

To live into God's future is to be receptive to the visions that God may send our way.  I love that Tom and his wife, Grace understood that if this really was the direction that God wanted them to go they would find confirmation along the way.  In a context that could seem full of despair, hope and a breaking in of God's future continues to occur each time new residents are welcomed to New Life.

All God asks of us, I believe, is that kind of receptivity.  We aren't asked to say yes to every request that comes our way, or to try and change the world on our own - that truly would be impossible.  We are asked - we are called - to listen, to pay attention to where God wants us to be, and to claim, even in situations which may seem "terrible, horrible and no good," the presence and vision of God.

Our closing hymn today is the well-known, Now Thank We All Our God.  The author of these powerful words, Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart, wrote them in the midst of the Thirty Years War and an epidemic of the plague.  Death was everywhere.  Sometimes he conducted as many as 50 funerals a day - including a service for his own beloved wife.  Yet even in a situation of enormous pain, Rinkart claimed God's presence and lived into God's future. 

May we too, live into God's future - in our words, our actions, with all that we have - and claim God's vision of hope.