Holding the Hope for each other

From Jimmy Fund Walk in Boston

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

February 16, 2021

Psalm 85:7-13; Jonah 4:1-11;Luke 10:1-12

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

I don’t know about you all, but I needed some Jonah this week. I love Jonah. I love Jonah because he is so human. I love Jonah because he gives us permission to be frustrated and angry. He gives us permission to get it wrong. To have our moments where our perspective and priorities can get mixed up. And ultimately, I love Jonah because his story reminds us of God’s abiding grace and faithfulness. It reminds us that the whole thing is bigger than we are, and oh right, it is not all about us. 

I especially love our passage for today, where Jonah gets all worked up about the bush. He tethers his emotions and his well-being to the state of the bush. When it is great, he is happy. When it withers, he is angry. That clicked for me this week. I realized I have found myself tethering my emotions to external forces. What are the graphs for CT and NY doing? How’s the vaccine supply? Who has predictions about when we might be able to do this, that, or the other thing in person? What is our government doing to combat injustice? Are the myriad of challenges we face as a nation and a world actually being addressed right now? It is a roller coaster. I am exhausted, and it is not helping my well-being. 

Just like Jonah, I needed a reminder that this whole thing is bigger than me. I needed the reminder that I am not actually in charge. If I tether my well-being to external outcomes, I am going to be stuck on a roller coaster. I don’t want to be stuck on a roller coaster. That sent me looking for a different way of being, and helped me remember the distinction Archbishop Desmond Tutu makes between hope and optimism. It is worth quoting him at length. The Archbishop says:

“Hope is quite different from optimism, which is more superficial and liable to become pessimism when the circumstances change. Hope is something much deeper . . . I say to people that I’m not an optimist, because that, in a sense that depends on feelings more than actual reality. We feel optimistic, or we feel pessimistic. Now hope is different in that it is based not on the ephemerality of feelings but on the firm ground of conviction. I believe with a steadfast faith that there can never be a situation that is utterly, totally hopeless. Hope is deeper and very, very close to unshakeable. It’s in the pit of your tummy. It’s not in your head . . . Resignation and cynicism are easier, more self-soothing postures that do not require the raw vulnerability and tragic risk of hope. To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time the storm will pass.” (Book of Joy, p. 121-2.)

I find that to be a powerful image and distinction. An important reminder to keep ourselves grounded in that which is deeper than circumstances or outcomes. I am also glad that the Archbishop does not end his description there, seeming to imply that to be a person of hope is to be standing alone against the storm.

He goes on to say that “Hope is the antidote to despair . . . Hope is also nurtured by relationship, by community, whether that community is a literal one or one fashioned from the long memory of human striving, whose membership includes Ghandi, King, Mandela, and countless others. Despair turns us inward. Hope sends us into the arms of others.” (Book of Joy, p. 123.)

So if you have had any roller coaster moments this week, or if you feel like Jonah in the coming days, remember the wisdom of the Archbishop, ground yourselves in hope. And on the days where you feel grounded, keep yourself firmly planted so that you may be the arms to receive others. 

There is a very, very long list of why I am grateful for this gathered community and the ways it has sustained me over the course of this year. Perhaps one of the most beautiful gifts you all have given, that we all give each other, is to nurture hope for each other. That is Church at its best, when we can hold the faith for each other, when we can provide sustenance in the midst of spiritual deserts, when we can support and uphold each other. When simply our gathered presence proclaims the beauty of God’s Word, the depth of God’s love and the conviction that the Truth does not change -love and life always triumph -  no matter what the state of the world is. Thank you for that gift, dear friends. Amen.