Knowing Hope

Back last summer, I began writing posts on my FB page that I called Happy Friday, Y’all! not because all was peaches and cream but because I wanted to offer hope. Because I was trying to be hopeful when life seemed anything but. When we choose to be hopeful, and yes even happy, when life is a struggle, we are offering up a small but effective protest against the hate and anger and dehumanization that seems to dominate our country.

It is challenging to feel hopeful these days. It’s difficult to say “Happy” anything. Whether or not we have struggles in our individual situations, we are collectively sharing an immensely challenging time in our country. Our political landscape has devolved into something like a junior high playground except the stakes are so much higher than who gets to sit at the cool kids table. The lying and bullying and gaslighting coming from Washington is costing lives, actual human lives. And not just in our country but the lives of children, women, and men all around the world. When our leaders model for us that only the lives they deem worthy have any value, this trickles down to all of us and none of us are safe.

So where is there any hope?

The hope is seen in everyone who chooses to offer compassion over hate. In everyone who believes that all human life is infinitely valuable. In everyone who knows that the form of leadership we see in the White House right now isn’t leadership but coercion and calls it what it is. When we accept that harm is allowed in order to get our way or to maintain our privilege or elevate our tribe, we’ve forgotten what hope really is.

Hope is the conviction that God’s Way of Love is more powerful than anything else. When we make our life about learning to see as Jesus sees, seeing the image of God in all people and not just in those who are like us, we live in hope.

In our Old Testament lesson today, Isaiah reminds the Israelites that they have been thinking too small. In their troubled times they worried and worked to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore Israel. And God says that is too little a thing. Through Isaiah, God says that God’s people are to be a light to ALL the nations and that God’s salvation is to reach the WHOLE earth. Not just one country. Not just one people group. But every human being in all nations of the world. This is where hope lies.

In our Gospel reading today, John continues to point the way to Jesus, to set his own ego aside because he knows who and Whose he is and that his purpose is to bring glory to God, not himself. John is willing to direct his own disciples to Jesus because that’s what he’s been teaching his disciples all along – keep your eyes on the Messiah. John doesn’t demand they stay with him and he doesn’t pout or discredit them when they go to Jesus. John knows hope.

Jesus responds to their questions with an invitation: Come and See. Jesus doesn’t demand they believe him or follow him. He doesn’t lead with fear or intimidation. Jesus offers an invitation to the life they are created for, the life grounded in God’s love for all people in all nations. Jesus invites them to decide for themselves if they want to follow him. Jesus never demands blind following. He invites questions and conversations and, yes, even doubt because he knows this is how we discover who and Whose we are. This is the knowing that brings us hope.

Heathy leadership doesn’t need to intimidate others to get it’s way. Healthy leadership knows that the purpose of leading is to build up those you are leading so that all live into their skills and talents for the good of all. Healthy leadership knows the purpose of leadership isn’t to hold power over others and doesn’t lose sight of the human lives they are leading. Healthy leadership works to bring those on the margins to the center, letting them know they are valued, seen, and heard. Healthy leadership rejoices as others live into who and Whose they are, as Paul does in his letter to the church in Corinth:

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind– just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you– so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We are all shaped and formed by those we allow to lead us. Whose model do we follow? Who do we follow? What are we looking for?

Are we looking out only for ourselves and so align ourselves to the people in power who demand allegiance with false promises and are willing to harm others to stay in power?

Or are we looking to be someone who sees the world as Jesus does, with eyes of compassion that see the image of God in all people?

Do we follow one who demands we follow blindly or do we follow Jesus who offers the invitation Come and See.

Come and see this world through the lens of knowing we are all God’s beloved children.

Come and see what it is to participate with God in answering the prayer that it be on earth as it is in heaven.

Come and see what it is to live in the hope of God’s faithfulness and love.

Hope is in all of us, each of us, as we follow Jesus, walking the path illuminated by God’s Word and Sacraments on a lifelong journey that shines the light of God’s Love into the darkness of this world. Amen.