Good Morning.

These days, when uttering the phrase, “Good Morning,” we might feel we are doing so advisedly, sensing the retort that could come back at us, “What’s so good about it?” Yes, the times are pressing upon us, from many quarters, and in strange ways, too. In the church office one day last week, there were three email scams—1) a supposed Verizon request for our account number and password or our system would be shut down. We do have Verizon phone and internet so that cyber extortion was, at first, a concern. 2) A PayPal on line late payment reminder was also emailed; but the church does not do electronic payments; so we could easily delete. 3) There was finally, after those two nefarious messages, a heartfelt email about a little girl whose dog died. It seems she wrote a letter to God, stamped the envelope and addressed it to heaven. The email went on to tell that a postal official rescued the letter and responded to the girl as a way to cheer her up and enliven her faith, too. The end game here, though, was the request to share this little lovely note with as many people in your email address book as possible, which in reality would have meant a whole lot of malware being attached to a slew of unsuspecting folk’s computers, suckered in by a girl and her dog.

By comparison, that all functions as comic relief when one considers the news of the week: the complaints in advance over the President speaking with the nation’s school children; the confusion, chaos and anger of the healthcare debate, anxiety over H1N1 Influenza, double-digit unemployment, signs of a still uncertain(?) economic recovery; the stark news that 13% of the American population—40 million people—now live below the poverty line; and what has become the daily, droning headline that our wars continue in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we say “good morning” why? We say good morning in hope—in hope of a better day. So, then, if we dare to hope, will the odds be on our side? No, not if you look at things the way they are. However, if you only look at things as they are, then we haven’t got a prayer anyway. For hope is not about what we can see; hope is the energy that fuels what can be—especially that which we cannot yet see. Such vision is traditionally the purview of the church. Yet these days even the churches are beset by worries and contentions—cataracts that obscure vision. This is why we need to train our eyes in hopefulness: to see things as they might be, and to locate, strengthen and celebrate the hope that is in us. Yes, in the midst of all that turns downward, there is, in each one of us, the hope that presses on up and out to be expressed and shared as public works—acts of faith—for the common good. Yes, though in the larger polis we are conserving dollars and endeavoring to go green in lessened dependence on fossil fuels, there are energy reserves that we people of faith can and should tap. Quite frankly, as the church, we should be in the “red”… awash in an upwelling of the Holy Spirit, building up the Body of Christ, regardless of the current construction slump. Our value is not tied to market indicators. We are the gifts of God for the people of God, and that is priceless. So instead of that old credit card question, “What’s in your wallet?” let us ask “From whence comes hope?” Our hope is in the name of the Lord. The cords of death entangle, the grip of the grave takes hold; but we pray, O Lord, for your saving, gracious, righteous compassion. We might be brought low but we will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living (cf. Ps 116:1-8). There’s our hope in words from today’s psalm.

Our hope comes from our faith in Christ. Our hope is expressed in our heritage as Christians in The Episcopal Church. Our hope is evidenced in our actions and life together as Saint Luke’s Parish. Our hope is not idealism—a romantic picture of a world at peace with everyone getting along or a pious portrait of a reverent universal church on bended knee, easily obtained by moving the tongue in prayer . After all, ever since its inception, the church has been just as beset by turmoil and power plays as other human institutions. The Letter of James makes this point, almost mocking human nature when he writes that the tongue is small yet boasts of great exploits; that every species on earth has been tamed by humans but no one can tame the human tongue—“a restless evil, full of deadly poison,” deceptive and hypocritical in that the very same mouth blessing God also curses people “who are made in the likeness of God.” This is what happens when the tongue speaks for the self, whether it happens in the larger society or the church.

The tendency of the human being—the individual as well as the corporate body—especially under the fear-filled conditions of what we perceive to be extraordinary times, is to justify special powers to secure what we think we need. This tendency is actually temptation; and the “special powers” is sin—when our God-given will to live mutates into the will to power. Under such conditions, throughout history, people have colonized the local and imperialized the global; and yet we have hope in Christ who calls, instead, for sanctifying the body. Jesus who, in the words of Isaiah, has the tongue of a teacher, teaching us to do more listening and less talking, more listening for the word of God and less talking from our own needs and wants.

So, you see, our hope in Christ is not sentimental, for when he asks “Who do you say I am?” we need respond with more than our tongue. He says to us “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Our hope is Christ; we follow him. We look at things as they are and we see Christ changes everything, including you and me, us and them.

Our hope in Christ is expressed in our heritage as Episcopalians. We say that “praying shapes believing,” meaning we grow more and more into our faith as we gather as Christ’s Body. Our tradition is not about obligations but about participation, not about moral dictates but becoming moral decision-makers. The Episcopal Church meets people where they are, shares with them a deep love of Scripture and encourages them to take shape and flower as unique expressions of Christ in the community of the baptized, the priesthood of all believers. And if we love the Bible for its revealing of God’s Spirit incarnate in Christ, we are also attached to the Book of Common Prayer for opening us up to the pattern of Christ in our daily living, and dying, and rising again. The Prayer Book celebrations untie our tongues in praise to God and open our hearts to others.

Our hope in Christ takes on flesh and blood; our flesh and blood is entwined with fellow humans and the divine in our active life here and out there as Saint Luke’s Church. Christ is not just our hope. As Christ’s own, we become hope in the lives of others. When you look at the way things are, you could say that Saint Luke’s is situated in the middle of a dismal demographic—hardly any Christians and, with so many competing things to do, hardly any interest. However, since we are trained in and for hopefulness, we can see that this parish, at the epicenter of change, diversity, distraction and declension is precisely where the church needs to take flower. This is not only our hope, it is our calling. Amen.

©Thomas F. Reese, 13 September 2009