Abiding in Hope

As I prepare for the fourth week of seeing worship through its senses, I’m finding the sense of hope elusive. Is that because it conveys the sense of wishful thinking and pipe dreams? I hope I win the lottery. Or is it because it is so essential to life that it defies definition?

Dictionary.com defines hope as a feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, which seems rather positive until you glance at the example: to give up hope. Other options go on to define the reason we have this feeling, the thing or person that gives us this feeling, or a particular experience of this feeling. The verb form continues to exude hope: to look forward with desire or reasonable confidence; to believe, to trust. Synonyms are expectancy and longing.

No wonder the Wednesday night seekers spent most of their time asking questions about hope rather than nailing it down.

• What is the difference between faith and hope?
• Which comes first: hope or faith?
• Can we have hope without faith?
• Can we have faith without hope?
• Does hope bring you to God, or must faith come first?
• Is hope faith realized?
• Is faith hope realized?
• Is hope unrealized a threat to faith?
• When faith deepens, does hope change?

I’ll stop before your head starts spinning too much. I think you get the point!

         Here’s the definition that comes to my mind: Hope is a longing deep within us that is not in our power to achieve yet will not let us go, for to be without hope is to be without life.

            The word hope occurs 149 in the Bible – at least that’s what my NRSV search brings up. Surprisingly, the occurrences are just about evenly divided between the Old and New Testaments. It tells me that hope in its greatest manifestation is theology and not psychology. Which brings me around to another inversion of sorts: worship must sustain hope; hope is not possible without worship.

            As we gather for worship this Sunday at Seneca Presbyterian Church, we’ll look at hope for our lives, hope beyond our lives, and hope for the world. It just may take us on a journey through all of scripture. I hope those who gather will leave with hope renewed!

The Truth of Our Lives

We are now at the third installment in our contemplation of worship through its senses. First we allowed Jacob to introduce us to awe – that unexpected moment of holy encounter when we are caught up in something far bigger than ourselves and it brings us to tears and to joy and to worship.

Next we allowed Babette and Jesus to invite us to the feast – the one we are reluctant to enter because we simply can’t believe it is OK to indulge the delight that is God’s grace. This third week draws us deeper into truly sacred worship. If we trust God and know the goodness of God, then we are drawn into the truth of God and into the truth of our lives.

            As we gather for worship at Seneca Presbyterian Church this Sunday, we will allow David, Bathsheba, Uriah, and Nathan to invite us into truth. The story is the classic tale of lust, power, and conquest when the great King David, the apple of God’s eye, succumbs to the illusion that kings can take whatever they wish, including another man’s wife. Sadly, it is a story that lives on in so many ways even today. But unlike the stories of our world, God’s truth entered this one. When confronted with his sin, David confessed his guilt.

            Where can we go to honestly and safely confront our guilt? When we worship, we talk about sin. We even confess it. We use someone else’s words. Sometimes we confess the sin of others, trusting that we can bring that truth before God on the world’s behalf. In our tradition, we pause for a moment to confess privately our own sin before God. Then we always hear an assurance of pardon. Is that all it takes?

            When the faithful Wednesday night seekers entered this story, we asked if we could be honest – brutally honest – about our lives within the embrace of sacred worship. Can we name our true sins? Can we confess the struggles and the contradictions we are forced to encounter as we live out our lives in a world that does not always honor God’s way? If we succumb to the world, is it a sin?

What if we are forced to charge a customer with a less than stellar credit history 30% interest on a car loan? Is that sin or just good business? What if I say “no” to the habitually homeless man who comes asking for grocery money – for the third time in as many months? Is that sin or tough love? Should a Christian walk away from a job mining coal that blasts away 400 vertical feet of a mountain, strips the mountain of its coal, and leaves behind its mess?

Did we come up with the answers? No. Our dilemma was even more basic. Can we even talk about those challenges without judging and without preaching? Or is church the place for our Sunday best, leaving our real lives outside the walls? 

The question remains: if we cannot speak the truth of our lives in church, where can we? 

Our Dancing God

It’s week two of a five week sermon series on worship. This series isn’t a “how to” for worship or which style of worship is the “right” one. It’s a reflection on the “senses” of worship, and for that topic I’m grateful to Don Saliers and his book Worship Come to Its Senses. 

     Last week we focused on awe; this week we will focus on delight. So think with me: what does delight mean to you? What experiences in your life have been “delightful”? A thought immediately comes to my mind that this is not the “delightful” that Professor Henry Higgins declared as he contemplated Eliza Doolittle’s demise. That’s the sort of delight some in my congregation might take when their Clemson Tigers defeat my N.C. Tar Heels – or when either of us defeat the S.C. “Chickens.” That sort of either innocent or fiendish delight in our own vindication is all too human, not divine.

     When I asked our faithful Bible seekers on Wednesday evening, they characterized delight as an emotion stronger than happiness that contains a degree of exuberance. It would likely have a sense of surprise, of experiencing the unexpected. It would bring pleasure and joy.

     In that light, I certainly hope worship is “delightful.” There should be an inherent sense of joy in every act of worship, for we worship a God of joy and grace and delight. The question remains: how can authentic worship faithfully enable the experience of delight? It certainly cannot be manufactured. Many years ago, I heard a sermon from a guest preacher that was 20 minutes of back to back jokes. For me, it got old quickly, and though some seemed to enjoy it, most found it pompous and inauthentic. Yet do you too often experience worship as too serious, too somber, and too respectful to be delightful? 

     I’ll be using two parables this Sunday as we explore delight. One is the story contained in the feature length film entitled Babette’s Feast. I hope you know it. It’s a gorgeous visual parable of grace. The other is the Parable of the Great Dinner as told by Jesus in Luke chapter 14. At the center of both parables is a guest who behaves in an unexpected manner. As each guest becomes the host, we catch a glimpse of the invitation to delight – the delight that is God’s gift - if we are daring enough to receive it.