Christ is the hope that does not dissapoint us: 2nd post-pentecost a

The second reading is from Romans (5:1-8).

 

Therefore, since we are justified by faith,

      we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

            ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand;

            and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

            ³And not only that,

                  but we also boast in our sufferings,

                        knowing that suffering produces endurance,

                        ⁴and endurance produces character,

                        and character produces hope,

                        ⁵and hope does not disappoint us,

                              because God’s love has been poured into our hearts

                                    through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

⁶For while we were still weak,

      at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

      ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—

            though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.

                  ⁸But God proves God’s love for us

                        in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

The holy gospel according to Matthew (9:35-10:8).

³⁵Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages,

      teaching in their synagogues,

      and proclaiming the good news of the dominion of heaven,

      and curing every disease and every sickness.

            ³⁶When he saw the crowds,

                  he had compassion for them,

                        because they were harassed and helpless,

                              like sheep without a shepherd.

                  ³⁷Then he said to his disciples,

                        “The harvest is plentiful,

                              but the laborers are few;

                              ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest

                                    to send out laborers for the harvesting.”

10Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples

      and gave them authority over unclean spirits,

            to cast them out,

            and to cure every disease and every sickness.

²These are the names of the twelve apostles:

      first, Simon, also known as Peter,

            and his brother Andrew;

      James son of Zebedee,

            and his brother John;

      ³Philip and Bartholomew;

      Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;

      James son of Alphaeus,

            and Thaddaeus;

      ⁴Simon the Cananaean,

      and Judas Iscariot,

            the one who betrayed him.

⁵These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions:

      “Go nowhere among the Gentiles,

      and enter no town of the Samaritans,

            ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

                  ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news,

                        ‘The dominion of heaven has come near.’

                  ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

                        You received without payment;

                              give without payment.

The gospel of the Lord.

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Paul’s letter to the Romans states: “suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us.”  But what kind of hope is Paul talking about in this letter to the Romans?  And what kind of suffering for that matter?  Is suffering truly redeemable?  Can any good come from suffering?

There is plenty of suffering that cannot be redeemed.  The suffering of victims of abuse, who are so often trapped in abusive relationships and situations by circumstances beyond their control.  There is no redemption of that abuse because it is not freely chosen, there is no larger purpose.  Those who perpetrate abuse perpetrate evil.

The suffering in death of Philando Castile was not the kind of suffering that can be redeemed.  The suffering and death of those who were murdered two years ago yesterday at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston because a white ELCA member didn’t like that they were Black is not the kind of suffering that can be redeemed.  People of color who are killed and harmed and harassed for simply existing deserve better. 

White supremacy and white privilege, parts of what we know as racism literally kill people of color.  People of color become the crowds Jesus encounters—harassed and helpless, oppressed and thrown to the ground, because of a system that tries to dehumanize them and then refuses to convict those who kill them.  To not speak up, to not name that killing another person is evil, to not name that #BlackLivesMatter reinforces the evil of white supremacy.  It becomes complicity in a system that harms our siblings, friends, and neighbors.

Suffering these abuses and deaths is not the suffering that Paul is lifting up in his letter to the Romans.  Paul is writing to the Early Church in Rome, to which he will soon journey, and where he will be arrested and executed.  This church, this community of faith in Rome is suffering persecution for their faith—gathering in secret in underground catacombs, fearing arrest, torture, and death for their hope. 

I can imagine them resonating deeply with the crowd described in our gospel reading, being “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” and even moreso with a more literal translation of the crowds being “oppressed and thrown to the ground.”

Their suffering is not the suffering that is not redeemable.  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the suffering he and others, like Bayard Rustin and Rosa Parks, experienced during the Civil Rights Movement.  While those who perpetrate violence always enact evil, those who, like the ones who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, willingly endure suffering for the sake of a larger struggle for justice, embody the suffering that does produce endurance. 

It is suffering for a larger purpose—to expose injustice for what it is—that produces the endurance Paul talks about.

This endurance is the ability for Mildred and Richard Loving to persevere in their relationship in the face of a country that said interracial marriage was wrong.  This endurance is the endurance of those who know our participation in struggles for justice help make the “arc of the moral universe” bend towards justice, not on accident or by default, but on purpose and with intentionality and hard work. 

This past week marked 50 years since the Lovings won their Supreme Court case against the state of Virginia, ensuring the right to marry not be restricted by race, and laying some of the groundwork to guarantee those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer the right to marry who we want.

The endurance of people like the Lovings does produce character—the kind of character that trusts the God who is love to be at work in others and who notices God in others.  This character is evident in those in our community who go out of their way to make others feel welcome, those who know what it is to be left out and work to make sure others do not know that isolation, harassment, or helplessness. 

This character, born of long fought for endurance, is the kind that talks to people when they are worried that someone is being abused, struggling to make ends meet, or lost in the isolation of physical or mental illness.  This character recognizes the value and worth of people of color and other marginalized group—knows the pain of sending children into the world each day, wondering if they will make it back home safely.  This character is intimate with the gut wrenching compassion that moves Jesus to not only teach, preach, and heal, but also send out the disciples for this work of the dominion of heaven.

This character also knows the hope of which Paul writes.  This hope that does not disappoint us.

But we are disappointed by hope all of the time.  When we hope for a child and are faced with miscarriages or illnesses.  When we hope a relationship will last forever and are disappointed to find that divorce is the reality we need or face.  When we hope a guilty verdict will finally bring a glimpse of justice, yet once again hear “not guilty” ring out.  When we hope a building will serve all of our needs, but we are disappointed to find we cannot make it accessible and the constant repairs are restricting our ability to be in mission.  This is not the hope we seek.  This is not the hope Paul is talking about.

The hope that Paul proclaims is a deeper hope.  It’s not a secret wish or unstated expectation that all will be well or go as planned.  The hope that does not disappoint us is the hope in our God whose whole being is love.  Hope in our God who loves us so much that God comes to live with us—to be and become us, even knowing that our response to that love is too often violence, exclusion, harassment, and even execution on the cross. 

Hope in the God who responds even to the most violent of deaths with new life in the resurrection.  Hope in a God who makes a way out of no way, who takes the unexpected and loves it into new life, who creates meaning and purpose when we can’t imagine anything like it.

The hope that does not disappoint us is the hope in a God who takes our failed attempts, our heart break, our personal disasters, and then as Paul states, pours out their love “into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Our hope, when placed in the God who changes with and for us, does not disappoint, because Jesus comes for each one who is sick, harassed, and helpless and gives the fullest measure of devotion not only in death, but then even further in new resurrection life.  Because Christ died for us so we can live in hope with Christ that death is not the ultimate power, that racism will not win, that violence doesn’t reign supreme, but instead our hope in Christ is assured because love wins, justice will reign, and peace will rule the earth. 

Thanks be to God.