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Proper 5, Year A
June 5, 2005
Christ Church, Covington
“Hoping against hope, he believed…” (Rom. 4:18).
One of the catchwords of my freshman year in college was “no future”: an
enigmatic phrase that did all-purpose duty: opening conversational gambit,
humorous rejoinder in any situation (when all other responses failed), and
even as the ultimate expression of having a good time. “No future” worked
for all of them. I didn’t say it made any sense. To the cognoscenti, of
course, it did make sense: an ironic reference to the punk rock lyric of
the Sex Pistols’ 1977 song, “God save the Queen”, where the words “no
future” get repeated over and over again by lead singer Johnny Rotten. “No
future for you/ no future for me”. Using the phrase indicated that you
knew what was going on, that you had vaguely nihilistic tendencies, and
(most importantly) that you thought the whole thing was a bit ridiculous:
the ironic stance taken by students in 1977.
I don’t know what the Sex Pistols meant by “no future”, but what would
that really look like? Not pleasant, I think, because “no future” means
“no hope”. “No future” means no need to look ahead; “no future” means not
expecting God to do anything new, since what happens later is not really
“the future” but just an extension of past and present, the same old
thing. “No future” is really hopelessness. I remember a seminary classmate
(now a bishop) who once chastised me for living in the future. Well, there
simply are times when living in the future is perfectly appropriate (like
times of preparation), and other times when failing to live in the future
means despair. We’ve got to have a future.
So here’s where the Sex Pistols meet Saint Paul; where Johnny Rotten and
comrades encounter Abraham, Isaac, and the rest of our faith tradition.
What did Paul say in our reading today?: “Hoping against hope”. Hope is
all about the future; it’s faith oriented toward the future. The concrete
instance that Paul is talking about is Abraham. Abraham is “the father of
all who believe” (Rom. 4:11), the one who trusts in God and sets off from
his home at God’s command: no directions, no map, just “get up and go”.
That’s faith.
But here Paul is referring to hope. God commands Abraham to sacrifice his
own son Isaac. The son represents Abraham’s future; also the future of
God’s People, since Isaac is the promised heir. So Abraham has to “hope
against hope”: he has to trust that God will provide for the future of his
People even though what Abraham is commanded to do makes no sense. He has
to hope for the future even though it looks like there will be no future.
And that’s exactly what he does. God brings life out of death, and gives
him his son back from the brink of the grave. That’s the pattern, writ
large here in this story of Abraham and Isaac, but even larger in the
story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That’s hoping against hope”.
So that’s the Sex Pistols and Saint Paul; hopelessness and “no future”
versus hope and the future. So how do we nurture hope within ourselves?
Three prescriptions, for a start. First, I think we need to trust God to
do what he will do. God is not just about the past and the present, but
about the future that he’s promised. So start believing in your future.
Second, we need to plan ahead and to think big, creating as large a space
as possible in which we’re willing to let God work. Planning is a sign of
hope, and it breeds hope. So start planning for the future.
Finally, we need to expect God to do amazing things, not the small and
cramped things that we imagine will not tax him too much. “Expect”, after
all, is a word which means “to look out”. So start looking for the future,
and it will come to pass.
We all need hope, we all need a future. Have you been cutting yourself
from the future, telling yourself that some things just aren’t possible?
Maybe they’re not, but let’s have God decide that for us. Are you
challenged in your trust? Are your plans small or non-existent? Are you
not expecting much? Trust, plan, expect, and hope will come to birth.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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