Advent Attitudes: Hope

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  Isaiah 35:1-2, 5-7, 10; Rev. Monte Marshall, Senior Pastor

While many of you may have read my announcement in this week’s newsletter, I want to speak to all of you directly.  Laura Jean and I have decided that at the end of June, 2017, I will be retiring.  It’s been forty years since I began my work in the church and it’s time to begin a new chapter in my life. 

It continues to be an honor to serve as one of your pastors.  Laura Jean and I are deeply grateful for the time we’ve had together in this amazing church.  Your love and support have been a constant source of strength and encouragement. 

Now there will be plenty of time over the next six months to say good-bye.  In the meantime, I invite us all to be in prayer for Bishop Robert Schnase and the cabinet of the Rio Texas Annual Conference, and for our Staff-Parish Relations Committee as they each perform their roles in selecting a new senior pastor for our church.  But best of all, please remember that God is with us.  We are not alone.  Thanks be to God!

Now on another note:  I am profoundly grateful for the willingness of this church to shelter Central American women and children seeking asylum in this country as they are being released by ICE from the family detention centers in Dilley and Karnes City.  With the crisis of a week ago, created by the unexpected release of hundreds of women and children, this was a decision that had to be made quickly.  Our Trustees who are responsible for the church’s property, happened to be meeting this past Tuesday evening.  After hearing a thorough review of the issues by staff from RAICES, the Mennonite Church, the Interfaith Welcome Coalition—the folks, by the way, who have been doing this work for the past 1 ½ years—and the City of San Antonio, the Trustees gave their blessing to this undertaking without a moment’s hesitation. 

I thank God for the support that has poured in to address this need.  I’m also grateful for Lori Chidgey, the Executive Director of Corazon Ministries, Inc., for the amazing job she’s doing as our congregation’s point person in this effort.  In fact, our entire church staff is to be commended for the role they have played in making this happen. 

Let’s pray.  Holy God, create in us the Advent Attitude of hope.  In times of transition and bold action, ground us in grace.  In turbulent and chaotic times, sustain us with a vision for your promised future that keeps us moving forward with patient determination and confidence, even in the face of painful setbacks, losses and resistance.  In the name of Jesus, the Christ.  Amen.

Pamela Hawkins says this about hope: “Hope opens something in the human heart. Like shutters slowly parting to admit a winter dawn, hope permits strands of light to make their way to us, even when we still stand in cold darkness; but hope also reveals a landscape beyond us into which we can live and move and have our being.”[1]  In this morning’s text, Isaiah’s oracle of promise opens something in the human heart for the prophet dares to hope in a time of exile, even as the people “stand in cold darkness.”

The situation Isaiah addresses is desperate.  War had come to the kingdom of Judah.  The Babylonians were victorious.  Untold numbers had been slaughtered; the temple reduced to rubble; the nation shattered; and God’s people driven into exile. 

For Isaiah in this text, exile is barren desert; waterless wilderness; scorched earth, parched land, a place for jackals.  For Isaiah, exile is lameness, blindness, deafness, an inability to speak.  For Isaiah, exile is despair.      

    But in these circumstances, Isaiah slowly opens the shutters to reveal strands of light from a winter dawn.  Isaiah envisions a transformed landscape in which an exiled people can find the freedom to live and move and have their being.  In hope, he imagines the desert blooming, the crocus blossoming.  He sees the glory of Lebanon, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon, the glory of God revealed in creation.  He sees wholeness restored.  He sees water:  flowing streams, a lake, bubbling springs, thickets of reeds and papyrus.  He anticipates rejoicing.  He hears shouts of joy.  He sees faces glowing with gladness while sorrow and lament run away.  Isaiah promises a trip home to a land transformed.  And all of this because Yahweh is at work!  Yahweh is the light shining through the shutters.  Yahweh is the dream weaver.  Yahweh is the source of hope!

Here’s the question:  What does Isaiah’s oracle have to do with us?  Well, isn’t it true?  Sometimes we live in the wilderness, if not literally, then figuratively.  Sometimes life is like a desert and we find ourselves in an inhospitable place that threatens life—in a terrifying place that strikes fear in the heart—in a deathly place that occasions sorrow and sighing.

In Central America today, for example, especially in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, so many of our brothers and sisters are living like exiles in their own homelands.  The Guardian website tells this story: “In late 2014, Norma, the wife of a policeman in El Salvador, was abducted by four gangsters, tied up, and taken to a local cemetery.  They stuffed her mouth with a cloth, so she couldn’t scream, and then, one by one, they [had their way with her].  When it was over, they threw her in the trash.

“Her husband vowed revenge, and filed a report.  But that only made matters worse.  The gangs threatened their children, and the police couldn’t protect her.  So she ran to safety with her aunt and uncle, changed her number, and never left the house.  The threats didn’t stop.”

But Norma clung to hope and saw a glimmer of light.  “She found a coyote (smuggler) and fled north through Mexico” to the United States.  The journey itself was fraught with many hardships and dangers, but hope kept Norma going.[2]  Thousands of others have similar stories to tell.  A Honduran refugee named Juan made this observation: “’You don’t migrate now in search of the American dream,’ he said.  ‘You go for your life.’” [3]

I submit to you that when the Advent Attitude of hope is kindled within us, our hearts are open to God for Yahweh is the source of hope.  Hope has driven thousands of Central America refugees to our nation.  Women and children from Central America are being sheltered in our church this very day because we are determined to keep hope alive.   We’ll deal with ICE and advocate for an end to the violence in Central America, and for public policies that offer compassionate treatment and care to all refugees and immigrants coming to our country.  We are acting because we are determined to keep hope alive. 

Don’t we know what it is to cling to hope when life turns hard?  Aren’t we here today because we cling to hope in the face of a disorienting world that often breeds fear?  Haven’t we been nourished on Isaiah’s oracle of promise?  And aren’t we the followers of Jesus—the One whose parents protected him from violence as a child by fleeing to Egypt and thus becoming refugees?  Isn’t Jesus, for us, the light of a winter dawn shining into the cold darkness of our lives?  Hasn’t he taught us how to hope?  Dearly beloved, keep hope alive!  Thanks be to God.  Amen.