Sermon: A Love Letter for Those to Whom “Hope” is a Weary Word
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13
“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” This is one of the most beloved quotes from the Bible, often recited at weddings. When Min-Goo and I bought our first house in Winnipeg, the previous owner had printed this verse on the newly painted wall on the hallway next to the kitchen. Every time I came into the kitchen, I saw “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” I have put some thought into this beautiful statement of Paul’s. Love is a wonderful thing. We think about it, talk about it a lot at church, at home, at special life events. Love is interwoven into our daily lives. Faith is the reason why many of us have gathered here. What about hope?
We might not seriously consider hope as a religious word, as much as love or faith, but hope is one of the three pillars of our Christian community. Even if hope is thought of as the least among the three, and the least developed in our Christian conversations, a community of faith is one led by hope. I invite us to ask today, what we mean by hope. What is hope?
One day, I listened to a Black preacher recite a poetic prayer written by Desmond Tutu, Reflections on Wholeness. This is an abridged version; the whole prayer is very beautiful, if you care to look it up.
“Busy normal people, the world is here.
Can you hear it? Wailing, crying, whispering. Listen.
The world is here. Don’t you hear it?
Praying, groaning for wholeness?
Sighing, whispering wholeness?
Tiresome, difficult journey towards wholeness?
God who gives us the strength of our body makes us whole.
We “busy” normal people,
We are sick; we yearn to experience hope, healing in our health, wholeness in our most inner being, and prosperity.
We continue to feel unwell, unfulfilled, or half-filled.
There is hollowness in our pretend well being.
Our spirit cries out for wellbeing of the whole human family.
We are all parts of each other.
We yearn to be folded into the fullness of life together.
Life together with the outcast, prisoner, the mad ones,
Our wholeness is intertwined with their hurt.
Wholeness means healing hurt, working with Christ to heal the hurt,
Seeing and feeling the suffering of others, then, standing alongside them.
… There is no wall.
There is only God at work, in the whole…
God who gives us the strength of our body makes us whole.
Desmond Tutu describes hope as something we yearn to experience. Hope is our yearning to experience healing in our health, wholeness in our most inner being and prosperity of all on earth. Hope is for all of us, busy normal people, those who continue to feel unwell, unfilled, or half-filled, and yet swallow that hollowness, pretending well-being. Sometimes it is hard to come out of our inner isolation and truly flourish, feeling the wholeness of ourselves both within and without.
For some of us, and in the world at large, hope becomes a weary word. In Korea, people with disabilities come out to the subway station, chain their bodies to the railroad tracks, and protest for their mobility rights, stopping the trains that transport busy normal people. The wailing and pain are not hopeful cries. The outcry is made because the freedom to use the subway without any hindrance is a necessity for human dignity. When the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, it was carrying 325 high school students, among others. They were excited for their long-awaited graduation trip to Jeju Island. The overloaded ship capsized under normal sailing conditions; only seventy-five students survived. The government covered up their shocking lack of oversight; the substandard ship was allowed to sail because the owners were very powerful people. This absurd, agonizing tragedy happened because profit was prioritized over people’s lives. Many people in South Korea called for political reforms, as the victims' families cried out for the truth. However, since nothing changed, hope once again became a weary word that year. The Earth's temperature continues to rise, and the forests are being burnt down by wildfires. After only ashes are left in the burning forest, new green life, hardly visible at first, sprouts among the blackened devastation... Even though people constantly talk about hope, when profit and immediate convenience take precedence over the whole human family and life on earth, hope continuously becomes a weary word.
Many years ago, I met Kim Won-Young through his 2010 book titled “I’d Rather Be a Burning Desire Than a Cold Hope”, and his challenging questions and stories never let me go back to reading the word hope in the same way. Kim explained that as he grew up, he discovered his weariness of the hope narratives. People say “I find hope” or “I see hope” when someone overcomes their disability and achieves their life goals. What kind of hope is this?
Quote:
"What kind of dreams do people hope a disabled individual, living their life lying in a bed-type wheelchair at a small disabled residence in a mountain valley, would have? For instance, they might hope that on their last day of life, they could say, 'Although I never left my bed for a lifetime, my life was beautiful. The flowers visible through the window on spring days, the snowflakes pouring from the sky on winter days, and the eyes of the volunteers who visited once a month to help me with bathing and eating, my life was filled with and was beautiful.' Rather than pursuing destructive and fleeting desires, they hope to find such hope in the life of a severely disabled individual who spent their entire life in a mountain valley without any resources or opportunities, a life that proves the existence of a sublime and grace-filled human life, a beacon of light in this age of competition in the jaws of desire.”
When does hope become a weary word? Cold hope?
What I have learned from Kim, from his book I’d Rather Be a Burning Desire Than a Cold Hope, is that we need to ask, Who hopes? What is the temperature of that hope? Is the hope a distant expression of just wishing something to be the desired object? Is the hope about what you want to see, within the limits and the boundaries you can allow and empower? Is hope only good as long as it doesn’t disrupt our convenience? Who among us speaks of hope, owns hope, sighs, whispers, groans, wails, cries for wholeness? Can we, busy normal people, hope? Yes!
What if we hope just as we desire something? Like burning love, agonizing and difficult, bright and shimmering, anxious and heartbreaking, bearing a fulfilling and risky desire to truly bring the new reality into existence. What if we hope just like an aspiring human, one who is wild, sexual, flesh, blood, loving and loved and who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things because we are in fearless, hot, and passionate love with what we hope for? The love-filled hope believes impossible things, endures inconvenient things, hopes challenging things, bears uncomfortable things and cries, whispers, prays, groans, sighs, wails, because we allow ourselves to burn for wholeness. I have a friend, Hannah, who's 19 years old. In her recent speech during National Accessibility Week, she shared her story of growing up as a child with a disability, always looking for a safe swing to ride on at playgrounds. Her hope was expressed simply: 'Put a disabled swing in every playground.' Her hope, it soars as high as a swing!
God uplifts those who are afflicted and makes uncomfortable those who are comfortable. The clarity of hope is a privilege of those who have been afflicted and in tribulation. Do not let the ability to imagine be stolen from you. Tap into dreams, desire, love; rest and write the new narrative for burning hope. Busy, normal, afflicted, sorrowful people, can hope in earnest heat. Dare to live with hope at such a time as this, hope in the midst of the constant clanging of despair in the world.
Hope hot. Fiercely hope.
As Desmond Tutu says, “There is no wall. There is only God at work in the whole.” When we might feel that we are surrounded by the impossibilities and the walls of all kinds of hindrances, God is at work. God (already) works with us in between, behind and beside this world’s dividing walls like the rushing wind of Pentecost. I find immense comfort in the thought of this. I find the presence of hope in the mobilizing wholeness. There is no wall. There is only God at work, with me, with you, in the wholeness of our relentless, passionate hope.
We, busy normal people,
We, afflicted and weary ones,
We, burnt by oppression,
We, the world, violated and hurt,
Let us be the community led by hope, hot, burning, daring, struggling, seeking the wholeness of hope’s presence amid the constant noisy gong (“No, we can’t”) and clanging cymbal (“Maybe. Somebody other than us might do it.”)
Let each of us be folded into the fullness of life together.
It’s my burning love letter to you for whom “hope” is a weary word.
Even still, normal, busy people, burnt-out weary ones, sorrowful and groaning friends,
Hope.
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