Embodied Hope
First
Sunday of Advent – Year C
November
29, 2009
Let us pray: O God, we gather in expectation, even as we gather in your presence. Here now and yet to come – this is the wonderful mystery of our faith – that you are here and that you call us forward. May we know who we are and may we know what we may become. Amen.
Roberta felt that in her twenty-something years she was doing a lot of things right. At least that's how she was feeling. Her neo-conservative parents were a little less enthused by their tree-hugging, peace marching, protest attending daughter, but it was a respectful difference of opinion and it made for some animated discussions whenever she made her way home – usually only at Christmas. Not only did she use her salary in other ways, she could not justify the 2,200+ kg of carbon dioxide emissions that a trip to her parents' home left in the vapour trail behind the airplane. In fact, salary was a minor concern for her. She had enough to live simply and that's all that she needed. Her most prized possessions were the ones that allowed her to stay connected with her community – her people – as she called them. So, a cell phone and a netbook computer were pretty much with her all the time. Staying connected was a big part of Roberta's life. Even though she didn't spend a lot of time with her parents, she was often in touch with them. She was proud of the fact that she had taught her Mom how to do text messaging and despite the edge that existed between them, she knew it was important in her life to know the unconditional love that existed despite the different ways that she and her parents ordered their lives. Besides she always lived with the hope that the things that were important for her would become important for them. Of course, her parents felt the same way about their point of view – always hoping that she would come around to their way of thinking. None of them was so naive to think that it would ever happen that the other generation would come around, but there was a sort of subconscious sense that the tension between points of view was both creative and corrective – pulling each of them to a position that was probably more “true” than any of their individual perspectives – whatever “true” meant!
And so Roberta went about her life, participating in events around the community that spoke to her sense of justice, her concern for the earth, and her need to be involved in whatever ways she could in campaigns to make right the wrongs of the world. She often put her money where her mouth was – contributing what she had to support the causes that were important to her.
She recognised that the things she did, the causes she supported, the events she attended, the community of people with whom she was always hanging, were all defined by the concept of hope. Despite the fact that she felt she was doing a lot of things right, she also felt there were a lot of things wrong in the world. That's why she was so active in the volunteer community – because one of the ways she could alleviate the hopelessness was to participate. She never wanted anyone to say that she had not done what she could, that she had sat idly by while the world was descending into a spiral of despair. As much as many of the problems were well beyond her ability to do anything by herself, she was a confirmed believer in the power of one – that she with others could make a difference as long as it was done in community with a mind and a heart firmly focused on doing the right thing.
It was also the way she ordered her social life. The causes and the people who supported them with her were also her friends, her people. She liked spending time with them. It was easy to be with people who liked the things she liked and who were interested in making better the world in which they lived.
Except for one thing. In her teenage years Roberta had both characteristically and uncharacteristically felt a spiritual yearning. It was characteristic because she thought that a lot of people her age had experienced the same kind of need, but uncharacteristic in that she had been able to name it more clearly as “spiritual” and uncharacteristic because she had chosen to fulfil the yearning by participation in a faith community. In fact, it was the one area of agreement between Roberta and her parents. They were fiercely proud that their daughter had chosen to be part of a church congregation even if that was the only point of agreement they could find.
Roberta, on the other hand, could understand how participation in a faith community could fill a need for her parents even if she didn't get how that translated into the views they held on lots of other things.
It all started about ten years earlier when a friend invited her to attend a so called “Youth Rally”. She thought the name was a bit geeky. It sounded like something that a group of cheerleaders from her parent's generation would attend, but once she got over the name and decided that she would just call it a “youth conference” with anyone who asked, she had become quite excited by what happened. In fact, this was the beginning of the connections that had become so important in her life. It was here she first found like-minded people and even though the circle of friendships eventually spread much wider than the faith community, she always felt a closer connection with her friends whose ideological and ecological points of view were connected to a theologically, namely by their belief in God. In fact, it was a conversation she had with herself often, and sometimes with her friends. She knew that this God-talk was a turn-off with some of her friends, but she also had a deep feeling that faith gave a more firm basis for the kinds of causes she supported. She often wondered where the motivation came for the people in her community who were not part of a faith community. She appreciated that they had motivation, but she could easily name her motivation as one that came from God – God's call to her in her life, God's encouragement to heal a bruised world, God the creator inviting humans to be co-creators with her.
And so, on this day, the first Sunday in the season of Advent, Roberta gathered with her faith community and thought again about the hope that was so much a part of her life. It was a Sunday that naturally led her to consider hope even more than usual. Her thoughts on this day were directed to consider the hope embodied in a child. A few of her friends were new parents – and what a statement of hope it was to have a child! Surely it was impossible to bring a child into the world without being hopeful. Surely it was also a sign of the work required to be hopeful when she saw what a change children made in their parents' lives and all the extra work that came about with the nbirth of a child! And yet, she also saw how much more hope needed to be centred on children – when there were children who didn't have enough to eat, and children plucked from their families for reasons of safety, and children facing the greatest hardship whenever natural disaster struck so many places around the world and so many children facing poverty.
Without faith, the questions were just so hard to face. Without the hope that comes from trust in God, the questions were just too many. Faith gave her hope, but she was under no illusion that it wouldn't take some work. And so her Advent journey began – a journey of hope embodied in the image of a child. To be continued. Amen.