Hope

The churches in Europe know a lot about faith and love, but very little about hope - so, at least, is the opinion of the Brazilian theologian, Leonardo Boff. There are books on the Theology of Hope. But do outsiders see the church as a haven of hope? Do we as Christians have this hope - and do we share it with others?

I recently attended a congress whose theme was hope, and came away with a number of thoughts. Some of them are worth sharing.

It was Paul more than anyone else who saw hope as part of our relation to God. The Law, and much of the Old Testament, hardly mention it. Only in the Psalms and in Job does the Old Testament find hope important. The word only comes three times in the Gospels. But the Pauline writings use it 56 times - Paul prays that the Romans may abound in hope, that they may rejoice in their hope; the Colossians hear of the hope laid up for them in heaven, the hope of glory; the Thessalonians hear that grief is overcome by hope.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. In the same way, there is one hope to which God calls us (Eph.4:4). We each have our own individual hopes and desires, but these are all reflected parts of the one great hope, the hope of receiving God's promise, the hope of salvation, and of glory.

The opposite of hope is despair, and despair comes from doubting God's hope. If our hopes come from God, then God will fulfil them. Through Jesus, they are fulfilled already, even if the world around us suggests otherwise. God reigns among us, but God's final reign is yet to come. This is the essence of our hope.

Because there is only one hope, we are called to support each other, as each of us works towards our own individual fulfilment of that hope in ourselves. We are called to pray for each other, and to help each other in practical ways. We are called to welcome those around us, and offer them companionship along the way toward their own hopes.

The clearest way to see the one hope of God's reign is as a succession of little hopes - some broad and vague, some individual and precise. In this world, some of the strongest hopes are hopes for "a better world" - for justice, for peace, for an end of suffering. Again, we must share these hopes, even if we live in a peaceful and comfortable land. We must bring confidence to those who live where there is no justice and no peace, we must bear hope to those who suffer. And not just in distant lands, but here in our own surroundings and among our own neighbours.

The hope of God's reign is not limited to one group of people: when we pray "your will be done on earth as in heaven", we are not asking this just for our friends, or for St Ursula's, or for the Anglican Church, or for the Christian church. Our prayer and our responsibility is for the whole world, and it is the whole world whose hopes need our support.

So then let us be children of hope. Let us never despair, for God has promised salvation to all who ask. Let us support each other in our hopes - the starving, the persecuted, those who feel themselves helpless in their situations. But let us remember that those we can support most effectively are those nearest to us. and that we are called to share in the hope not only of those in lands of poverty, conflict or misrule, but also of those around us here near at home. For we bear witness of the hope that is within us (1 Pet.3:15) not only by our words, but through our prayers and in our actions.

HD