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The Case for Faithful Delay
Romans 4: 13 – 25 |
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The Case for Faithful Delay Five years ago, we were a nation drenched in talk of war with Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, rising fuel prices and threatening behavior by North Korea — not much different from today’s news. But in the midst of all that, we learned that Elizabeth Smart, a 15-year-old girl who had been abducted from her home nearly nine months previously, had been found alive. In terms of national importance, it was a small story, but for a nation embroiled in bad news, it was a breath of fresh air, and as a nation, we were genuinely glad for Elizabeth’s family. On Good Morning America, for example, then co-host Charlie Gibson mentioned that staff members who work behind the scenes of the show and who deal with news of national importance every day actually gave each other high-fives when the news of the girl’s return came in. And so for a couple of days at least, Elizabeth’s return to her family dwarfed even news about the war. When you think about it, the story was not only good news, but unexpected news. We are all too aware that many situations like that do not end happily. Abducted children are often found dead, or never found at all. That’s why Elizabeth’s family called her return “miraculous,” and it’s hard to argue with their viewpoint. They knew that the odds were against Elizabeth ever being found alive. In spite of that awareness, however, Elizabeth’s family demonstrated a refusal to give up and a tenacious hope throughout what had to be a family’s worst nightmare. While Elizabeth was missing, some observers thought that the Smart family was living in denial. But the good outcome for them suggests that we should be cautious about assigning such psychological explanations to what may be a profound aspect of faith. Hoping against hope Let’s leave Elizabeth’s story right there for a moment and turn our attention to our scripture reading for today. In writing to the Romans about the nature of faith, Paul refers to the Old Testament account of Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, giving birth to Isaac, the child God had promised. In the Genesis account, when the promise is first given, the whole idea strikes Abraham as so impossible as to be ludicrous, and he falls on his face laughing. But Abraham and Sarah gradually come to accept God’s promise as true, and in time, their son Isaac is born. Writing to the Romans about that incident, Paul declares that Abraham’s eventual belief in God’s promise was an action filled with both faith and hope. Here’s how Paul put it: “Hoping against hope, [Abraham] believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’ ....” “Hoping against hope.” Now there’s a phrase for us. It means hope in spite of apparent impossibility — that’s what “against hope” means. Hope when there is little reason to expect things to come out as we want them to. Hanging on when some might accuse us of mere wishful thinking or living in denial. Think about the many situations in life to which that could be applied: relationships that are going sour, health that is failing, dreams and goals that run into blind alleys, family members in self-destructive behavior, diagnoses that leave no room for long-range plans, and more. There are so many times in life where we come to a point where we say, “What’s the use? It’s over.” And sometimes we are right. But then something happens like the sudden return of Elizabeth Smart, and we are forced to admit that hope can be given up too soon. But it’s difficult, extremely difficult, to know when is too soon. There is a father whose son has a severe brain injury. Several years ago, when the son was about 18, he and some friends were horsing around and, without thinking of the possible consequences, his friends tossed him off a bridge. The boy landed on his head, receiving a terrible blow. Now he is wheelchair bound, unable to speak, and lives in an institution for the severely handicapped. He requires constant care and cannot even go to the toilet by himself. It’s been 14 years since his injury, and his father has taken him to specialist after specialist, but the verdict is always the same: The son is not going to get any better than he is right now. The father is angry about that news, and still seems to believe that if his son would just try harder, he’d get better. Most of us would say this father is in denial, and that’s probably so. But how do we really know when hoping against hope is simply a refusal to accept reality? In Abraham’s situation, God had made a specific promise to him, so the issue was somewhat different from the case of the father who has no such divine promise about the brain-injured son. The message from Abraham’s story is not “just keep hoping no matter what,” but “trust what God tells you.” Still, that’s often extremely hard to do when circumstances seem to render a desired outcome improbable. But if it were easy, Paul would not have described it as “hoping against hope.” Actually, in this chapter from Romans, Paul talks of several things that would seem highly unlikely. He characterizes God as one who “justifies the ungodly,” who “gives life to the dead” and “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” All of these divine works are things that are impossible by human standards, but their reality is fundamental to Christian faith. The basis for our “hope against hope” is trust in the God who created the world, raised Jesus from the dead and invites sinners into fellowship. Leaving room for hope Since Abraham’s hope was so much tied up with a divine promise, we would be making his story trivial if we said that the point for us was to just to keep hoping in all circumstances when there is strong evidence that hope is not warranted. Nonetheless, from the biblical point of view, holding stubbornly to hope, even in the face of growing hopelessness, may not be denial so much as faithful delay. In order to leave room for hope, we delay giving in to despair. As a case in point, think how much of the Christian faith itself is based on faithful delay. From some portions of the New Testament, we gather that many first-century Christians expected Jesus to return within a very short time, certainly within their lifetimes. One reason that there are two letters in the New Testament to the Thessalonians is because after Paul wrote in the first letter about Christ’s return, some of the Christians in that community simply stopped working. They apparently thought, “Why bother? Jesus will return any day.” Thus Paul wrote the second letter to challenge that why-bother attitude and urge them to remain industrious. When Christ did not return promptly, they could have decided that Jesus’ promise was pie in the sky and turned from the faith. Instead, however, many opted for faithful delay: “We’ll give up hope later, if we have to, but for now, there’s still room to believe in the promises of God.” And that hope is one thing that has kept Christianity going for 2,000 years. Another thing is the resurrection of Jesus. Imagine the despair that existed in the heart of Jesus’ followers immediately after the crucifixion. But then the Resurrection occurred, and Christians have understood ever since that hope is eminently justified. The author of Hebrews, by the way, describes Christians as “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” On the side of excessive hope Hope’s evil twin, of course, is despair. The preacher and writer Frederick Buechner says of despair that it “has been called the unforgivable sin — not presumably because God refuses to forgive it but because it despairs of the possibility of being forgiven.” But because we cannot see things from God’s perspective, despair is always premature. We really do not know whether a situation is hopeless until it is resolved. Thus, hope is always a proper response to difficulty. To give in to despair before the outcome is known presumes we know what only God can know. When a good outcome we really did not expect, even though we were hoping, suddenly appears, it forces us to re-evaluate our view of what is real. We are compelled, however briefly, to step back from our skepticism and entertain the belief that good news is a possibility. Obviously there is always the danger of false hope. It is possible, especially when strong emotions and terrible loss are involved, to grasp illusions and call them real. But when matters are still unresolved, if our choices are between hoping too much or hoping too little, the story of Abraham and Sarah, Paul’s words about hoping against hope, and even the return of Elizabeth Smart to her family, suggest that we who trust God would do well to err on the side of excessive hope. Actually, that’s a Gospel perspective. |
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