Speak Your Hope

Speak Your Hope
1 Peter 3:13-22; Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-22

“Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it” (1 Peter 3:15 CEB). Eugene Peterson reads Peter’s words this way: “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.” Can you do that? Can you explain the hope you have in Jesus Christ?

Here’s an old joke. What do you get when you cross a Presbyterian with a Jehovah’s Witness? Someone who knocks on doors but doesn’t have anything to say. In fairness to Presbyterians, the joke works with almost any old line Protestant denomination (Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians). Can you explain your hope in Jesus Christ?

Karen and Bruce Henderson have been telling us about Meriam Yehye Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman who has been sentenced to a 100 lashes for adultery because she married a Christian and to be hung because she refused to recant her declaration that she is a Christian. She is the kind of believer to whom Peter was writing. When Peter’s letter was circulating, Christians were being persecuted by Roman imperial edict. He was addressing real suffering for the faith.

Thankfully, and regretfully, we don’t have to face that oppression. But our lives aren’t completely devoid of persecution. It isn’t physical, but it is verbal. “What do you mean you can’t come on Sunday morning?” “You would rather go to a meeting at church than have me drop by for a visit?” “Why don’t you shop on Sunday? Everyone does.” Speak your hope. Don’t mumble apologies.

Back to our speechless door-knocker joke. What is your hope? You don’t need a dissertation. Fifty or a hundred words ought to do it. Is your hope located in the future? Is it pearly gates, golden streets, multi-roomed mansions the opposite of unmitigated heat and flames and eternal agony? Or is your hope an on-going reality of a right relationship with God and with neighbors made possible through the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?

Our hope starts out very simply. We probably learned the core of it as a child: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” As we grow and mature, we wrestle with that simple statement. What does it really mean? What does it mean to me? We wander around in our thinking. The statement is too simplistic. We don’t understand the Bible. Only parts of It make sense. We latch on to a few verses and try to hang our whole faith on it. That works for a while until something upsets the equilibrium. Perhaps we reach the point where we realize that our hope is not something static or unchanging. God does something that knocks down the security of a narrow or rigid understanding we had grown comfortable with. And we need to re-examine what it is that we believe.

I saw a post on Facebook this past week which said: “Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it is inspiring.” That’s the kind of situation that Peter envisions. The believers he was writing to and for would be persecuted for their faith alone because unbelievers would have no charges to bring against them except to question them on their “hope.”

Unbelievers can see that Christians have something different; only “hope” gives us strength and joy in hardships and persecutions. Unbelievers will ask about it; believers must be ready to tell them. Christians need not worry about what they should say if accused, for they could prepare their defense ahead of time! Even in a hostile situation, believers can witness for Christ; their words might cause an accuser to come to faith. Paul certainly took advantage of every situation, no matter how hostile. Peter says that all Christians can and should be ready and able to give a reasonable defense of their faith. No one expects us to be a theologian like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Julian of Norwich, Theresa of Avila, Karl Barth, Rosemary Radford Reuther, or Martin Luther King, Jr.

But every Christian ought to be able to clearly explain his or her own reasons for being a Christian. Some Christians believe that faith is a personal matter that should be kept to oneself. It is true that we shouldn’t be boisterous or obnoxious in sharing our faith, but we should always be prepared to give an answer, gently and respectfully, when asked about our belief, our lifestyle, or our Christian perspective.

You and I can witness our hope without becoming theological scholars. In preparation we can pray, read the Bible, and review God’s promises every day. We can make praising Christ our daily practice. A focus on his power and glory will fortify us. We are to be ourselves in our witnessing, not imitating anyone else. Find the clues in your life that help explain God’s Good News to others. Plumbers can talk about God’s love like running water. Doctors can portray God’s love as a healing force. Respond with care. Leave melting stony hearts to God. Always listen to your audience. Where are their heads and hearts? What burdens them? Listen long and hard. Frame your witness in the words and at the level your audience will understand. If we aren’t questioned about our faith, is our faith showing? Or have we so buried it in the surrounding culture that there is no apparent difference between the way of the world and the way of Christ.

When Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but to bring a sword, what he was saying was that he was presenting an alternative vision of what life was to be about. He asserted that the kingdom of God – the realm of God’s rule – has come near. It is breaking into the world through the presence and ministry of Christ who was the Word become flesh and blood. Jesus wasn’t a specter of some other reality. He wasn’t an alien. He was one of us in the fullest and most complete sense. But he was counter-cultural because he didn’t blend in. He presented a living vision of what God was intending humanity to be.

Many of his parables express the tension of the now and the not yet. The world lives for the moment and doesn’t think ahead, so some of the wedding attendants run out of oil. The world thinks only the strong should survive, so a father welcomes a lost son while the unimaginative, unresourceful stay-at-home son can’t make head nor tail of it all. A one percenter dines sumptuously, ignores one of the 99% at his gate and learns too late what he and those of his family should have known all along, but didn’t pay attention to.

Christ has called us to join him in living the tension between what is now and what is not yet. That is our hope, our knowledge that God is in charge, even when that leadership is hard to see. Our hope is like what Paul stated to the Romans, that absolutely nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. That means that the love of God will prevail. That is our hope, however skewed life may be. Our calling is to live towards that reality, to embody the Christ-life which is where everything is ultimately headed according to God’s plan.

Together, you and I – we the church – are to be a preview of the age to come, the age of God’s ultimate glory. Our lives are to be prophetic, that is they are to provide an alternative imagination for the world. Things don’t have to be the way they are. God’s way will upset, unravel, disturb, reinvent life. Our hope, the hope which we present the world, the hope which we are to offer explanation for when asked, is that we are privileged to be part of God’s ongoing redemption of creation.

Peter finishes this section of his reflection and encouragement by reminding his readers that we have been enlisted in this God-work through our baptisms. We have been rescued through the water. Baptism saves us now – not because it removes dirt from our bodies but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. It is our celebration of the salvation which Christ’s resurrection has made possible. So every time we pour the water into the font we remind ourselves that God in Christ has claimed us for kingdom work which always grates on a world bent on its own ways.

And every time we gather around this table to break bread and share the cup we the Spirit inspires us with the power of Christ who offered his own body and blood for each and every one of us. Our hope is very real, very personal, very true. Speak that hope with every breath you take, every activity you do, every hand you touch, every wrong you right. God’s hope in you will change the world.

Thanks be to God.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com 
Copyright 2014 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.