Learning to be a Community of Hope

 

"For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him."    --Psalm 62:5

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."   --Romans 15:13

 

I. Required readings

           

            Psalm 42

Psalm 71

            Romans 5: 1-5

            Romans 8: 18-28

            Colossians 1: 11-27
            Revelation 21:1-6

 

Christian Biography for the Day: William Wilberforce

 

            N. T. Wright, Excerpts from Surprised By Hope

                     Available on Canvas under Files tab/Copyrighted Material
 

            Barbara Brown Taylor, "A Cure for Despair" (Sermon)

                    Available on Canvas under Files tab/Copyrighted Material
 

            The Taizé Community, "Christian Hope"

 

             Various Quotations on Hope

                  

            (Click here to explore the painting to the right
                 by Edward Hicks)

           

II. Quotations for the day

 

"The Christian hope is the hope which has seen everything and endured everything, and has still not despaired, because it believes in God. The Christian hope is not hope in the human spirit, in human goodness, in human endurance, in human achievement; the Christian hope is hope in the power of God."       --William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans

"We must practice the presence of God. He said that where two or three are gathered together, there he is in the midst of them. What we do is very little. But it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did he fail. He met with apparent failure on the cross. Unless the seed fall into the ground and die, there is no harvest. And why must we see results? Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest."   --Dorothy Day

 

 

III. Journal prompts

1. In light of the readings for today, how would you articulate the difference between the biblical notion of hope and our everyday notions of optimism and wishful thinking?  Why do you think it is important to understand this difference?  What difference might this difference make in our daily lives?

2. In the excerpt from Surprised By Hope, Wright suggests that our understandings of the kingdom of God, salvation, and the life to come have an enormous impact on the shape of our daily lives.  What difference, for example, does it make for the way you think about your daily life that God will bring your acts of love and devotion into God's new creation?

3. Both Taylor and Jenkins (below) note that many in our day are tempted to despair and cynicism.  Do you find yourself tempted to despair and cynicism?  How might their reminders about Christian hope, rightly grounded, lead us away from this temptation?

4. With which of the quotations about hope do you most resonate?  Why?

5. We have tried this semester to take an honest, if sometimes painful, look at the shape of American culture and the church within that culture, seeking to examine those places where God is at work and those places where God might be calling us to greater faithfulness to Christ and the way of Jesus.  How does being reminded that we are called to be a community marked by an abiding hope in God affect the way you look back over our time together and the way you look toward the future?

 

IV. Links of possible interest

 

 John Jenkins, "The Demands of Hope"