The Hard Work of Hope

A sermon preached on December 1, 2019 at St. James Episcopal Church in Arlington, Vermont. 

I don’t know how many of you have been following the “generational discourse” (if you can call it that) going on in the press and social media lately. Maybe some of you heard a bit of it around your Thanksgiving tables. It sprang from a common retort members of Gen Z (those born between 1996 and 2010) have been using in response to a perceived outdated, uninformed, offensive or dismissive take by any Baby Boomer (those born between 1946 and 1964) with the words, “ok boomer.”  

So, those of us in the Millennial, X and Greatest Generations ought to breathe a sigh of relief that we’re not involved in this one, right? Wrong. We’ve all gotten pulled into it, arrows flying in every direction as members of every generation make generalized assumptions about members of others.

Members of younger generations lament the state of the world that has been handed to them by their elders and find a comfortable landing spot for their fear and outrage in older people within their spheres of influence.

Members of older generations snap back when it feels as though they are being personally handed the blame for all the ills and evils of the world.

This morning, the Prophet Isaiah is telling us that this discourse is nothing new.

His words remind us that every generation of human beings that has ever been has at some point come of age, looked around, and said “wait a minute – everything here is wrong. Everything.” They see the destruction, the violence, the deep injustice: all of it human-made, all of it unnecessary. And as they come to understand that this is their only home – the home they were born into and must learn to operate within in a way that no other generation has had to – they ask their elders out of deep grief a very reasonable question: “how did you let this happen?” And with few satisfying answers to be had, they rail against the choices that were made for them well before they were born.

The ancient words of the Prophet Isaiah speak directly to us because they come out of a not-unfamiliar lived experience. In the chapter leading into the one we read today, we hear about the state of Isaiah’s own time and place – the state of his own nation. It is “a sinful nation, people laden with iniquity.” People do anything they can to make more money, while failing to care for orphans and widows – failing to care for the oppressed. There seems to be enough to go around, but it remains in the hands of a few. “Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire,” God says in Isaiah’s vision. Familiar, no?

And so, perhaps we hear in these words a whisper of the contemporary refrain, “ok boomer.” It’s a voicing of the sense of betrayal we feel when we come to understand the way this place, this earth, this gift from God has been cared for – or, rather, not cared for – by older generations. By people who should have known better. By people who are also responsible for taking care of us.

I have been reminded by teachers, parents, grandparents and others who spend time with young people that this generation of young Americans has no memory of their country at peace. No memory of life before the deadly effects of climate change were clearly and regularly felt. No memory of a time when mass shootings in schools or any public space were not a constant reality. No memory of a non-militarized police force. They are coming of age in a dangerous and uncertain time of political unrest, a resurgence of open white supremacist violence, and ever-increasing income inequality.

And here’s the thing. Isaiah’s words also remind us that somehow, amidst all of the pain this world has seen, every generation of human beings that has ever been has also, somehow, found some way to hope. The vision we heard this morning describes a kind of peace – then as now – nearly beyond our imagining. In Isaiah’s vision, weapons of war are given new life as tools of growth and care for creation. Nations cease their fighting, and war becomes a thing of the past. All people become part of a “worldwide peace movement.”[i]

Despite the continuing violence and injustice of the world around us – tumbling through the ages as swords turned to guns turned to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons – we, somehow, continue to imagine. We continue to dream. We continue to hope.

This alone is reason enough for me to believe in God.

Isaiah’s vision of “days to come” speaks to a reality – a future reality – none of us has ever seen, but all of us are invited to dare to believe in. This is the hope God has given to us. It is the hope of the future that makes everything new. It is the hope of the coming kingdom of God. This is why the words of an ancient prophet ring fresh today with a sound that sparks something deep within us. A vision we somehow know to be true. And, at the same time, a vision that remains nearly beyond our imagining.

It is the deep chasm between this vision of what will be and the reality of what is now that young people are particularly adept at revealing. I think as we age, we almost get accustomed to that divide – or maybe we just forget to be surprised by how deep it is.

I think this is some of what is behind this strange and often distressing generational discourse-slash-battle. Watching it unfold has inspired me to imagine what it must be like to be coming of age right now and seeing with such clarity the gap between what ought to be and what is. I have described young climate activist Greta Thunberg as a prophet for the new end times, and I don’t think that’s an unfounded exaggeration.

People – not just young people – are searching for hope against all reasonable and logical odds.

And we, church – we actually have something to offer these searchers. Because we are all about just this kind of hope.

During the season of Advent, we live in the hope of the birth of the Christ child – God living in the world with us. God experiencing what it is to feel that chasm between what might be and what is. God with us in that pain. And we live in hope of the coming of the kingdom of God. The coming of this ultimate peace described in Isaiah’s poetry this morning.

This tinge in the air of end-times bleakness these days brings a renewed energy to the words of any prophet and a renewed urgency to the work of Advent, which is the work of hope against all reasonable and logical odds.

This is the work of, in Isaiah’s words, learning “to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” This is the work of justice. It is also the work of checking in on your neighbor, bringing a meal to a friend going through a hard time, paying the difference of the grocery bill the person in front of you in line can’t cover, offering rides to those without transportation, and purchasing Christmas gifts for children in our community. Small and big things, this is the hard work of hope in Advent. This is the hope people are searching for. And it’s already happening right here in this community of faith.

And even when we try our hardest to make the world better for our children, even when we do our best, we will surely sometimes come up short. And we will surely have generations behind us raging at these shortcomings. We will hear the cry of “ok millennial” and “ok gen z” someday. And that is actually ok. Because we will, somehow, continue to live in hope for “days to come.” This is a gift from God, nearly beyond our imagining.

i Patricia Tull, “Isaiah 1-39,” pg. 81