Romans 8: The Comfort and the Challenge of Hope

A further thought on the back of the sermon last Sunday:

In my preparation, I couldn't decide whether Romans 8 functions as Comfort, or as Challenge. Obviously the contextual answer is comfort. But what about in application? My sermon ended up having two foci (is that possible?):

Hope does two things:

• It comforts the faithful sufferer in this way: There is God-ordained meaning in the madness; there is an end in sight; and there really is a God who suffers alongside us and is sovereign in all of it. There is, as I said in the sermon, a Christ-driven narrative in creation (from slavery to liberation; from death to resurrection). There is a rich and lush hope to come. And 'we who have the first fruits of the Spirit' are included into that same story and bound for the same destination. So Hope lifts up the downtrodden.
  

• And yet, Hope also challenges the hedonist* - the yearner of mere 'things' - in this way: There is, in the Messiah Jesus, a better vision of reality to live for and it is yet to be seen. It is a better hope than we might currently have: better than travel to Europe, better than fine wine, better than chic furniture or metrosexual clothing or larger homes or sporting contests. As good as these things are (really), the hedonist has set his or her sights way too low. It is a vision that is too myopic, and too self-oriented.

What does Clive Staples Lewis say?

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Or Jurgen Moltmann?

Where freedom has come near, the chains begin to hurt. Where life is close, death becomes deadly. Where God proclaims his presence, the God-forsakenness of the world turns into suffering. Thus the theodicy question, born of suffering and pain, negatively mirrors the positive hope for God’s future. We begin to suffer from the conditions of our world if we begin to love the world. And we begin to love the world if we are able to discover hope for it. And we can discover hope for this world if we hear the promise of a future which stands against frustration, transiency, and death.

Some further reading/listening:

• The Audio can be downloaded HERE.
  
• C.S. Lewis' sermon "The Weight of Glory." (PDF Download.)
• My friend Karen from Christ Church NYC who reflects on Romans 8 in a personal way: The Fall of Hope.
• Christianity Today on the Hope of Justice: Habakkuk in Zimbabwe.

Discuss.

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* Not the 'Christian Hedonist'!
Pic on FLickr by Magda.Indigo.

Sermon: Romans 8:18-30 - Searching for a Better Reality.

Text is Romans 8:18-30.

Let me guess something about you. (I can guess this about you because I know it in me):

Some time in the last week, you’ve daydreamed of simply ‘getting out of here’. You've daydreamed of finding a better reality than you currently have; or of how you can organize yourself to have less pain; or you’ve wondered what you can purchase to make your world a little better.

It’s in the our condition to yearn for a better reality than we currently have.

So when we meet a genuinely contented person, we are surprised - That person is seems like a glitch in the system.

You know someone who’s on a weekend getaway; you’ve checked the internet for travel destinations; maybe you just want to get away from responsibility. So you think about what new work you’d like to do.

Maybe it’s about the city. Your apartment is too small; too expensive; too noisy; too hot. You can’t get up the stairs (if you are in a walk-up); you can’t get the Super on the line (if the elevator is not working); the neighbors are disruptive; and the landlord is a crook. And you wonder if I just got out of the city, then you’d be happy.

‘Getting out of here’ rarely makes the human soul content. For the fact is: YOU always take YOU with you. And YOU take YOU to another part of the WORLD that is ALSO subject to futility.

Or maybe you are tired of being at your Church, you are tired of serving at Church, or volunteering again in service; or you are tired of church not being what you want it to be. So if I try that other church, then maybe I’ll find my ‘home’.

Maybe you are unmarried and you want to be.
Or maybe you’re married and you don’t want to be anymore.

Maybe you don’t have kids, and you would like them.
Or maybe you do have kids, and you would give anything to have a break from them.

So you think to yourself:

• Will I always be want things to be different?
• Will I always want more?
• Will I always be unsatisfied?
• Will I always be perpetually seeking a better reality?

Only to find the better reality wasn’t really what I wanted, so I then go to seek... a better reality. And when someone tells you that you are in a cycle, (which is obvious) you get upset...

...Because you can’t think of living any.other.way.

Now let me say straight up on the authority of God himself -- the Bible does not say that this yearning is wrong. Far from it. The Bible simply requires that we locate those yearnings in the right place.

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Pic from Post Secret.