“Green with Hope”

by Bruce J. Johnson

December 9, 2001

 

 

This sermon originally started out with the line:

“If the weather doesn’t change, all hope for a white Christmas will be gone. The dreaming will be over and what we’ll be hoping for is a continuation of what we have had the last few days—spring-like temperatures, green lawns, open golf courses and even, I am told by Cathy Hitt, a rose bud or two!”

 

Even the sports section of the Hartford Courant had a nice picture of a green ski slope. Below was the line “NO SNOW, SLOW GO.”

 

Well, Mother Nature messed me up last night! This morning we woke up to 3 inch blanket of the white stuff but I still want to talk about a ‘green’ Christmas.

 

Of course, the symbolic meaning of green as a Christmas color is not excluded from our Christmas activities. As I have mentioned in today’s meditation, the greening of our homes has meaning whether we’re up here on top or down under! The evergreen up here in the mid of winter is as much a sign of life as it is in the Southern Hemisphere. Tom and Mary could tell us some things about Christmas in New Zealand and Australia!

 

St Hildegaard called it the greening power of God—the power of God to bring a lush greenness to arid places in the heart and life where death, at one time--- might have been considered the victor.

 

Indeed, we have all heard a number of sayings that involve colors:

‘WHITE WITH FEAR’

‘RED WITH RAGE’—SOMETIMES, RED WITH EMBARRASSMENT

‘GREEN WITH ENVY’  or (GREEN AROUND THE GILLS WHEN WE FEEL SICK)

Well today’s watchwords are: Green with Hope!

 

December’s “O” magazine had a number of quotes about hope. One was by the comic dramatist, Terrance.

WHERE THERE IS LIFE, THERE IS HOPE.

 

As true as that may be, I think that the following is as equally true:

WHERE THERE IS HOPE, THERE IS LIFE.

 

Why just yesterday I received a solicitation letter from some Christian mission organization. Their motto was:

“WHERE THERE IS HOPE, THERE IS TRIUMPH.”

 

Maybe that says it best of all. It sounds like St. Paul when he wrote to the Christians in Rome:

          “MAY THE GOD OF HOPE FILL YOU WITH ALL JOY

AND PEACE IN BELIEVING, SO THAT BY THE POWER

OF THE HOLY SPIRIT YOU MAY ABOUND IN HOPE.”

                                                                       (Romans 15: 13)

 

I like that phrase: abound in hope…. I THINK  THAT’S WHAT GOD WANTS FOR US. and at this time of year we may hope for many things but nothing more important than a better and more peaceful world made up of more good and generous and loving people; a world with less evil, less greed and less hostility. Both seasonal lessons from the Prophet Isaiah thus far, last week’s and this week’s, speak of such hope.

Last week’s lesson spoke of swords being hammered into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and no one learning war anymore. This week’s lesson presents an image of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard with the kid, the calf with the lion, the cow with the bear and children playing confidently around snakes—with no one getting hurt!

 

Would that we could have such a world!

 

The other day, I cam across a description of what it would be like to live in a perfect world. Here are a few of the thoughts.

 

In a Perfect World a person would feel as good at 50 as he or she did at 17, and would actually be as smart at 50 as he thought he was at 17.

 

In a Perfect World pro baseball players would complain about teachers getting paid contracts worth millions of dollars.

 

In a Perfect World, the mail would always be early, the check would always be in the mail and it would be written for more than you expected.

 

In a Perfect World, potato chips might have calories, but if you ate them with dip, the calories would be neutralized.

 

In a Perfect World, every once in a while at least, a kid who always closed the door softly would be told, “Go back there and slam that door!”

 

Of course, when we think of a perfect world, they are much deeper thoughts—of peace and prosperity for all, jobs, education and health services, an inclusive society, safety for our children and care our elderly to name a few things. I always think that Advent and Christmas are just the best time to be green with hope for a better and more perfect world.

 

One of those quotes that ranks among the best was penned by a French process theologian named Teilhard de Chardin:

 

          “The world tomorrow will belong to those who

       brought it the greatest hope.”

 

I believe that and I also believe that it is Christ and his followers who bring that hope…

 

And that is what Advent is all about--- a time to call  ourselves and the world to attention—so that we can see and respond to the birth of a certain child that wants to lead us and love us into the realization of our greatest hope for a better and more perfect world.

 

Last Wednesday, Kim put on my desk a meditation that had been written by Henri Nouwen on a line from today’s passage from Isaiah. Listen to these words:

          “Our salvation comes from something small, tender and vulnerable,

something hardly noticeable. God, who is the Creator of the Universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness and hidden-ness.

 

I find this a hopeful message. Somehow, I keep expecting loud and impressive events to convince me and others of God’s saving power but over and over again, I am reminded that spectacles, power plays and big events are the ways of the world. Our temptation is to be distracted by them and made blind to the “shoot that shall sprout from the stump.”

 

When I have no eyes for the small signs of God’s presence--- the smile of a baby, the carefree play of children, the words of encouragement and gestures of love offered by friends--- I will always remain tempted to despair.

 

But the small child of Bethlehem, the unknown man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher and naked man on the cross never stops seeking after me and my attention—wanting me to take notice and have reason to rejoice and believe.

 

 

Christ is the hope of the world because Christ shows us that God’s love is inclusive and infinite. God loves us all as if we were but one, and each of us as if God had no one else to care for. And if this Christmas we receive God’s love incarnate into our hearts we shall indeed find that there is something more. Christ’s presence will displace our pettiness, our cynicism, our agendas, our self-indulgence and our fault finding. With Christ in our hearts, we shall hold the dying and dance with the living, put our arms around the assaulted, set a feast for the poor and preach peace to the nations. Candle by candle, we overcome darkness and person by person, our goodness   overcomes evil.

 

Let us then, today, as we stand in the snow, be green with hope!

 

                                                                                                  Amen